Defuse the Population Bomb Narrative before It’s Too Late

CBS’s 60 Minutes recently interviewed Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich about his long-held conviction that so-called overpopulation will deplete resources, destroy wildlife, and end civilization as we know it. The nonagenarian appeared hale and hearty, prophesying Armageddon with the same enthusiasm as in his youth.

His health is representative of a trend: People are living longer, and death rates have plunged since Ehrlich began predicting an overpopulation-induced apocalypse in his best-selling 1968 jeremiad, The Population Bomb. The change in death rates is just one piece of evidence cited by my colleague Marian L. Tupy in his rebuttal debunking Ehrlich’s fears.