Limiting Reagent and Kinetics: Social Implications and Malthus' Prediction

Abstract

Robert Malthus predicted in the early 1800s that man would outstrip his food supply. The amount of carbon on earth is the ultimate for the number of people the earth can have and in the sense that carbon is our food, Malthus was right. However, the land area of the earth is a limiting reagent that will limit our population before carbon does. These concepts are discussed in the context of reagents and chemical kinetics to show that if the rate of increase of population remains at what it is now, we have less than a thousand years to solve the problem.