Population Scares: The Opposite Threat Approaches
By WILLIAM SNAER In 1968, Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb. He warned: “In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.” Ehrlich did not invent this neo-Malthusian anxiety, but he popularized it. Although Ehrlich was wrong, his viewpoint has lived on, morphed into a broader eco-environmental concern. Writing in the Guardian, Lisa Hymas sums up this philosophy in her article about deciding to be childless: “Population isn’t just about counting heads. The impact of humanity on the environment is not determined