The Doomslayer (1997)

In order to predict a Malthusian catastrophe, you need to know the amount of resources an organism needs and the amount that are available in its environment. While it takes eons of evolution to significantly alter the resources most animals require, humans can (and have) dramatically altered this quantity in the space of a single lifetime. Failure to sufficiently account for this is a likely cause of failure for the doomsayers.

At the same time, one has to be aware of the terrible nature of exponential growth. A planet that seems half empty is just one population doubling from being full, and our population has been doubling in significantly less than a single lifetime for quite a while now. So far, the increase in our ability to grow and distribute food seems to have outstripped our population growth, but what limits are we likely to run into?

About the only thing we can be assured of is that our civilization's doom will not be an obvious one.

This reminds of the The Rational Optimist. Not that I agree with all the arguments made, but the contrary optimistic point of view is refreshing. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog http://www.rationaloptimist.com/publications/the-rational-op...

In brief, "Julian L. Simon, a neither shy nor retiring nor particularly mild-mannered professor of business administration at a middling eastern-seaboard state university" is challenging the widely-accepted wisdom in the life-sciences.

I wonder if he still that optimistic today.