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The Population Bomb
Originally published in 1968, the best-seller The Population Bomb warned of the perils of overpopulation: mass starvation, societal upheaval, environmental deterioration.
The book was criticized at the time for painting an overly dark picture of the future. But while not all of the Ehrlich’s dire predictions have come to pass, the world’s population has doubled since then, to over seven billion, straining the planet’s resources and heating up our climate.
Can the earth continue to support an ever-increasing number of humans?
The book was criticized at the time for painting an overly dark picture of the future. But while not all of the Ehrlich’s dire predictions have come to pass, the world’s population has doubled since then, to over seven billion, straining the planet’s resources and heating up our climate.
Can the earth continue to support an ever-increasing number of humans?
201 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Paul R. Ehrlich
91 books96 followersPaul Ralph Ehrlich was an American biologist and educator who was the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology. By training he was an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies), but he was better known as an ecologist and a demographer, specifically for his warnings about unchecked population growth and limited resources. Ehrlich became a household name after publication of his controversial 1968 book The Population Bomb.
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March 24, 2015
In 1968, biologist Paul Ehrlich achieved infamy by publishing The Population Bomb, one of the most controversial eco-books ever printed. Ehrlich has been condemned to spend eternity with Thomas Malthus, in a dungeon reserved for doom perverts. To this day, professors still use the two lads as great reasons to never take seriously anyone who asserts that there are limits to growth. We all know, of course, that humankind has no limits. We have technology!
Actually, Malthus never predicted catastrophic famine. He simply stated the obvious — when population reaches overshoot, the death rate will automatically rise to restore balance, one way or another (starvation, disease, conflict). A thousand people cannot prosper if forced to share ten cheeseburgers a day. The overshoot ceiling rises when food is abundant, and falls when food is scarce. Malthus was not a doomer. His cardinal sin was declaring the obvious — that there are limits to growth.
Ehrlich, on the other hand, actually did predict catastrophic famine, and soon. The first lines in his book are, “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.” Millions indeed starved, but not hundreds of millions. Everyone agrees that this prediction was inaccurate or premature.
When Ehrlich was writing, India was sliding toward catastrophic famine. Only ten nations produced more food than they consumed in 1966. In America, the postwar baby boom led to a freakish population spike of 55 million in 20 years. The streets of 1968 were jammed with scruffy rebels protesting the Vietnam War, and our totally unhip way of life. It was hip to be loud, brash, and vigorously opposed to the status quo.
At the same time, the Green Revolution was just getting rolling, and no one could foresee how well it would succeed at temporarily boosting grain production. Norman Borlaug was the wizard of the Green Revolution, and his holy mission was to reduce world hunger. He hoped that the new technology would give us 10 or 20 years to resolve our population issues. We didn’t even try. Those who recommend strict population control measures are called callous. But the leaders who take no action on population are also callous.
Naturally, much more food led to many more people. In 1968, there were 3.5 billion people, by late this morning there were 7.2 billion. World hunger sharply increased, and many other problems worsened. The Green Revolution had wonderful intentions, but its unintended consequences far exceeded its benefits, because we refused to seize the opportunity to confront and subdue the 800-pound gorilla.
The bottom line here is that Ehrlich’s predictions of catastrophe within a specific timeframe were wrong, but he succeeded in bringing a lot of attention to real and growing problems — population, pollution, and environmental destruction. At the same time, he succeeded at pissing off almost everyone.
Liberals hated him because he wanted to set population goals for poor nations, and withhold food aid from those who did not meet their goals. He contemplated the notion of withholding food aid to nations that had zero chance of becoming self-sufficient. He did not endorse the “right” of families to breed as they pleased — a right that was not handcuffed to responsibilities.
Religious people hated him because he believed that contraception and abortion should be legal everywhere, and that all children should receive rigorous training in sex education and family planning. They hated him because he believed that fetuses were nothing more than potential humans.
Environmentalists hated him, because he was a lightning rod for criticism. They believe that his fondness for bold statements made it hard for folks to trust anything greens said. He was a popular scapegoat to blame their failures on. If Ehrlich had never been born, would we be living in a sustainable utopia today?
Conservatives hated him because he wanted to regulate pollution and pesticide use. He advocated compulsory population control, because voluntary family planning has never been successful at stabilizing or reducing population. Ehrlich detested their insane obsession with perpetual economic growth, which thrived on population growth, and disregarded ecocide. But they loved him for being so loud and so bizarre. He made it easy for them to label all greens as hysterical nutjobs.
Modern society is suffocating in information. Everyone in a hunter-gatherer clan knew the entire collection of their cultural information. Today, we don’t know a millionth of our cultural information, because knowing it all is impossible. So, climatologists are freaked out about rising temperatures, while the masses are blissfully ignorant. Petroleum geologists are freaked out about the looming specter of Peak Energy, while the masses are not.
Within the realm of his specialty, Ehrlich could perceive enormous threats that society was unaware of, and this freaked him out. He was compelled to rattle cages. If he had written a dry, mature, scholarly discourse on population, with 300 footnotes, it would not have reached a general audience and provoked lively and widespread discussion. In modern society, suffocating in information, you get attention by flaming and screaming, like the election ads for candidates. Whether or not it is honorable, it works. In my opinion, Ehrlich’s ideas were sincere, and a bit inflamed, but not devious fabrications.
