{"id":411070,"date":"2025-10-31T09:37:22","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=411070"},"modified":"2025-10-31T09:37:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T08:37:24","slug":"land-of-the-living-dead-paul-ehrlich-this-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=411070","title":{"rendered":"Land of the Living Dead: Paul Ehrlich this Halloween"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bradley Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Always wrong but never in doubt. Welcome to the-end-is-always-near world of Paul R. Ehrlich, where humans are the problem\u2013or at least everyone that does not see what the neo-Malthusians warn against. The land of the living dead\u2013something to think about this Halloween.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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I was reminded of neo-Malthusianism come Halloween 2025 upon rereading a piece in the (Progressive Left) The Guardian<\/em>, \u201cPaul Ehrlich: \u2018Collapse of Civilisation Is a Near Certainty Within Decades<\/a>\u2018\u201d, published eight years ago (March 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb<\/em>, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge,\u201d the subtitle of Damian Carrington<\/a> article states. She continues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A shattering collapse of civilisation is a \u201cnear certainty\u201d in the next few decades due to humanity\u2019s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth<\/a>, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever. The world\u2019s optimum population is less than two billion people \u2013 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Population Bomb<\/em>, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted \u201chundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death\u201d in the 1970s \u2013 a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ehrich admits his errors (Julian Simon\u00a0creamed him<\/a>\u00a0decades ago on the facts and theory explaining the facts). Continues Carrington:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall. \u201cPopulation growth, along with over-consumption per capita, is driving civilisation over the edge: billions of people are now hungry or micronutrient malnourished, and climate disruption is killing people.\u201d\u2026.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt is a near certainty in the next few decades, and the risk is increasing continually as long as perpetual growth of the human enterprise remains the goal of economic and political systems,\u201d he says. \u201cAs I\u2019ve said many times, \u2018perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

High population and high consumption by the affluent are \u201cdriving a sixth mass extinction of biodiversity<\/a>, upon which civilisation depends for clean air, water and food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSustainable\u201d population is his goal. [Ehrlich] estimates an optimum global population size at roughly 1.5 to two billion, \u201cBut the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be. We\u2019re continuously harvesting the low-hanging fruit, for example by driving\u00a0<\/em>fisheries stocks to extinction<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Carrington quotes Ehrlich:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No scientist would hold exactly the same views after a half century of further experience, but Anne and I are still proud of our book\u2026. Its weaknesses were not enough on overconsumption and equity issues. It needed more on women\u2019s rights, and explicit countering of racism \u2013 which I\u2019ve spent much of my career and activism trying to counter. Too many rich people in the world is a major threat to the human future, and cultural and genetic diversity are great human resources.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Wrong.\u00a0The Population Bomb<\/em>\u00a0is the stuff of jokes as obesity has overtaken famine in the developed (non-statist) world\u2013thanks to more, not less, people. Game, set, and match to Paul Ehlich\u2019s intellectual foe, Julian Simon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t

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