{"id":432231,"date":"2026-03-19T08:45:58","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=432231"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:46:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:46:00","slug":"a-re-look-at-the-bet-simon-ehrlich-and-paul-sabin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=432231","title":{"rendered":"A Re-Look at \u2018The Bet\u2019 (Simon, Ehrlich, and Paul Sabin)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

From The Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Pierre Desrochers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cSadly, in Paul Sabin\u2019s account, the main villain turns out to be the morally upstanding Simon who, fifteen years after his death, is blamed for creating policy logjams and fueling uncivil discourse. In the meantime, Paul Ehrlich keeps issuing \u2018important warnings\u2019 such as a recent prediction that humans might soon have to resort to cannibalism to survive the ecological apocalypse.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The background and story of the famous bet between catastrophist biologist Paul R. Ehrlich and optimist economist Julian L. Simon was first told in some detail over twenty-five years ago by journalist John Tierney in the pages of the New York Times Magazine<\/em><\/a>. The bet, ostensibly on the future prices of five commercially important metals \u2013 copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten \u2013 provided a platform upon which two opposing worldviews, that of Ehrlich\u2019s depletionist catastrophism and Julian\u2019s optimistic resourceship, confronted each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is well known to readers of this blog, Ehrlich predicted that a growing population would rapidly deplete the world\u2019s finite supply of valuable resources, causing their price to rise. Simon countered that, in a market economy, a shrinking supply would drive the increasing demand towards higher resource prices. In addition, it would also drive technological change towards a more efficient use of scarce resources, the discovery of new deposits, and the development of substitutes, resulting in both a stabilized supply of the resource, and a long term decrease in its price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the basic outline of this story has been re-told many times since, to our knowledge no account delved significantly deeper than Tierney\u2019s original article until the recent publication of The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earth\u2019s Future<\/em><\/a> (Yale University Press, 2013) by the Yale historian and environmental studies professor Paul Sabin<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many reviewers have praised Sabin for his professed even-handedness and willingness to acknowledge his green moral certainties are now more elusive thanks to his reading of Simon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vincent Geloso<\/a> and I<\/a>, however, are less enthusiastic about the merits of Sabin\u2019s work. In a two-part review essay published in the latest issue of the journal New Perspectives on Political Economy<\/em><\/a> we address the main flaws of Sabin\u2019s book, namely its (surprising) lack of historical perspective, its oversimplification of Simon\u2019s theoretical framework, and its futile quest to find a middle ground between mutually exclusive positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we see it, the two scientists differed not only in their outlook but also in their methods and overall ethos. Simon let the historical record and data challenge his preconceptions and followed the evidence wherever it led him. Time and again, his position was proven to interpret and predict reality better than others as his hypotheses were supported by facts. He abided by the academic rules of conduct, never stooping to ad hominem arguments or personal attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout his life, he advocated personal liberty and individual agency. Despite his strong moral standing and his innovative scholarship, he received very few academic accolades. Paul Ehrlich, on the other hand, adopted early-on a theoretical framework disproved time and again by the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, he continued his adherence to crude Malthusianism, never acknowledging the evidence countering his views in his work. When he engaged his critics at all, it was typically by insulting them through third parties. And while Ehrlich shouldn\u2019t be blamed for policies adopted before he burst onto the public stage, he recommended or endorsed courses of action resulting in much human suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of his support of a harmful policy was his role in promoting mass sterilization in the developing world as a means of population control. In spite of all this, his popular success and academic standing were, and remain, truly remarkable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, in Sabin\u2019s account the main villain turns out to be the morally upstanding Simon who, fifteen years after his death, is blamed for creating policy logjams and fueling uncivil discourse. In the meantime, Paul Ehrlich keeps issuing \u201cimportant warnings\u201d such as a recent prediction that humans might soon have to resort to cannibalism to survive the ecological apocalypse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike Simon, however, Ehrlich does not appear to have to be accountable for his alarmist predictions, neither to Sabin, who should be keeping score, nor to his followers. In the end, though, Sabin must know he could never have been afforded the luxury of providing dubious rationales for Paul Ehrlich\u2019s vision at Simon\u2019s expense if he had not been living in Julian Simon\u2019s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Pierre Desrochers<\/a> is Associate Professor of Geography, Geomatics, and Environment at the University of Toronto Mississauga. His research and teaching activities focus primarily on economic development, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, international trade, business-environment and business-university interactions. His other areas of expertise include intellectual property and urban and housing policy. Desrochers previous posts at MasterResource can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSadly, in Paul Sabin\u2019s account, the main villain turns out to be the morally upstanding Simon who, fifteen years after his death, is blamed for creating policy logjams and fueling uncivil discourse. In the meantime, Paul Ehrlich keeps issuing \u2018important warnings\u2019 such as a recent prediction that humans might soon have to resort to cannibalism to survive the ecological apocalypse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":432236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691841927,691841926,691818796,691839231],"class_list":{"0":"post-432231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-important-warnings","9":"tag-julian-l-simon","10":"tag-malthusianism","11":"tag-paul-r-ehrlich","13":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-%E2%80%98The-Bet.