The population doomsayer’s back!
Marian Tupy writes:
Forty-nine years ago, Professor Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University scared the bejesus out of much of the world when he predicted that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation. In his doomsday bestseller The Population Bomb, Ehrlich wrote, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…”
Since Ehrlich wrote those words, the world’s population has more then doubled. Yet, people consume more calories per capita, while living longer on a cleaner planet. Ehrlich’s jeremiad did not come true for a number of reasons. The Green Revolution massively increased agricultural productivity, affordable contraceptives made family planning easier, plummeting infant mortality has reduced the need for “spare” children, and rising incomes increased the opportunity cost for women who opt to stay at home with their children rather than enter the labor market—hence massive fall in global fertility rate.
That said, Ehrlich’s predictions were not without consequences. “In addition to China’s one-child rule,” Ehrlich must be held partially responsible for “abhorrent campaigns of forced sterilization in Indira Gandhi’s India and Alberto Fujimori’s Peru.” Surely a man with that much to answer for has been relegated to the fringes of society? Not on your life! In fact, next month Ehrlich will be addressing a Vatican workshop on “Biological Extinction.” Judging by the promotional material, he will feel right at home.
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