Question

Topic 2 Population Control: Read the article "The Boiling Frog Theory" and provide a response to the author's message concerning the relationship between food availability and population growth

Answer 1

'The Boiling Frog Theory' is derived from the fictional story of a frog which died in boiling water without being aware of its death. The hypothesis depicts the plight of a frog which, when immersed in hot boiling water tends to dive out of the water but when it is inserted into lukewarm water it slips into a slumber and does not realize when the water starts boiling gradually and dies without even realizing it.

The Boiling Frog Theory is used as a comparison to the situation we are in today. During the period of evolution of mankind, the conditions were similar to the lukewarm water in which the frog blissfully lay. The setting was just right, not too many hardships or difficulties marked that era as the population was in control and food was available in adequate quantities to feed the population. But eventually, the indications of trouble brewing like the slowly appearing bubbles on the boiling water began to appear.

When the population was less and grew at a slow pace, the availability of food was in surplus. There was no scarcity as the agricultural production was more than enough. The situation was very pleasant with few people and abundant food. But slowly the population growth started taking place. Initially, it was at a slow pace but then it started increasing at an alarming rate. The situation is becoming like the water which was tepid and pleasant at the beginning but started boiling and consumed the frog.

The teeming population strives for the limited available food. This battle for food on a small scale gathers strength and slowly forms into full-fledged war. The universal population explosion is not considered as a serious issue and not many efforts are taken by the political leaders to curb it. The human beings do not consider or respect the existence of other living things and as a result the number of other creatures dwindle as they cannot find sufficient food to survive due to the over-use of natural resources by human beings.

The Boiling Frog Theory thus, tries to warn us that if we take the problem of food availability to the mammoth population growth lightly then over population and scarcity of food would lead to disaster. We are at the brink of exhausting our food supplies and in turn damaging the land by over usage for agricultural purposes.

Human beings are rightly said to be selfish as they reproduce without any thought to the future generations which will face food deprivation. They fail to notice the changes happening in the nature due to huge population and destruction of the natural resources. The author wants to warn the human beings to rise from their ignorance and earnestly take steps to tackle the ill-effects of the rapid population growth which would one day result in annihilation of mankind due to non-availability of food and the people will die like the ignorant frog without being aware of their own death.