[PROCON]

The Ehrlichs' then and the Al Gores' now; naysayers that have been proven wrong, yet many still believe.

**Facepalm**

[pepsionice]

The “population bomb” only works in a certain model, with certain characteristics, and theoretic ingredients.

Germany today has 80 million residents. In 2060, unless something happens to prevent it....it will be down to 64 million residents. Families are mostly having child only, and a quarter of population isn’t interested in having any kids. All of this comes from concept that women found education....were happy with careers, and just didn’t want motherhood tied to them.

By the end of the century....if nothing occurs to change the pace...Germany will have half the population that it has today.

[tcrlaf]

It was just the Liberal Boogie Man of the times.
The scare was used to justify legalizing abortions in the US.

[JohnBrowdie]

the same thing that happened to nuclear winter.

[Da Bilge Troll]

hahaha! I still have a worn copy of “The Limits to Growth” on my bookshelf. It’s most hilarious book I’ve ever read! Did you know we’ve all already been dead for more than 20 years?

[MrB]

Population bomb = “thinking themselves wise, they became fools”

God said be fruitful and fill the earth.

[RayChuang88]

What Erlich did not figure was the rapid growth of better agricultural technology and better means to transport food. The great famines that happened after Erlich wrote that book was all man made, either by war or deliberate political policy (read: the great famine in Ethiopia in the 1980's).

[Buckeye McFrog]

Being 100% WRONG has not prevented Dr. Ehrlich from collecting honoraria and huge speaking fees from top-level universities.

[Oratam]

He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s

He was right. Millions did starve to death in the '70s . . . in countries with Marxist economies.

[MNDude]

The 1960’s population bomb was slowed down by the coming ice age of the 1970’s, the ozone layer hole of the 90’s, and the global warming of the 2000’s.

[cripplecreek]

Its flowing across our borders at an ever increasing rate.

[Alex Murphy]

No one was more influential — or more terrifying, some would say — than Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist. His 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” sold in the millions with a jeremiad that humankind stood on the brink of apocalypse because there were simply too many of us. Dr. Ehrlich’s opening statement was the verbal equivalent of a punch to the gut: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.” He later went on to forecast that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s, that 65 million of them would be Americans, that crowded India was essentially doomed, that odds were fair “England will not exist in the year 2000.” Dr. Ehrlich was so sure of himself that he warned in 1970 that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come.” By “the end,” he meant “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”

As you may have noticed, England is still with us. So is India. Hundreds of millions did not die of starvation in the ’70s. Humanity has managed to hang on, even though the planet’s population now exceeds seven billion, double what it was when “The Population Bomb” became a best-seller and its author a frequent guest of Johnny Carson’s on “The Tonight Show.” . . After the passage of 47 years, Dr. Ehrlich offers little in the way of a mea culpa.

PFL

[Beowulf9]

I often say this. World had too many people, practice birth control.

Too many white people in America they meant.

[KosmicKitty]

Malthus said the same ting in 1798.

That was wrong too.

[SandRat]

It was a Hogan’s Hero’s DUD!

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Ehrlichs' then and the Al Gores' now; naysayers that have been proven wrong, yet many still believe.

But their co-author, colleague and fellow traveller, John P. Holdren, has been Obama's science and technology adviser since day 1.

[Vaduz]

Population Bomb

Mexico snickers

[tbw2]

Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution doubling and tripling food yield of major crops like rice and corn, the industrialization of agriculture with fertilizer and irrigation in many parts of the world, and other steps that dramatically increased yield.
That’s why we have 2 billion more people since 1990 but 200 million FEWER starving, in short, feeding 2.2 billion more fully and completely.
Science and industrialization brought production up faster than demand grew.

[glasseye]

It’s hanging out with the ‘ozone hole’, soon to be joined be ‘global warming’.

[CPT Clay]

bump