Land of the Living Dead: Paul Ehrlich this Halloween

Always wrong but never in doubt. Welcome to the-end-is-always-near world of Paul R. Ehrlich, where humans are the problem–or at least everyone that does not see what the neo-Malthusians warn against. The land of the living dead–something to think about this Halloween.

I was reminded of neo-Malthusianism come Halloween 2025 upon rereading a piece in the (Progressive Left) The Guardian, “Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of Civilisation Is a Near Certainty Within Decades‘”, published eight years ago (March 2018).

“Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge,” the subtitle of Damian Carrington article states. She continues:

A shattering collapse of civilisation is a “near certainty” in the next few decades due to humanity’s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.

But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever. The world’s optimum population is less than two billion people – 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….

The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s – a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture.

Ehrich admits his errors (Julian Simon creamed him decades ago on the facts and theory explaining the facts). Continues Carrington:

Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall. “Population 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.”….

“It 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,” he says. “As I’ve said many times, ‘perpetual growth is the creed of the cancer cell’.”

High population and high consumption by the affluent are “driving a sixth mass extinction of biodiversity, upon which civilisation depends for clean air, water and food.”

“Sustainable” population is his goal. [Ehrlich] estimates an optimum global population size at roughly 1.5 to two billion, “But the longer humanity pursues business as usual, the smaller the sustainable society is likely to prove to be. We’re continuously harvesting the low-hanging fruit, for example by driving fisheries stocks to extinction.”

Carrington quotes Ehrlich:

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…. Its weaknesses were not enough on overconsumption and equity issues. It needed more on women’s rights, and explicit countering of racism – which I’ve 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.

Dr. Wrong. The Population Bomb is the stuff of jokes as obesity has overtaken famine in the developed (non-statist) world–thanks to more, not less, people. Game, set, and match to Paul Ehlich’s intellectual foe, Julian Simon.

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