The following is cut and pasted from the link http://www.aag.org/Education/center/cgge-aag%20site/Population/lesson1_page3.html (found in one of my 6/24 posts if you want it clickified.)

Dr. Lakshman Yapa, a geographer at Pennsylvania State University, offers yet another view. He acknowledges that rapid population growth can present challenges to nations that are still developing, but argues that poverty is not caused by there being too many people in a place. Instead, Yapa argues that poverty mainly results from misguided and destructive land-use policies and practices by the wealthy and powerful. For example, Yapa points out that multinational corporations and wealthy families often control large amounts of land in developing nations, forcing the poor and landless to live in overcrowded situations on marginal lands. To outsiders viewing images of poor and hungry people living in overcrowded conditions, it seems reasonable to blame their condition on out-of-control population growth rates. But Yapa argues that the world has enough resources to meet the basic needs of the poor, and that the rich and powerful countries of the world have created scarcity in developing regions by wastefully consuming huge amounts of resources to support luxurious lifestyles.

Yapa (2000) believes that usage of the term "overpopulation" and "carrying capacity" contributes to a mindset that (a) takes attention away from an examination of how existing land and other resources are used, (b) minimizes the role of resource problems created by high consumption levels of wealthy people, and (c) transforms a segment of the population, usually the poor, into the source" of the problem. He and other like-minded scientists believe that the most effective way to meet the basic needs of the poor would be to implement policies that emphasize traditional forms of production, protect workers, and redistribute wealth and land to the poor. But does this mean that people living in wealthy, developed countries would have to sacrifice? Some scientists think so:

Given the quantity of resources needed, using present technologies, to provide a middle-class lifestyle to millions in the first world, it is clear that a comparable level of resources use and lifestyle cannot extrapolated to all the third world's people (even if we assume that improvements in technology will be made). If we accept that humankind should live in balance with nature's renewable stock of resources, and if we admit that the world's demographic future holds a population of 10 to 15 billion by the year 2050, it is obvious that our ideas about ourselves and our lives need to change.... a radical rethinking of everyone's lifestyle, and a re-visioning of our future, are in order (Porter and Sheppard 1998).

This provides a broader context in which to understand Dr. Yappa's thinking.

Janie