Ehrlich’s book was read by many, and it drew needed attention to a crucial issue. A taboo subject was let out of the closet, for a while. Others were inspired to write books. Green organizations boldly called for action, but many checkbook activists promptly revolted by putting away their checkbooks. So, the issue of overpopulation was handed over to Big Mama Nature to resolve, and she will.
While his ideas continue to outrage many, they do have a basis in cold, hard reason. We could reward couples who don’t marry until 25, and those who space their children at least five years apart. Childfree people could be eligible to win lottery prizes. “There has been little effective criticism of the medical profession or the government for their preoccupation with death control… death control in the absence of birth control is self-defeating.”
It would have been cool if humans were purely rational, realized their mistake, and took bold action to avert disaster. Ehrlich sighed. “By now you are probably fed up with this discussion. Americans will do none of these things, you say. Well, I’m inclined to agree.” He wrote because there was a wee chance for success.
Don’t read this book to learn about overpopulation and its side effects. Hundreds of newer books are far more up to date. Read this book to contemplate morals, ethics, taboos, ideologies, and communication. Contemplate his critics, and why they are so determined to banish discussion on an issue that is a major threat to humankind and the planet (see the reader comments on Amazon.com). The anger and pain that continues to swirl around this book provides a fascinating study in human nature — long-term survival vs. a mentally unstable culture.
Ehrlich is an intelligent and charismatic fellow. In 2008, on the fortieth anniversary of The Population Bomb, he reread his book and blushed a bit. He had learned a few new things in the preceding forty years, but his overall impression was that in 1968 he had been far too optimistic. He presented his current perspective in a lecture at Stanford, From the Population Bomb to the Dominant Animal (YouTube, 54 min.).
Actually, Malthus never predicted catastrophic famine. He simply stated the obvious — when population reaches overshoot, the death rate will automatically rise to restore balance, one way or another (starvation, disease, conflict). A thousand people cannot prosper if forced to share ten cheeseburgers a day. The overshoot ceiling rises when food is abundant, and falls when food is scarce. Malthus was not a doomer. His cardinal sin was declaring the obvious — that there are limits to growth.
Ehrlich, on the other hand, actually did predict catastrophic famine, and soon. The first lines in his book are, “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.” Millions indeed starved, but not hundreds of millions. Everyone agrees that this prediction was inaccurate or premature.
When Ehrlich was writing, India was sliding toward catastrophic famine. Only ten nations produced more food than they consumed in 1966. In America, the postwar baby boom led to a freakish population spike of 55 million in 20 years. The streets of 1968 were jammed with scruffy rebels protesting the Vietnam War, and our totally unhip way of life. It was hip to be loud, brash, and vigorously opposed to the status quo.
At the same time, the Green Revolution was just getting rolling, and no one could foresee how well it would succeed at temporarily boosting grain production. Norman Borlaug was the wizard of the Green Revolution, and his holy mission was to reduce world hunger. He hoped that the new technology would give us 10 or 20 years to resolve our population issues. We didn’t even try. Those who recommend strict population control measures are called callous. But the leaders who take no action on population are also callous.
Naturally, much more food led to many more people. In 1968, there were 3.5 billion people, by late this morning there were 7.2 billion. World hunger sharply increased, and many other problems worsened. The Green Revolution had wonderful intentions, but its unintended consequences far exceeded its benefits, because we refused to seize the opportunity to confront and subdue the 800-pound gorilla.
The bottom line here is that Ehrlich’s predictions of catastrophe within a specific timeframe were wrong, but he succeeded in bringing a lot of attention to real and growing problems — population, pollution, and environmental destruction. At the same time, he succeeded at pissing off almost everyone.
Liberals hated him because he wanted to set population goals for poor nations, and withhold food aid from those who did not meet their goals. He contemplated the notion of withholding food aid to nations that had zero chance of becoming self-sufficient. He did not endorse the “right” of families to breed as they pleased — a right that was not handcuffed to responsibilities.
Religious people hated him because he believed that contraception and abortion should be legal everywhere, and that all children should receive rigorous training in sex education and family planning. They hated him because he believed that fetuses were nothing more than potential humans.
Environmentalists hated him, because he was a lightning rod for criticism. They believe that his fondness for bold statements made it hard for folks to trust anything greens said. He was a popular scapegoat to blame their failures on. If Ehrlich had never been born, would we be living in a sustainable utopia today?
Conservatives hated him because he wanted to regulate pollution and pesticide use. He advocated compulsory population control, because voluntary family planning has never been successful at stabilizing or reducing population. Ehrlich detested their insane obsession with perpetual economic growth, which thrived on population growth, and disregarded ecocide. But they loved him for being so loud and so bizarre. He made it easy for them to label all greens as hysterical nutjobs.
Modern society is suffocating in information. Everyone in a hunter-gatherer clan knew the entire collection of their cultural information. Today, we don’t know a millionth of our cultural information, because knowing it all is impossible. So, climatologists are freaked out about rising temperatures, while the masses are blissfully ignorant. Petroleum geologists are freaked out about the looming specter of Peak Energy, while the masses are not.
