Malthusian Trap

The Malthusian Trap comes from the economist Thomas Robert Malthus. He warned that population grows exponentially while food production grows linearly, so unchecked population growth eventually outruns the food, and you get famine and stagnation. Technology and better farming have pushed food production way up since then, but people still argue about sustainability and running out of resources.

Fritz Haber developed the Haber-Bosch process, which makes ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gas. It changed how artificial fertilizer gets made and pushed crop yields way up, which got us partly out of the Malthusian Trap. But overusing synthetic fertilizer has its own costs, like soil degradation and water pollution. Haber also played a controversial part in developing chemical weapons in World War I.

Some worry about a neo-Malthusian trap, but others are hopeful that Agricultural Technology will keep it from happening.