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Ort","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":436567,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=436567","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":0},"title":"Michael Mann Praises Paul Ehrlich (for the record)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/02\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"When it comes to the climate debate, Paul R. Ehrlich joins Climategate as a major reason to reject alarmism. And who other than Michael \u201cClimategate\u201d Mann praised Paul \u201cFalse Alarm\u201d Ehrlich.","rel":"","context":"In \"Climategate\"","block_context":{"text":"Climategate","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=climategate"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Michael-Mann-Praises-Paul-Ehrlich-for-the-record.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Michael-Mann-Praises-Paul-Ehrlich-for-the-record.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Michael-Mann-Praises-Paul-Ehrlich-for-the-record.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Michael-Mann-Praises-Paul-Ehrlich-for-the-record.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Michael-Mann-Praises-Paul-Ehrlich-for-the-record.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":411070,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=411070","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":1},"title":"Land of the Living Dead: Paul Ehrlich this Halloween","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/31\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"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.","rel":"","context":"In \"Anne Ehrlich\"","block_context":{"text":"Anne Ehrlich","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=anne-ehrlich"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQM80jndZoa0VyhFcmo2JfJWJruvdDvemlCI7s49aPaKwCAg6CIC_SyewvQccQyhstwHfyrv9CCxYSeigst18vDcBmvGMeLl6Nd5_OP-HusQiFfWQaIaUnMHe9WIcgMf-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C663&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQM80jndZoa0VyhFcmo2JfJWJruvdDvemlCI7s49aPaKwCAg6CIC_SyewvQccQyhstwHfyrv9CCxYSeigst18vDcBmvGMeLl6Nd5_OP-HusQiFfWQaIaUnMHe9WIcgMf-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C663&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQM80jndZoa0VyhFcmo2JfJWJruvdDvemlCI7s49aPaKwCAg6CIC_SyewvQccQyhstwHfyrv9CCxYSeigst18vDcBmvGMeLl6Nd5_OP-HusQiFfWQaIaUnMHe9WIcgMf-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C663&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQM80jndZoa0VyhFcmo2JfJWJruvdDvemlCI7s49aPaKwCAg6CIC_SyewvQccQyhstwHfyrv9CCxYSeigst18vDcBmvGMeLl6Nd5_OP-HusQiFfWQaIaUnMHe9WIcgMf-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C663&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0AQM80jndZoa0VyhFcmo2JfJWJruvdDvemlCI7s49aPaKwCAg6CIC_SyewvQccQyhstwHfyrv9CCxYSeigst18vDcBmvGMeLl6Nd5_OP-HusQiFfWQaIaUnMHe9WIcgMf-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C663&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":436298,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=436298","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":2},"title":"Paul Ehrlich and Michael Mann \u2013 Both Used the Media to Hide Their Misanthropy","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"04\/01\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"In the annals of environmental alarmism, few figures loom larger than Paul Ehrlich and Michael Mann. Ehrlich, the Stanford biologist who died in March 2026 at age 93, authored The Population Bomb (1968), a bestseller that warned of imminent global famine, societal collapse, and resource wars driven by overpopulation. Mann,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"catastrophic predictions\"","block_context":{"text":"catastrophic predictions","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=catastrophic-predictions"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Paul-Ehrlich-and-Michael-Mann.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Paul-Ehrlich-and-Michael-Mann.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Paul-Ehrlich-and-Michael-Mann.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Paul-Ehrlich-and-Michael-Mann.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0-Paul-Ehrlich-and-Michael-Mann.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":237801,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=237801","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":3},"title":"’60 Minutes’ Touts Apocalyptic Fake News With Eco- Doom Peddler","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Chalk this up as \"60 Minutes\" hosting the worst peddler of false knowledge since Dan Rather left the set.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-165.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-165.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-165.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-165.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-165.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":237767,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=237767","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":4},"title":"He’s Back! The Paul Ehrlich Apocalypse Is Having A Revival","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"01\/04\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"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.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-137.png?fit=1200%2C874&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-137.png?fit=1200%2C874&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-137.png?fit=1200%2C874&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-137.png?fit=1200%2C874&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/image-137.png?fit=1200%2C874&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":432082,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=432082","url_meta":{"origin":432231,"position":5},"title":"\u2018Ever-wrong Ehrlich\u2019s\u2019 Greatest Hits (er, misses)","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/18\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"His famous 1968 book, \u201cThe Population Bomb,\u201d changed the world. He famously predicted that human \u201coverpopulation\u201d would soon outstrip food supplies, leading to catastrophic famines, and societal collapse. He predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, that India would be unable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"carbon dioxide (CO\u2082)\"","block_context":{"text":"carbon dioxide (CO\u2082)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=carbon-dioxide-co%e2%82%82"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-%E2%80%98Ever-wrong-Ehrlichs-Greatest-Hits-1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-%E2%80%98Ever-wrong-Ehrlichs-Greatest-Hits-1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-%E2%80%98Ever-wrong-Ehrlichs-Greatest-Hits-1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-%E2%80%98Ever-wrong-Ehrlichs-Greatest-Hits-1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432231"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432237,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432231\/revisions\/432237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/432236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}