In 1968, Doctor Paul Ehrlich warned the world of its excessive population with his book entitled The Population Bomb (Amazon).
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” he wrote, “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
His trip to an overcrowded Delhi in 1966 seemed to convince him that there wasn’t enough food to go around to support humanity.
Thankfully, Dr. Ehrlich’s warnings never panned out. Instead, his book sparked a debate about “the potential consequences of overpopulation: famine, pollution, social and ecological collapse.” Out came some viable solutions.
While population has more than doubled since The Population Bomb came out, agricultural innovation has been able to sustain the boom. Today, one in ten people are starving as opposed to one in four.
However, Ehrlich and other researchers predict that the environmental damage from overproduction remains to be seen. Undermining the ecosystem could still wipe us all out. Other researchers are more optimistic, believing that human ingenuity will come to the rescue.
5 responses
Thanks for the reco.
You might want to look into the organization Population Connection.
Totally agree, I have read Paul Hanley’s Eleven, but have not come across this book the Population Bomb. It is amazing how Ehrlich, a physician, the Hanley, an envrionmental columnist have come to the same conclusion. Thank you for sharing, Now another book to read
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This is a very interesting blog you have here. I most certainly did not expect to stumble across anything to do with P.
Ehrlich.