Question

At the current rate of growth, the Earth’s human population will double in about 50 years. Already we have nearly 1 billion people without adequate nutrition and this is expected to worsen. Thanos, villain of the Marvel Avengers movies, believed that he could solve Earth’s population predicament by killing half the population. Which of the following best explains why this strategy would ultimately fail??

a. The catastrophic dieback would be a positive feedback loop that would ultimately result in the extinction of the human race.
b. According to Malthusian Theory, the remaining population would rapidly grow to consume the newly available excess resources rather than maintain the high standard of living that Thanos was trying to create.
c. Because humans are more K-selected, and there would be an overall increase in environmental resistance, after a brief irruptive growth, the population would crash and dieback again.
d. With the immediate absence of half the world, humanity would be left vulnerable to disease. As poverty and population density increases, more diseases would spread, killing more people.

Answer 1

b. According to Malthusian Theory, the remaining population would rapidly grow to consume the newly available excess resources rather than maintain the high standard of living that Thanos was trying to create.

Step-by-step explanation:

Economists believe that the growing population of humans on earth is a source of concern as there are inadequate resources to satisfy the teeming population. However, reducing the population of the world by half would not address the issue.

According to the Malthusian theory, there are positive checks such as famine and death that help to regulate a population. Reducing the population of people in the world by half will cause pressure on the environment, resulting in an increase in the population, so that the population is commensurate with the available resources.