Within the realm of his specialty, Ehrlich could perceive enormous threats that society was unaware of, and this freaked him out. He was compelled to rattle cages. If he had written a dry, mature, scholarly discourse on population, with 300 footnotes, it would not have reached a general audience and provoked lively and widespread discussion. In modern society, suffocating in information, you get attention by flaming and screaming, like the election ads for candidates. Whether or not it is honorable, it works. In my opinion, Ehrlich’s ideas were sincere, and a bit inflamed, but not devious fabrications.
Ehrlich’s book was read by many, and it drew needed attention to a crucial issue. A taboo subject was let out of the closet, for a while. Others were inspired to write books. Green organizations boldly called for action, but many checkbook activists promptly revolted by putting away their checkbooks. So, the issue of overpopulation was handed over to Big Mama Nature to resolve, and she will.
While his ideas continue to outrage many, they do have a basis in cold, hard reason. We could reward couples who don’t marry until 25, and those who space their children at least five years apart. Childfree people could be eligible to win lottery prizes. “There has been little effective criticism of the medical profession or the government for their preoccupation with death control… death control in the absence of birth control is self-defeating.”
It would have been cool if humans were purely rational, realized their mistake, and took bold action to avert disaster. Ehrlich sighed. “By now you are probably fed up with this discussion. Americans will do none of these things, you say. Well, I’m inclined to agree.” He wrote because there was a wee chance for success.
Don’t read this book to learn about overpopulation and its side effects. Hundreds of newer books are far more up to date. Read this book to contemplate morals, ethics, taboos, ideologies, and communication. Contemplate his critics, and why they are so determined to banish discussion on an issue that is a major threat to humankind and the planet (see the reader comments on Amazon.com). The anger and pain that continues to swirl around this book provides a fascinating study in human nature — long-term survival vs. a mentally unstable culture.
Ehrlich is an intelligent and charismatic fellow. In 2008, on the fortieth anniversary of The Population Bomb, he reread his book and blushed a bit. He had learned a few new things in the preceding forty years, but his overall impression was that in 1968 he had been far too optimistic. He presented his current perspective in a lecture at Stanford, From the Population Bomb to the Dominant Animal (YouTube, 54 min.).
August 2, 2016
A work of a true crackpot...
April 14, 2016
45 years ago, and the exponential growth of world population has continued. 3.5 billion peeps in 1968 and it has more than doubled since then. Agricultural methods that rely on toxic chemicals, fertilizers, and genetic modification of seed stock, all dependent on petroleum that has surpassed its peak production and, if you talk about sustainability, half of the population in the USA will look at you like you are crazy. When I read this as a junior in high school in 1969, I thought that the Chinese were the only ones who grasped the concept with their national policy of having only one child per family. The Catholic Church and other identifiable categories of people encouraged themselves to continue to have large families, perhaps because when it comes to the breaking point, those groups with the greatest numbers will be more likely to have an identity left over. And us idiots who bought into this Malthusian hogwash will be totally outnumbered, and we will end up at the end of the bread lines. Totally depressing. Grow your organic gardens people! BTW, I am currently reading Dan Brown's Inferno, and I'm about a third of the way through. It's a great fiction related to this topic. I can't wait to reach the end and see how Robert Langdon saves the day from the evil forces attempting to obliterate the worlds overpopulated masses.
March 12, 2011
I read in college in the 70's. I was very impressionable. I have learned to be much more skeptical. Not recommend other than if you seek alarmist propaganda.
Read
June 6, 2021Congratulations Dr. Ehrlich, you were wrong in all your predictions, and contributed a lot to the hatred among humanity by encouraging only the rich to procreate and the poor to be sterilized
June 10, 2019
Do any sort of campaigning around environmental issues these days and it isn't long before someone tells you that the problem is simple - there are too many people. This argument doesn't just come from the right, but is quite prevalent (though I don't think dominant) within the environmental movement itself.
Paul Ehrlich's book wasn't the first to put this argument when it was first published in 1971, but it was certainly enormously influential, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and propelling Ehrlich to fame. Ehrlich argues that overpopulation was the root cause of a whole host of social issues, though he did focus on two, questions that remain central to this sort of polemic today - hunger and environmental destruction.
The problem is he was, and the argument today remains, wrong.
Paul Ehrlich's book wasn't the first to put this argument when it was first published in 1971, but it was certainly enormously influential, selling hundreds of thousands of copies and propelling Ehrlich to fame. Ehrlich argues that overpopulation was the root cause of a whole host of social issues, though he did focus on two, questions that remain central to this sort of polemic today - hunger and environmental destruction.
The problem is he was, and the argument today remains, wrong.
September 9, 2022
“Unless we are extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years,” said Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich in 1969. His book, "The Population Bomb," had been released the previous year, and Ehrlich had discovered that there’s good money in fearmongering. Today, the book is instructive as a case study in alarmism, emotional manipulation, and the fallibility of experts.
Ehrlich argues for the creation of a “powerful government agency” (ostensibly led by himself and other experts), that would make important decisions such as how much sterilant to add to water supplies: “One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size. Those of you who are appalled at such a suggestion can rest easy. The option isn't even open to us, thanks to the criminal inadequacy of biomedical research in this area. If the choice now is either such additives or catastrophe, we shall have catastrophe.”
Ehrlich’s professorial predictions of impending “war, pestilence and famine” turned out to be not only wrong, but inversely wrong: Warfare and pestilence went down, life spans went up, food production multiplied exponentially, air and water got cleaner, and people got fatter.
