This week David talks to science writer Meehan Crist about Thomas Malthus and the perennial question of overpopulation. Malthus wrote 225 years ago and was wrong about almost everything, yet his ideas still have a powerful hold on our imaginations and our fears. How many people is too many? What are the limits of population in the age of climate change? And why does Elon Musk think we should all be having more children?

Thomas Malthus, ‘An Essay on the Principle of Overpopulation’ (1798) 

Meehan Crist’s 2020 LRB lecture, ‘Is it OK to Have a Child?’

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