In this cartoon, the author suggests that population will strain resources. This is a worry that has been explored many times by Thomas Malthus, Limits to Growth, and in a recent National Geographic on sustainability. Yet, life somehow finds a way.
Dr. Malthus assumed that population would increase exponentially. He did not foresee a change in society's attitudes toward birth control or the impact of new technological advances in agriculture.
Still, economics tries to predict how people behave in a context of limited resources. Recently, behavior economics have made new predictions using the pioneering work of Dan Ariely and blogs written by Jodi Beggs, Economists Do It With Models. Economics is a social science prone to errors, yet as we evolve so does the science.
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