Posted on 01/13/2017 8:49:33 PM PST by iowamark
After Words with Paul Sabin Paul Sabin talked about his book, The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon and Our Gamble over Earth’s Future, in which he analyzes a bet made between economist Julian Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich. More than 30 years ago, Mr. Simon made a bet with Mr. Ehrlich on the future prices of five metals, asserting that technological change and a booming market would keep the country prosperous. But Mr. Ehrlich predicted that rising populations would lead to overconsumption, taxed resources, and famine. Mr. Sabin argued that the opposing perspectives of the bettors - faith in free markets versus fear of environmental exploitation - are at the heart of the battle over climate change that continues today. He was interviewed by Dina Cappiello.
(Excerpt) Read more at c-span.org ...
Ehrlich lost and has yet to live it down or admit it.
“Paul Erlich, consistently wrong since 1968”
Well, the world population can’t rise forever. When will it stop? There’s a question for you.
It won't.
When will it stop?
When we have a major war, pandemic, economic collapse or some other such happening.
These are events that have happened repeatedly through out history and have wiped out entire civilizations.
Those that survived were those that started with enough excess population to fill the essential slots to keep things limping along.
Those civilizations that had little to no excess population vanished.
You can give every soul on the planet a square yard (iirc) and fit ‘em all into Texas...there’s more room than advertised.
As a Butterfly Scientist he knew that to keep socialism alive it was important to understand how mankind was the most destructive force on the planet and would and should die out.
Nonresponsive!
Is our country prosperous?
Someday the Earth or the Solar System will see us off. It may happen next month or in a hundred thousand years. But it will have absolutely nothing to do with over population. I’ve visited and flown over quite a lot of this planet’s continents and it’s mostly empty land. Ninety percent of the areas occupied by humans are horrifically mismanaged and under utilized. We could probably multiply Earth’s human population several fold and still have room and enough food (efficiently distributed) to grow.
I for one think the USA has too many people, to say nothing of the 7 Billion in the world. I am not going to suggest that we need to knock off a 150 million, or several Billion, that would be insane. On the other hand, the thought of living in crowded cities or with the realization that the secluded areas today will be crowded in 30 years, makes me sad for my grandchildren.
Can anyone imagine living in India, China or in Mexico City? I cannot even stomach the idea of LA or NYC. Give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, DON’T FENCE ME IN. If there were a wilderness to civilize, I would want to go there.
In short, IMO there are too many people. We need to quit feeding those that will not feed themselves. We need to quit feeding those that will not fight their government and force a change to a free market and guaranteed rights, along the pattern of the US in 1776 to 1784. THEY are the ones that are over-represented on this planet. Then again WE need to force our government back into the bottle, put a cork in it and make it good for a 100 years or so.
Ehrlich is a discredited moron whose only saving grace is he outlasted Simon.
His whole “overpopulation” nonsense resulted only in 60 million American children being ripped from their Mother’s wombs and shredded like ground beef in vacuum hoses and the influx of tens of millions of foreign aliens into our country to take the place of those children.
NONE of what he said came true and even now as the idiots who believed him wail about “climate change” the Earth simply laughs and rains on him.
The man is a laughingstock guilty of undermining a whole civilization with his utter BS.
Of course, the people are concentrated in smaller areas. Perhaps your observation only adds to the concern for overpopulation by emphasizing the uninhabitable and nonarable areas of the earth.
But considering the total land area of earth of 510.1 million km². With 7 billion people, that leaves 1 person standing on a square 270 meters on a side over the entire land mass of the earth. So it has to be that we are approaching some kind of limit in short order.
( I checked this several times, but I’ll accept corrections. )
You’re wrong:
“When we have a major war, pandemic, economic collapse or some other such happening.”
Not even necessary. Fertility in every nation is plummeting. China and India below or near fertility of 2.1, which is the number required for stable populations. Europe, Japan are way below it. The US is at stable.
These numbers will take some time to affect population growth. But by the end of the century, world population will be declining all by itself. Wars and pandemics will only augment a demographic process already baked in.
Turns out the pill is the most powerful force in the world today.
With vertical farming and a clean unlimited energy source the food supply w/b nearly infinite. Both will be developed in the near future.
However as Nations acquire wealth and education the population levels naturally drop. This has happened all over the world.
The Population Bomb scare is just another version of scaremongering by the left. I.e. Things are so bad you must give us control.
>> Things are so bad you must give us control.
Yup. They’re control freaks.
Yep, Global Warming/Climate Change is just the latest version of this tactic.
Not only do they want to tell you how much energy you can use, they want to tell you where you can live. Think packed mega cities.
They will live on country estates however.
Erlich was an SDS regional organizer. Did you know that? And did you know that he’s batshit crazy to boot?
He’s O for 3 in life but he’s been able to BS his leftism into a permanent academic life.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.