Podcasts – Themes – Overpopulation
Introduction
Download the LearnEnglish Themes podcast. You’ll find more information on this page:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-podcasts-themes.htm
This support pack contains the following materials:
• the article that you can listen to in the podcast
• an optional comprehension activity based on the article
• links to other activities on the LearnEnglish website on this theme (overpopulation).
Read the article
Overpopulation
by John Kuti
I come from the south of England, in the most
densely-populated corner of a small island,
which, you might think, is full of people. (The UK
as a whole has 2.4 people per hectare.) I have
never gone hungry. The only time when I wish
there were less people is on rush-hour trains.
However, one of the most interesting findings of
the census of 2001 was that a million people
were missing. Or at least there were a million
people less than the authorities expected. Should
we be happy that we have more space and less
mouths to feed? I don’t know.
As I start writing this article the world population
(according to the Office of Population Research
at Princeton University – see the link) stands at
6,315,850,431.
something must be wrong with the theory. In the
19th century world population rose from 1 to 1.7
billion. In the 20th, it increased to about 6 billion.
Doom, version 2
In 1961, J.G. Ballard wrote a story called
Billenium. It’s about a world where the population
has gone on increasing at 3% a year to reach a
figure of at least 20 billion, although the true
number is kept secret. To make space for
growing food, everyone lives in giant cities where
the buildings are divided into little cubicles. A
single person can have 4 square metres and a
married couple six. Everyone has enough to eat,
but life is certainly very inconvenient. People
spend most of the time waiting in queues for the
bathroom or anywhere else they want to go.
Doom, version 1:
In 1798 Robert Malthus wrote an essay which got
economics the name of the dismal science. It was
called “The Principle of Population”. He said that
it was impossible for the number of people to
increase, and even worse, it was impossible for
the standard of living to rise. The argument went
like this:
1. population naturally increases geometrically:
2, 4, 8, 16…
2. food production increases arithmetically 2, 4,
6, 8…
3. so, population will be controlled by lack of
food, the same as it is for animals. Some
people will always be starving.
A lot of people disliked Malthus’ point of view.
Often, because it seemed to go against the idea
of progress, which was so important for other
social theories of the time. Anyway, the
experience of the next two centuries shows that
Reality
The real situation is not as bad as these alarming
predictions. A very surprising and dramatic
change is happening in the world, but it is not
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Podcasts – Themes – Overpopulation
what Malthus or Ballard predicted. To understand
the statistics, we need first to think about the two
ways the number of people can go up.
The Fertility Rate
The most obvious way to increase population is
for more babies to be born. If the population is
exactly constant, the average woman has 2.1
children. This number is called the "replacement
rate". These rates are going down very fast. The
peak was in the period 1965-75 at 4.9, now the
rate for the world as a whole is 2.8. However,
there is still a big difference between the
developed countries, where the rate is 1.6 and
poor countries where it is 3. To quote some
extreme examples, in Italy the figure is 1.2 and in
Zambia 5.6
Life expectancy
The other reason why there are more people now
is that we live longer. This figure also shows a
dramatic change. The people born in 1950 could
expect, on average, to live 45 years. Now the
world life expectancy at birth is 65, and the
United Nations predicts this will increase to 76 in
the next 50 years.
Predictions of doom
Malthus and Ballard were still right about some
things. The dismal picture painted by Malthus is
still true in poor countries where 18 million people
starve every year, and more than a billion people
Glossary
densely-populated: with a lot of people living close
together
hectare: the size of a square 100 metres by 100
metres
census: the official procedure for counting all the
people in a country
dismal: dark, sad and depressing
lack: not having something
starving: dying from lack of food.
go on - ing: continue
figure: number
don't have a supply of clean drinking water.
Ballard is right about the trend towards city life.
By the year 2006, the United Nations predicts
that more than 50% of people will live in cities.
City life in the developed world
At least in the rich countries, the move into cities
seems to be connected with falling fertility rates.
It is more expensive to have a child in the city,
and children are less useful as workers. Women
receive a better education and are able to work –
so they have more to lose by becoming mothers.
City life seems to encourage individualism –
people become more interested in getting an
education and a career. They marry later in life,
and divorce more often, so producing smaller
families.
At the moment, it seems quite possible that the
same pattern will be repeated everywhere. One
UN forecast now foresees a world population of
about 5 billion in 2100. But, the more time you
spend looking at predictions the more you realise
that the human race is a surprising phenomenon.
It looks like we will have a clearer idea of what
will happen in ten or twenty years time when the
present generation of parents moves beyond
child-bearing age.
Now there are 6,318,042,422 people.
cubicle: a very small closed off space, e.g. a
shower cubicle
predictions: things people say about what they
think will happen in the future
constant: staying the same, not changing
peak: the highest point
average: the figure you get if you add together a set
of numbers and divide that total out equally
encourage: to make something happen or increase
foresee: to predict, to see something that might
happen in the future
After reading
Exercise 1
Choose the best answer to each of the 8 questions below.
1.
the population of the UK in 2001
A)
was impossible to count
B)
was less than the government thought
C)
was one million
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Podcasts – Themes – Overpopulation
2.
Malthus thought that the number of people:
A)
would go up very fast, much faster than the amount of food
B)
would stay the same because there would always be people dying of hunger
C)
would rise slowly together with the increase in food production
3.
When Malthus wrote his essay the world population was…
A)
just under one billion
B)
1.7 billion
C)
6 billion
4.
The number of people in the world depends on:
A)
the number of babies born
B)
how long people live
C)
the combination of A and B
5.
In Italy the average women has
A)
one baby
B)
one point two babies
C)
two babies
6.
People born in the year 2050 will probably
A)
live to be very old, live in villages and have few children
B)
live to be very old, live in cities and have few children
C)
live to be very old, live in cities and have lots of children
7.
people who live in villages and farms have more children because
A)
mothers can have a good education and better jobs
B)
people are more individualistic
C)
the children are useful workers
8.
The author
A)
is worried about overpopulation
B)
is worried about the lives of people in poor countries
C)
is worried about the million people who went missing from the UK
More activities on this topic
You’ll find links to all the following activities connected to the theme of overpopulation at:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/learnenglish-central-themes-overpopulation.htm
• Word game: Apartment game. Read the text and decide which person lives in which apartment.
• Story: Stand on Zanzibar. In this science-fiction story by John Brunner, perhaps the definitive
overpopulation novel to date, the main driver is overpopulation and its projected consequences.
• Trivia: Everything you (n)ever wanted to know about overpopulation.
• There is also an overpopulation-related cartoon, and some carefully selected external links.
Answers to comprehension activity: 1. B); 2. B); 3. A); 4. C); 5. B); 6. B); 7. C); 8. B)
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