by Jim Rose in population economics, technological progress Tags: Paul Ehrlich, population bomb

We will soon be asking is it perfectly okay to eat the bodies of your dead because we’re all so hungry? …In other words between now and 45 years from now, 2.5 billion people will be added to the planet. …We are moving towards resource wars “Will overpopulation drive us to eat our own DEAD?” The Daily Mail, 23 May 2014

Paul Ehrlich is widely known for his 1968 book ‘The Population Bomb’ which he called for population control to prevent global crises from overpopulation. In his 1968 book, he predicted.

Plainly, he got that wrong. In 1970, Ehrlich predicted that Americans would be subjected to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by the end of the 1970s. He got that wrong too.

Julian L. Simon and Ehrlich entered in a widely followed scientific wager in 1980.

Simon had Ehrlich choose five commodity metals. Simon bet that their prices would decrease, while Ehrlich bet they would increase. Between 1980 and 1990, the world’s population grew by more than 800 million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history.

Ehrlich lost the bet with Simon. All five commodities bet on declined in price from 1980 through to 1990.

Ehrlich was more than a sore loser. In 1995, he told the Wall Street Journal that

If Simon disappeared from the face of the Earth, that would be great for humanity.

Ehrlich calls those who disagree with him “idiots,” “fools,” “morons,” “clowns” and worse. His righteous zeal is matched by viciousness in disagreement and utter imperviousness to contrary evidence