How did overpopulation scare really started? The concept of overpopulation became a phenomenon with Thomas Robert Malthus in England in 1798 when Malthus wrote ‘An Essay on the Principle of Population’. He argued that the increase of population would eventually decline the ability for the world to feed the population and with such a high population growth would overtake the development of ample land for vegetation. “All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons…” (Book IV, Chap. V) .Malthus believed that the only way for balance to be struck between population and food supplies is by having wars, famines, diseases
