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Pessimistic views towards population and resources are illustrated by contemporary pandemics
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Pessimistic views towards population and resources are illustrated by contemporary pandemics
Pros
Cons
Pro claim 1
Population pressure caused increased deforestation which reduced the buffer zones separating humans from animals and their pathogens (such as deforestation in the DRC where Ebola is thought to have originated).
Pro claim 2
Population pressure is increasing urban population density allowing for more rapid diffusion of disease such as in Wuhan.
Pro claim 3
Global pressure to find the source of the virus lead to assumptions of the Chinese culture and the ways they use resources.
Pro claim 4
Increased population and wealth is resulting in more movement within and between countries allowing for greater diffusion of disease.
Pro claim 5
As the population growth increases, there is a greater demand for means to survive in growing cities, people are forced into high stress and close contact (wet) markets which are highly susceptible to pathogens as animals are able to transfer these pathogens from animal to animal and possibly to humans.
Con claim 1
The rich and powerful are the ones who are eating the peculiar animals bringing in a greater variety of viruses into the wet markets which can be transferred to the other animals and humans through zoonotic spillover.
Con claim 2, children below
The world food production is currently estimated to be able to feed approximately 10million people which is greater than the 7million people on earth and the pandemic will not decrease the production of food by the equivalent of 3million people.
Con claim 3
Covid-19 became a pandemic due to globalisation and increased international movement of people not a lack of resources as the Neo-Malthusian view suggests.
Con claim 4
The wildlife food markets originated in a poor, famine-struck China in the 1970s. Government support since then has kept the market alive, at the risk of many, to satisfy the wealthy.
Con claim 5
Pessimistic views towards population and resources such as the Malthusian view concerns RESOURCES (means of subsistence) and not disease.