Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born 29 May 1932 ) is an
American entomologist specializing in
Lepidoptera (butterflies). He became a
household name[1][2] after publication of his 1968 book
The Population Bomb, in which he predicted that "In the 1970s and 1980s . . . hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
Career
Ehrlich currently is the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He is a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the
American Philosophical Society.
Ehrlich's research group at Stanford currently works extensively on the study of natural populations of checkerspot
butterflies (
Euphydryas). Along with Dr.
Gretchen Daily, he has conducted work in "
countryside biogeography", or the study of making human-disturbed areas hospitable to
biodiversity. Ehrlich continues to conduct policy research on population and resource issues, focusing especially on
endangered species,
cultural evolution,
environmental ethics, and the preservation of
genetic resources.
[edit] Population growth predictions
Ehrlich wrote an article that appeared in
New Scientist in December 1967. In that article, Ehrlich predicted that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985 due to population growth outstripping resources. Ehrlich wrote that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also stated, "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980," and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971."
These specific predictions did not actually come to pass, and his later book The Population Explosion is much more cautious in its predictions.
The article led to the publication of
The Population Bomb in 1968, advocating stringent
population control policies.
[7] His central argument on population is as follows:
Sympathetic articles
[edit] Critical articles