{"id":237767,"date":"2023-01-04T20:28:07","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T19:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=237767"},"modified":"2023-01-04T20:28:13","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T19:28:13","slug":"hes-back-the-paul-ehrlich-apocalypse-is-having-a-revival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=237767","title":{"rendered":"He’s Back! The Paul Ehrlich Apocalypse Is Having A Revival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From climatechangedispatch<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0BY\u00a0WSJ EDITORIAL BOARD<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll say this for Paul Ehrlich \u2014at least he\u2019s consistent. In 1968 the Stanford biologist famously declared that \u201cthe battle to feed all humanity is over,\u201d at a time when the Earth\u2019s population was about 3.5 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today we have a population of eight billion (better fed than ever), yet there was Mr. Ehrlich, on CBS\u2019s \u201c60 Minutes\u201d<\/a> Sunday night still predicting that \u201chumanity is very busily sitting on a limb that we\u2019re sawing off.\u201d [emphasis, links added]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CBS narrator acknowledged that the green revolution in agriculture disproved Mr. Ehrlich\u2019s prediction of mass famine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the show went on to suggest that Mr. Ehrlich\u2019s repackaged gloom<\/a><\/strong> about melting icecaps<\/strong><\/a> and the rate of extinction<\/strong><\/a> may finally prove him right in saying we are still heading the way of the dinosaurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with Thomas Malthus, the father of doom-and-gloomers, the repeated failures of Mr. Ehrlich\u2019s predictions of catastrophe to materialize<\/a><\/strong> never seem to discourage those who believe human beings are breeding<\/a> and consuming our way to destruction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reason these dire prophecies fail<\/strong>\u00a0is that they\u00a0ignore the most decisive variable: human ingenuity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years since Mr. Ehrlich first forecast apocalypse<\/a>, human beings have found untold new ways to improve life on Earth<\/strong>\u2014e.g., by reclaiming arable land, inventing new medicines, increasing food production<\/a>, making clean water more available and lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Ehrlich is 90 years old and looking spry. When he was born in 1932, life expectancy for an American baby was 61 years. For Americans who will be born in 2023, it\u2019s 79.11 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One explanation is that much of what Mr. Ehrlich considers to be a population \u201ccrisis\u201d<\/strong> is simply because people are living longer<\/strong> and much less likely to die as infants.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another way of putting it is that Mr. Ehrlich is living proof that we are living through<\/strong> what his intellectual nemesis, Julian Simon, liked to call an \u201cepidemic of life.\u201d<\/strong> We\u2019d say that\u2019s a cause for celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more at\u00a0WSJ<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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