Garrett Hardin first described the dilemma of consumption of natural resources in 1968 with his article, ‘the Tragedy of Commons’. This details, from an ecologist’s point of view, the problem of sustainable development and expansion of the human population on this planet. If the optimal number of people that can survive on a finite amount of natural resources can be ascertained, should we as a population really allow ourselves to continue growing? This can be a difficult question to ask oneself, especially when Hardin describes a phenomena so recognisable in modern society today; that multiple people acting individually will often choose to serve their own self-interest and deplete a shared resource even when it is clear that it is not in everyone’s long term interest to do so.

In the same year, Paul R. Ehrlich published ‘the Population Bomb’ which discussed the then imminent risk of mass starvation due to over-population. One of the countries that is talked of in detail is India, a country which Ehrlich is famous to have said there was little hope to prevent famine amongst its inhabitants of half a billion. The country needed self-sufficiency in order to survive. By the mid-60s and despite the US shipping 20% of its total wheat yield to India as emergency aid, there was mass starvation across the subcontinent. At this point it would seem that Paul Ehrlich’s predictions were coming true.

Today India has a population of over one billion people. It is continuing to grow and is seen as a future leader in the world economies. Though there is still much in the way of poverty, the country is undoubtably traversing a path to stability. What changed? The story is intricate and uplifting and continues in our next installment!