The past fifty years have witnessed two simultaneous and accelerating trends: an explosive growth in population and a steep increase in resource depletion and environmental degradation. These trends have fueled the debate on the link between population and environment that began 150 years earlier, when Malthus voiced his concern about the ability of the earth and its finite resources to feed an exponentially growing population. The purpose of this study is to review the literature on population and environment and to identify the main strands of thought and the assumptions that lie behind them. The author begins with a review of the historical perspective. He then.