A few examples of the doomsday rhetoric crammed into this bestselling book:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970’s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death…”
“In fact, the battle to feed humanity is already lost.”
“…on the bright side, it is clear that fewer and fewer people in the future will be obese.”
“I haven’t discussed the rumor that Governor Reagan will soon announce the construction of a giant vinyl redwood tree that can be trucked around the State of California for all to see (permitting all the other “useless” redwoods to be mowed down by our progressive lumber industry).”
“If our current rape of the watersheds, our population growth, and our water use trends continue, in 1984 the United States will quite literally be dying of thirst.”
“Remember, unless numbers are limited, if those potential human beings are born, they will at best lead miserable lives and die young.”
“We should have sent doctors to aid in the program by setting up centers for training para-medical personnel to do vasectomies. Coercion? Perhaps, but coercion is a good cause.”
https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/theres-...
Ehrlich argues for the creation of a “powerful government agency” (ostensibly led by himself and other experts), that would make important decisions such as how much sterilant to add to water supplies: “One plan often mentioned involves the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired population size. Those of you who are appalled at such a suggestion can rest easy. The option isn't even open to us, thanks to the criminal inadequacy of biomedical research in this area. If the choice now is either such additives or catastrophe, we shall have catastrophe.”
Ehrlich’s professorial predictions of impending “war, pestilence and famine” turned out to be not only wrong, but inversely wrong: Warfare and pestilence went down, life spans went up, food production multiplied exponentially, air and water got cleaner, and people got fatter.
A few examples of the doomsday rhetoric crammed into this bestselling book:
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970’s the world will undergo famines–hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death…”
“In fact, the battle to feed humanity is already lost.”
“…on the bright side, it is clear that fewer and fewer people in the future will be obese.”
“I haven’t discussed the rumor that Governor Reagan will soon announce the construction of a giant vinyl redwood tree that can be trucked around the State of California for all to see (permitting all the other “useless” redwoods to be mowed down by our progressive lumber industry).”
“If our current rape of the watersheds, our population growth, and our water use trends continue, in 1984 the United States will quite literally be dying of thirst.”
“Remember, unless numbers are limited, if those potential human beings are born, they will at best lead miserable lives and die young.”
“We should have sent doctors to aid in the program by setting up centers for training para-medical personnel to do vasectomies. Coercion? Perhaps, but coercion is a good cause.”
https://nypost.com/2022/09/06/theres-...
May 1, 2013
A scary and honest book, written in the seventies, but even more true today than the time it was written. Ehrlich's book reminds you that that cute, puff-cheeked lil sweetie screaming and gurgling away in the corner, that gets you all those government benefits, is actually contributing to the dangerous overcrowding that threatens to destroy our world. True, some of Ehrlich's predictions were exaggerated, and he failed to take into account some of the mitigating factors, but his basic argument - that too many humans are, paradoxically, humanity's greatest danger - remains as true today as it ever was.
Ehrlich argues that what the world needs to survive is s shift away from "let's make as many cute babies as possible" attitude into a realization that breeding should be performed responsibly and with an eye to resources. Given the growth of medieval fundamentalism in this century, the prevailing attitude that sex without procreation is somehow indecent, and that belief that birth is somehow a miracle ordained by God, one can't help but think that Ehrlich's cry for a new paradigm is falling on deaf ears - or maybe people just can't hear it because the kids are screaming too much!
Please read this one before you're tempted to have unprotected sex. Or even, instead of...
Ehrlich argues that what the world needs to survive is s shift away from "let's make as many cute babies as possible" attitude into a realization that breeding should be performed responsibly and with an eye to resources. Given the growth of medieval fundamentalism in this century, the prevailing attitude that sex without procreation is somehow indecent, and that belief that birth is somehow a miracle ordained by God, one can't help but think that Ehrlich's cry for a new paradigm is falling on deaf ears - or maybe people just can't hear it because the kids are screaming too much!
Please read this one before you're tempted to have unprotected sex. Or even, instead of...
December 22, 2010
One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.
The Population Bomb, as its title suggests and as the tone of writing reflects, is a warning of impending crisis. It was one of the first books to discuss the inherent conflict between growing human demands and finite resources. The most pressing concern at the time was food security. Given population and agricultural trends, it seemed likely that the world would soon be unable to feed itself.
His general thesis is that unfettered population growth is a critical driver of the world's social, environmental and economic challenges. It is a warning we would still do well to heed.
The Population Bomb, as its title suggests and as the tone of writing reflects, is a warning of impending crisis. It was one of the first books to discuss the inherent conflict between growing human demands and finite resources. The most pressing concern at the time was food security. Given population and agricultural trends, it seemed likely that the world would soon be unable to feed itself.
His general thesis is that unfettered population growth is a critical driver of the world's social, environmental and economic challenges. It is a warning we would still do well to heed.
January 26, 2018
The voice of a prophet crying in the wilderness. Half a century later, people are still sleepwalking in denial. The elephant is still in the parlor and still no one wants to see it, or talk about it! This was a very important book. You can argue with his timeline, but the fact is that the earth has added a billion people in the last twelve years! That will have consequences, and they will not be pretty!
