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1. Phases of the demographic tranistion
2. The human population growth rate has had about the same growth rate for the last 6000 years.
The J curve is an artifact of the representation on a arithmetic scale that tries to represent very small values and large values on the same plot. the specific growth rate (net births per population size) has not changed that much.
3. The demographic poverty trap is caused because the population is growing faster than services and the economy can keep up, so growing size of the population is the problem, not the solution.
This definition of the trap however is controversial. Some economists think that countries need more population to get more consumers to drive their economy. This doesn't work if the population is too poor to be consumers, but can work if the population that is growing is above the poverty line.
4. When everything is connected it would be a BAD idea to make a guess and just dive in. That can lead to negative consequences which may cause a vicious cycle, i.e. a trap.
5. A population that is at steady state has the same birth rate as death rate.
Some of you made statements that are true about steady states such as no net change in the population. While technically correct, they aren't in the spirit of the question. The spriit of the course is that we are using systems approaches to problems.
6. Agricultural issues are environmental issue because:
a simple answer can be built from the I=PAT relationship
7. Renewable energy, in particular small scale solar or wind, could provide a constant source of fixed-cost energy.
I should have asked a more probing follow up on this question.