Today is the 40th anniversary of The Population Bomb by Dr. Paul Ehrlich. I didn't read it when it came out (I think I was a sophomore in high school) but I know that many of my teachers spouted its warnings. I remember that we were told the population of the earth would reach 20 billion by the end of the century (AD 2000). Of course population today is not even close to the half way mark of that prediction and we are eight years over the target date. Dr. Ehrlich predicted famines in the 70s and 80s, the death of hundreds of millions, a different world (economically, politically) when the children of the 60s became adults, and ridiculously high prices for various natural resources because over population would produce extreme scarcity. But his predictions have all proven to be non-existent.
In order to stop such over population Ehrlich suggested that population control was the only way. At first voluntary methods would be used but if those proved ineffective then forced control would be necessary. Of course who would be in charge of this forced control? Why our benevolent government leaders. You can read an interesting review of his book here. You can also read a brief interview of Ehrlich here on the publication of a new book conducted by the publisher of his book. Ehrlich's new book promises new studies and to show that the planet has actually gotten worse than the predictions of his 40 year old book.
You can read about a wager here that Ehrlich made with a libertarian (Julian Simon) on the prices of our resources. You can also read an interview that Wired Magazine (Feb. 1997) did with said libertarian here. Simon claims that the statistics that environmentalists and other doom-sayers quote us are entirely wrong. For instance, in the late 90s environmentalists were telling us that we were destroying species at the rate of almost 40,000 per year, yet Simon claims that the highest observable rate of extinction is one per year. Anyway, the interview is quite interesting and worth your read if you want to hear all the sides.
What is Dr. Ehrlich up to these days? You can read about his current activities and publications here. I love anniversaries, don't you?