January 20, 2021
Terrible take. Starts with a completely racist anecdote of the author traveling in India and arriving to some emotional truth that there are too many people on the earth due to being surrounded by Indian people in the city. Erlich fanatically promotes immediate governmental population control of mostly global South women. He relies on fascist population control rhetoric. He condemns medical research devoted to extending life because he thinks people should die sooner to even out the population levels if birth rates aren’t immediately and forcibly slashed. Beloved by white supremacist eco-fascists. He has been proven fantastically wrong. Wish this book could be struck from the historical record. It sucks.
September 20, 2020
It is a simple premise - rapidly expanding population, and fixed amount of land to grow food.
Ehrlich was predicting, in the 70's, hundreds of millions of people dying off. Wars, famines, economic collapse. (sounds familiar, climate alarmists today???)
"massive famines will occur, possibly in the 1970s, certainly by the early 1980s."
Erlich was proposing that only the USA could produce enough surplus to provide food aid, and that this should be withheld from countries that do not reduce their populations. He is 'astounded' at "Americans who are horrified at the prospect of our government insisting on population control as the price of food aid" even though, he says, "the operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions".
Mandatory vasectomies, compulsory birth regulation, doing without cars, living with insect damage, and "to slaughter our dogs and cats in order to divert pet food protein to the starving masses in Asia"
The worst of it is, he makes a half convincing case. Except that it never happened. Population doubled since this book came out, and yet the wars, famines and disease did not occur. India, which he mentioned several times, moved from a population of 450m to 1.4b, but is now a net food exporter, and is 'greening' visibly.
Ehrlich was not only wrong, but totally, utterly wrong. Unbelievably though, he is still spouting this nonsense - he believes he was just a few decades off the mark.
This is good lesson for alarmists. The Ozone hole, peak oil, Y2K ... seems human society has a relentless appetite for "THE END IS NIGH" sandwich boards.
Try reading "The Bet" by Paul Sabin.
Ehrlich was predicting, in the 70's, hundreds of millions of people dying off. Wars, famines, economic collapse. (sounds familiar, climate alarmists today???)
"massive famines will occur, possibly in the 1970s, certainly by the early 1980s."
Erlich was proposing that only the USA could produce enough surplus to provide food aid, and that this should be withheld from countries that do not reduce their populations. He is 'astounded' at "Americans who are horrified at the prospect of our government insisting on population control as the price of food aid" even though, he says, "the operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions".
Mandatory vasectomies, compulsory birth regulation, doing without cars, living with insect damage, and "to slaughter our dogs and cats in order to divert pet food protein to the starving masses in Asia"
The worst of it is, he makes a half convincing case. Except that it never happened. Population doubled since this book came out, and yet the wars, famines and disease did not occur. India, which he mentioned several times, moved from a population of 450m to 1.4b, but is now a net food exporter, and is 'greening' visibly.
Ehrlich was not only wrong, but totally, utterly wrong. Unbelievably though, he is still spouting this nonsense - he believes he was just a few decades off the mark.
This is good lesson for alarmists. The Ozone hole, peak oil, Y2K ... seems human society has a relentless appetite for "THE END IS NIGH" sandwich boards.
Try reading "The Bet" by Paul Sabin.
December 18, 2015
Some things should be required in order to graduate high school and being allowed to procreate. A course in LOGIC, even if it's just pass/fail, and reading this or a similar book. Humans are delusional and refuse to accept the earth and it's resources are finite. We need a serious wake up call, as there are ALREADY too many people on this planet, as the extinction of other species has proven. We are now a cancer on the planet.
November 20, 2017
I gather the Population Bomb was quite a sensation when it came out in the late 1960s, and suggesting that mass worldwide starvation was inevitable in the coming decade or so. Obviously, the doom and gloom it predicted never came to pass, and it's not even in print any longer. It's cultural moment seems to have passed. It's an interesting read, but not for the reasons Ehrlich originally intended.
The tone of the book is...strident, I guess is the word I want. Ehrlich believed that the upper bounds of the human population carrying capacity of the earth were being breached, and the only possible result was a big upsurge in human misery in the years to come. The population of the planet has more than doubled since that time, and though there is no shortage of human misery, the catastrophe has not come to pass. In part, that's because of improvements in agricultural technology, helping us grow more and more food. In part, it's because Ehrlich has some weird ideas about resource allocation and development.
Part of my interest in this book stems from seemingly difficult to dispute, but nonetheless controversial, opinion that there are limits to the earth's resources and at some point human society will need to reckon with those limits. It would be interesting to read a thoughtful discussion of this theme, but the Population Bomb is not that. It is full of assertions and recriminations, but short on nuance. Ehrlich has the idea somehow that any increase in population will continue to deplete all human institutions. And it's true that more people need more goods and services. But it's also true that more people can produce more goods and services. For instance, more people require more doctors; yet, when there are more people, more of them will become doctors. This is hardly an insoluble predicament.
Also, of note is the very low quality of the discussion of developed vs. undeveloped nations, and the nearly unreadable callousness which Ehrlich discusses how he believes the U.S. should abandon various countries to mass starvation. Even in the most abstract sense, there is no blueprint here for how we might go about addressing overpopulation in a humane manner.
Now, even taking into account ever improving technology, there is some finite amount of people that the earth will be capable of supporting. What a realistic guess as to that number may be, I have no idea. The Population Bomb is of little use in figuring it out.
