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Hi all,
Ken Boettcher writes:
>ERLICH AT IT AGAIN--WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
>'THE POPULATION BOMB?'
>
>BY KEN BOETTCHER
>
>In 1968 Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich, in his book, THE
>POPULATION BOMB, predicted that worldwide starvation due to
>overpopulation would result in death for hundreds of millions of
>human beings during the 1970s. In THE END OF AFFLUENCE, written
>with his wife Anne and published in 1974, the Ehrlichs upped the
>estimate--and stretched out the timetable--to a billion or more
>dead from starvation by the mid-1980s.
>
>Despite his notoriety as a failed prophet of doom, Ehrlich's ego
>still fuels an occasional foray into the public eye. In one such
>recent foray, Ehrlich, still pushing overpopulation as the
>primary cause of the world's problems, rounded out his
>reactionary world view by adding "overconsumption" as a
>secondary cause.
>
Professor Erlich may have been wrong in his time table for the
beginning of global shortages of food, energy and other
resources, but the gist of his message is still valid.
The present rates of population and consumption growth are not
sustainable over the long term. There are no estimates that I know
of that suggest that we can continue to support exponential
growth for more than a few decades at most.
Technology will surely be used to overcome some shortages, but I
don't see where we will grow the food for double our current
population (estimated for 2050), find (or create) fresh water for
them to drink, fresh air for them to breathe, fuel for them to cook
or metals to make their consumer goods.
I believe that the issues of population growth and economic system
are separable. Solving one problem will not solve the other!
The air is just as bad in socialist countries as in capitalist ones.
Fuel resources don't depend on who is in power. A solution to a
resource problem can be equally applied in any economic environment.
So, Eva, I believe that the problems being discussed should be
addressed by those who are concerned about our future. Let's find
ways to substitute widely available resources for those in growing
short supply, limit population growth and work towards a fairer
economic system that values both humans as individuals and our
fellow life forms.
Dennis Paull,
Los Altos, California
