... 8, 16, 32 etc.) whereas agricultural foodstuffs, necessary to the survival of man, increased in an arithmetical fashion (ie. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.). This observation lead Malthus to form the hypothesis that "the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man"; hence proposing that if there isn't a population crisis now, there very shortly will be. Malthus's hypothesis can be supported by tracing back population growth over the years. In 1750, shortly before Malthus published his first essay, the worlds population was 0.8 billion people ("Population Geography", Huw Jones). Since then the world has experienced a population explosion that has taken its total to 5.3 billion in 1990, an increase of 4.5 billion people in 240 years. This population increase is even more rapid than these figures suggest, with a growth rate of 0.5% between 1750 and 1900 increasing to 1.7% ...

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