The tone of the book is...strident, I guess is the word I want. Ehrlich believed that the upper bounds of the human population carrying capacity of the earth were being breached, and the only possible result was a big upsurge in human misery in the years to come. The population of the planet has more than doubled since that time, and though there is no shortage of human misery, the catastrophe has not come to pass. In part, that's because of improvements in agricultural technology, helping us grow more and more food. In part, it's because Ehrlich has some weird ideas about resource allocation and development.
Part of my interest in this book stems from seemingly difficult to dispute, but nonetheless controversial, opinion that there are limits to the earth's resources and at some point human society will need to reckon with those limits. It would be interesting to read a thoughtful discussion of this theme, but the Population Bomb is not that. It is full of assertions and recriminations, but short on nuance. Ehrlich has the idea somehow that any increase in population will continue to deplete all human institutions. And it's true that more people need more goods and services. But it's also true that more people can produce more goods and services. For instance, more people require more doctors; yet, when there are more people, more of them will become doctors. This is hardly an insoluble predicament.
Also, of note is the very low quality of the discussion of developed vs. undeveloped nations, and the nearly unreadable callousness which Ehrlich discusses how he believes the U.S. should abandon various countries to mass starvation. Even in the most abstract sense, there is no blueprint here for how we might go about addressing overpopulation in a humane manner.
Now, even taking into account ever improving technology, there is some finite amount of people that the earth will be capable of supporting. What a realistic guess as to that number may be, I have no idea. The Population Bomb is of little use in figuring it out.
June 13, 2019
Beware reading this book, it will leave you angry! This author saw many of our current problems and issues that we are experiencing daily back in the sixties, but no one wanted to listen. Or change. From the droughts and deaths from starvation in the early 80's to today's climate issues are openly discussed and a corrective plan of action is suggested. But it is a taboo suggestion - limiting the number of children people have. There are those who will quote scripture to defend their right to have a dozen or more children - in today's modern society no one needs that many children to help on the farm or to worry that they will not reach adulthood because of disease. Those same scriptures also discuss how we must be good stewards of this world and all that is in it, and right now we are not being good stewards. I want my children to read this book so they don't fall into the same trap as my generation has.
February 27, 2015
Like many of my generation, I grew up expecting nuclear war or accident, to which fears were added those of civil collapse and environmental destruction during high school. Unlike some, I sought out information about these eventualities rather than trying not to think about them and became politically active early on as a quixotic gesture in defiance of what appeared increasingly inevitable. In this context, my dad's copy of Ehrlich's Population Bomb was just more grist for the mill, a little light reading during Christmas break from college.
I had not expected the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the effect of the Chinese two-child policy or ever getting to be as old as I am now. While grateful, the extra years have not made me more hopeful except in the trivial sense that I may not live to see the collapse personally.
I had not expected the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, the effect of the Chinese two-child policy or ever getting to be as old as I am now. While grateful, the extra years have not made me more hopeful except in the trivial sense that I may not live to see the collapse personally.
May 15, 2012
Well the worst of his predictions failed to come true. Though the ideas were valid ones, the jury is still out on whether or not he was right in raising the alarm, time will tell...
October 15, 2014
I recommend this book very highly even though I am actually quite critical of it. It is by a biologist with no acknowledgements in what, in some parts, are clearly international-relations analyses. Furthermore, as a mathematician-turned-political scientist, I find the methodology highly suspect. There is no recognition of the fact that food problems are largely problems of distribution; for a social science text it is void of any cogent analysis of social and political or cultural factors; it takes an approach that assumes food is a stationary resource and that there are no other mitigating factors; and it fails to recognize that technology is not static. There is none of the prefatory material or clearly-marked method we would expect in a controversial book today; it is clearly meant to alarm the lay reader. It seems very pessimistic and agenda-driven. Whereas, if you look at more current controversial material such as War Against the Weak, the author takes pains to document his research and has clear thesis statements up front. "Population Bomb" is an evolutionary step, it seems, in scientific communications.
It is not stated what exactly qualifies Ehrlich to combine analyses from disparate fields or ignore research in those fields (such as eugenics, policy analysis, and industrial-agricultural fields), and there is no hint given as to the help he received from other scientists in reaching his conclusions.
I recommend it for the reason that this book influenced the shift to social engineering started by Zhou Enlai in 1974, that turned into China's "1-Child" policy under Deng in 1982.
China saw overpopulation as a threat to economic growth and hence to achieving communism, even though prior to 1974, there had been a massive drop in the growth rate--the contradiction of the Great Leap was two mini-baby booms as a result of Mao's pro-natalist policies, which were enforced by the Anti-Rightist campaigns. After Mao took the 2nd Line, Zhou turned the problem over to missile scientists in the space program. They looked at the problem through the same filter that Robert McNamara looked through at Vietnam--all numbers and quantitative analysis. This led to a "failure of imagination," as there were two big arguments against 1-Child: the drop in growth before 1974, and the fact that every other Asian state dealing with the same problem used alternatives, such as education and outreach, and managed their population growth as well or better without forced abortions and social engineering. China engaged in a 30-year campaign of persistence in cruelty and error--another word for this is "evil."
This book was a major influence on those men.
