Quote without (much) comment

Patrick Foley patfoley at csus.edu
Fri Jan 4 11:33:59 EST 2002


Which is the bigger world problem: overpopulation or Paul Ehrlich's tendency
to overstate things?

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu



Paul Cherubini wrote:

> Ron Gatrelle wrote:
>
> > What do I think of Ehrlich's statements?
> > He doesn't know what he is talking about - just like his
> > semipseudopredictions that  civilization should have entered chaos 15-20
> > years ago..
>
> Ehrlich's doomsayer books also earned him half a million dollars
> in academic awards (see below):
>
> In The Population Bomb (1968; revised,1971), and in
> subsequent books Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich predicted:
>
>  "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and
> 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite
> of any crash programs embarked upon now. . America's vast
> agricultural surpluses are gone."
>
>  "a minimum of ten million people, most of them children,
> will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a
> mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving
> before the end of the century"
>
> - America in 1984 would havefood shortages so severe that steak
> would be $12 a pound, the U.S. unemployment rate would be 27
> percent, and India would be an anarchy because of nationwide
> food riots.
>
> "Smog disasters" in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in
> New York and Los Angeles."
>
> "I would take even money that England will not exist in the
> year 2000."
>
> "Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity .
> in which the accessible supplies of 13 key minerals will be
> facing depletion."
>
> Have Ehrlich's preposterous predictions hurt his reputation?
> Far from it - they've made him both celebrated and rich.
>
> In 1993 Dr. Peter Raven, Director of the Missouri Botanical
> Garden presented Ehrlich with the The World Ecology Award
>
>  In  1990 Ehrlich published a sequel to "Bomb" called
> "The Population Explosion,"and  received the MacArthur
> Foundation's  famous "genius award" with a $345,000 check,
> and split a Swedish Royal Academy of Science prize
> worth $120,000.
>
> Paul Cherubini
>
>
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