Question

I recently read "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn. In it, a character speaks about feeding the hungry. We shouldn't feed the hungry, he says, because feeding the hungry leads to more population growth, which means more mouths to feed, so we must devote more energy to producing additional food; essentially we can never truly feed the hungry. Of course this sounds cruel and horrifying, but the book speaks about civilizations and humans surviving on Earth over millions of years. Our population is exploding. Is this something we can do anything about?