It is important to see what the Chinese advisers were looking at, and it is an object lesson in "failure of imagination." While I think the overall effect is mildly off-putting (Ehrlich defines the word "Scenario" before positing some scenarios), I think the information Erlich conveys about DDT is very important; he explains the concept of evolution quite clearly, increasing the explanatory power of the reader. Also, the scenarios themselves are compelling, and give the reader a sense of what might have made the Chinese readers perk up their ears.
This book is obviously important, and illuminates the thought of scientists at a point in history that saw the beginnings of environmentalism and global warming theory, as well as the Cultural Revolution.
It is not stated what exactly qualifies Ehrlich to combine analyses from disparate fields or ignore research in those fields (such as eugenics, policy analysis, and industrial-agricultural fields), and there is no hint given as to the help he received from other scientists in reaching his conclusions.
I recommend it for the reason that this book influenced the shift to social engineering started by Zhou Enlai in 1974, that turned into China's "1-Child" policy under Deng in 1982.
China saw overpopulation as a threat to economic growth and hence to achieving communism, even though prior to 1974, there had been a massive drop in the growth rate--the contradiction of the Great Leap was two mini-baby booms as a result of Mao's pro-natalist policies, which were enforced by the Anti-Rightist campaigns. After Mao took the 2nd Line, Zhou turned the problem over to missile scientists in the space program. They looked at the problem through the same filter that Robert McNamara looked through at Vietnam--all numbers and quantitative analysis. This led to a "failure of imagination," as there were two big arguments against 1-Child: the drop in growth before 1974, and the fact that every other Asian state dealing with the same problem used alternatives, such as education and outreach, and managed their population growth as well or better without forced abortions and social engineering. China engaged in a 30-year campaign of persistence in cruelty and error--another word for this is "evil."
This book was a major influence on those men.
It is important to see what the Chinese advisers were looking at, and it is an object lesson in "failure of imagination." While I think the overall effect is mildly off-putting (Ehrlich defines the word "Scenario" before positing some scenarios), I think the information Erlich conveys about DDT is very important; he explains the concept of evolution quite clearly, increasing the explanatory power of the reader. Also, the scenarios themselves are compelling, and give the reader a sense of what might have made the Chinese readers perk up their ears.
This book is obviously important, and illuminates the thought of scientists at a point in history that saw the beginnings of environmentalism and global warming theory, as well as the Cultural Revolution.
June 20, 2010
i finally got around to reading paul ehrlich's pivotal book on population and i'm glad i read it. more than expected, it's a little more doom and gloom, but i think that's my perception mostly based around his predictions for the state of the world by 1970 and the apocalyptic ink drawings. they are so simple, but stark and depressing.
overall, i agree that his message is spot on and the highlights from the book include some of his proposed solutions. some of them are simple and others innovative. he even proposes some socially unacceptable answers to overpopulation, which makes some of his more conservative fixes even more appealing to the general public (not just extremely progressive folks like me!)
overall, it's an incredible piece of work and outlined so nicely - perhaps all non-fiction books should have similar types of organization since i found it very effective (the problem, why you should care, what could happen, what you can do, the future...) eventually, i'll need to pick up one of his more current works to see how far he's come in fifty years, which i'm sure will blow me away!
overall, i agree that his message is spot on and the highlights from the book include some of his proposed solutions. some of them are simple and others innovative. he even proposes some socially unacceptable answers to overpopulation, which makes some of his more conservative fixes even more appealing to the general public (not just extremely progressive folks like me!)
overall, it's an incredible piece of work and outlined so nicely - perhaps all non-fiction books should have similar types of organization since i found it very effective (the problem, why you should care, what could happen, what you can do, the future...) eventually, i'll need to pick up one of his more current works to see how far he's come in fifty years, which i'm sure will blow me away!
October 21, 2024
Mathusian depopulation nonsense. Us pesky mouthbreathers must be shrunk to 1 billion for sustainability. Socially unacceptable methods like potentially adding sterilants to drinking water are proposed. This type of ideaology would under normal circumstance have you on a watch list but instead the world as it is treats Erhlich as a misunderstood 'visionary'.
This author's NGO still exists today lobbying for depopulation growth & the UN 'sustainable development goals'.
This author's NGO still exists today lobbying for depopulation growth & the UN 'sustainable development goals'.
February 19, 2023
Read this just to critically analyse the stupidity
November 16, 2023
racist and also failed to accurately make any predictions.
September 5, 2025
So you are telling me we are living in the dark timeline right now because we didn’t sterilize all of India. Okay buddy. Pure dribble that is saved from the 1 star by dedicating half the book to making somewhat decent environmentalist points.
January 14, 2024
Scary book to a impressionable mind. Predictably the future was not
Accurately predicted in the book.
Accurately predicted in the book.
June 1, 2024
Good for a laugh. But, if you'd like to save yourself some time, read a short article on the Simon-Ehrlich wager.
August 18, 2025
thought provoking but he does miss the mark with some of his predictions/arguments
June 25, 2026
Before citing this book in another review, I thought it worthwhile after a half century to reread it. This review takes into consideration what has become of Ehrlich’s predictions fifty six years later.
Ehrlich’s cover claims “Overpopulation is now the dominant problem in our personal, national, and international planning. No one can do rational personal planning, nor can public policy be resolved in any area, unless one first takes into account the population bomb. Schools, politicians, and mass media only touch the edge of the major problem.”
