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  3. (46)In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as

(46)In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as

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问题     (46)In 1798 Thomas Robert Malthus famously predicted that short-term gains in living standards would inevitably be undermined as human population growth outstripped food production, and thereby drive living standards back toward subsistence. We were, he argued, condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically.
    (47)For 200 years, economists have contended that Malthus overlooked technological advancement, which would allow human beings to keep ahead of the population curve. The argument is that food production can indeed grow geometrically because production depends not only on land but also on know-how. With advances in seed breeding, soil nutrient replenishment, irrigation, mechanization and more, the food supply can stay well ahead of the population curve. More generally, advances in technology in all its aspects can keep production rising ahead of population.
    (48)Another factor undermining Malthus’s argument, it would seem, is the demographic transition, according to which societies move from conditions of high fertility rates roughly offset by high mortality rates to conditions of low fertility rates together with low mortality rates. Malthus did not reckon with the advance of public health, family planning, and modern contraception, which together with urbanization and other trends, would result in a dramatic decline in fertility rates to low levels, even below the "replacement rate" of 2. 1 children per household. Perhaps the human population would avoid the tendency towards geometric growth altogether.
    Yet the Malthusian specter is not truly banished—indeed far from it. Our increase in know-how has not only been about getting more outputs for the same inputs, but also about our ability to mine the Earth for more inputs. Humanity has learned to dig deeper for minerals and fossil fuels, fish the oceans with larger nets, divert rivers with greater dams and canals, and cut down forests with more powerful land-clearing equipment. (49)In countless ways, we have not gotten more for less but rather more for more, as we’ve converted rich stores of natural capital into high flows of current consumption. Much of what we call "income," in the true sense of adding value from economic activity, is actually depletion instead, or the running down of natural capital. And although family planning and contraception have indeed secured a low fertility rate in most parts of the world, the overall fertility rate remains at 2. 6, far above replacement.
    If we indeed run out of inexpensive oil and fall short of food, deplete our fossil groundwater and destroy remaining rainforests, and gut the oceans and fill the atmosphere with greenhouse gases that tip the earth’s climate into a runaway hothouse with rising ocean levels, we might yet confirm the Malthusian curse. Yet none of this is inevitable. (50) The idea that improved know-how and voluntary fertility reduction can sustain a high, indeed rising, level of incomes for the world remains correct, but only if future technology enables us to economize on natural capital rather than finding ever more clever ways to deplete it more cheaply and rapidly. [496 words]
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答案由于我们已经将丰富的自然资源储备转化成了当前的高消费，无论如何，我们都是在高投入、高产出，而不是低投入、高产出。
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