The End is Near, Sort of …
The ‘Population Bomb’ author, Paul Ehrlich, just died. Old age mostly, not starvation brought on by world famines, over populations, water wars or cataclysmic migrations. Probably had clogged arteries from too much over saturated foods. Or … just too much food, period. For awhile back there in the halcyon days of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, Paul was our most famous Doomsayer, the guy who predicted civilizational collapse, major famines, a world breeding itself to death, a planet too small to support billions and billions of us humans. He made a bundle prophesying our demise. The End is Near — not predicted by a cult nut but by a rational guy.
The population of the planet when he wrote the book was 3.5 billion. It’s now 8.3 billion. We could each have gotten a McDonald burger but maybe not fries. Paul was right about one thing — the population exploded! And there were a few famines and still are. What he didn’t factor in was the steep curve out of world poverty. Or the advances in agriculture, medicine, pharmaceuticals and technology. Who’d have guessed, right? Well, not Paul.
The trouble with folks who cried ‘Wolf’ too early is when the wolf shows up, nobody was listening to the alarms anymore. But … the future may prove him right posthumously. We’re fishing out the seas, watching the insect and bird die-offs, polluting our waters then pumping the aquifers dry. All us billions of people are pumping CO2 into our greenhouse and if climate change isn’t a direct result of population, well, kick some dirt on Paul’s grave and whistle through the graveyard.
If you want to be a prophet, all I can say is don’t be too specific about the day of the week Doomsday is coming. The End is Near, Not Tomorrow. Maybe not even next month. We’ll need some time to get ready.
Tags: Calling Wolf Too Many Times, Over Population, Population Bomb