The first sentences in the prolog have an air of utter certainty: “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. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to “stretch” the carrying capacity of earth by increasing food production and providing for more equitable distribution of whatever food is available.
The book, published in 1968, says that the doubling time for population is about 35 years. The world population stood at about 3 1/2 billion. By 2026 it should have reached 11 billion by his arithmetic. Instead, it is only 8.3 billion. The fertility rate has dropped dramatically, especially in this new century
Table of contents.
Chapter one: the problem
___Too many people.
___Two little food.
___A dying planet.
Chapter two. The ends of the road.
___Scenario one
___Scenario two
___Scenario three
Chapter three. What is being done.
___Family planning and other failures.
___Multiplying baked bread.
___Protecting our environment.
Chapter four. What needs to be done.
___Getting our house in order.
___Realism and international aid.
___The chances of success.
Chapter five what can you do
___Join his EPG – zero population growth.
___Write letters
___Organize action groups.
___Positive reinforcement
___Proselytize friends and associates.
Chapter six. What if I'm wrong?
Ehrlich wrote that the population doubling time in the underdeveloped countries ranged from 20 to 35 years: Kenya 23, Nigeria 27, Turkey 26, Brazil 25, Costa Rica 19 ,and El Salvador. 21. All of these have fallen dramatically. Had they not it would have been a problem. But even at the time Ehrlich could have determined that the rise was mostly a one-time phenomenon, brought on by better health through increased sanitation and western medicines. Once people observed that fewer children died, fertility would drop within a generation or so.
Ehrlich’s first claim, too many people, proved to be exaggerated, but not wrong in its direction.
His second claim was “At least half the people in the world are now undernourished (have too little food) or malnourished (have serious imbalances in their diet).
“In 1966, only 10 countries grew more than they consumed: United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, France, New Zealand, Burma, Thailand, Romania and South Africa. The United States, Canada and Australia contributed most of the balance. All other countries including China, India and Russia imported more than exported.”
The prospect of famine was simply not true and Ehrlich should have known it. Prominent economist Julian Simon placed a series of five bets with Ehrlich about future availability of food, water and other resources. Simon, with a clearer view of the future, was to win all five bets. The world is not short of food or raw materials. For the most part. Gold and silver deposits have been exploited for centuries. New finds are fewer and scarcer.
What happened was a considerable revolution, largely in international trade. The great food exporting countries became more and more productive. They had a lot of land and increasing used crops with higher yields. They tapped aquifers. They put somewhat more acreage under cultivation.
The Americas are underpopulated, having only about a seventh of the world’s population. They have adequate land area. They have recently become more productive. The problems were and are political, as in Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina, where government policy depressed productivity.
Underdeveloped countries benefited from green technologies. Some like Brazil, the Philippines and Ukraine became major food exporters. It was mostly the small, rich countries that could afford imports, and chronically misgoverned countries such as the Soviet Union, Cuba and various parts of Africa that did not become self-sustaining. Ehrlich wrote that the green revolution could at best buy only a decade or two. He was wrong.
Ehrlich named obesity as a first-world problem. It now affects the undeveloped worl as well.
Chapters two through four, the heart of the book, go not go to directly to his point about overpopulation, but focus on other environmental and social issues
Chapter 2 consists of three disaster scenarios: nuclear destruction, deadly diseases, civil unrest and the like. They are presented as fiction, with no claims as to their likelihood, stirring up fear and discontent.
Chapter 3, entitled “A dying planet,” points out the problems of salinization, dehydration, and desertification, then continues with a long piece to the effect that pesticides are killing us, and that they become ineffective due to growing resistance. This is Rachel Carson’s theme in Silent Spring, another best-seller of the late 1960s.
Ehrlich contends that monocultures are a problem. Soil erosion is a problem. Synthetic pesticides are a problem. Big agriculture is locking farmers into patented seeds, chemical fertilizers and pest control. These chronic problems remain, unsolved but not dramatically worse, after fifty-five years.
He is flat wrong to claim that “We are also depleting the world supply of oxygen by burning (oxidizing) vast quantities of fossil fuels and by clearing iron rich tropical soils in which the iron is then oxidized.” Just the opposite. Plants release oxygen as they metabolize the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. It is quite elementary. We will not run out of oxygen.
At the time of his writing, California and the United States had gotten the lead out of gasoline. Los Angeles and London were still smoggy but improving fast. Ehrlich dwells on the mercury in industrial processes on pesticides. He does not mention it in vaccines, the one place where it remained a big danger.
He could not fail to mention the threat of species extinctions. The ones on the brink then, such as California condors and black rhinos, remain on the brink a half-century later. There is no sixth great extinction.
Chapter 3, “What is Being Done” laments the ineffectiveness of birth control, lambasting the Catholic Church. What he failed to consider is the phenomenal success of synthetic hormone birth control which had come into widespread use in the prior decade.
He wrote that “The story is depressingly the same everywhere. – People want large families. They want families of a size that will keep the population growing. If each couple had an average of just over two children (to replace themselves, with slight allowances for child mortality), population growth would eventually stop after about two generations, and the population would stabilize.”
That is exactly what happened, as birth control became widely used. He lamented that forcing birth control by means such as vasectomies, tubal ligation and such was impossible. Wrong. China, in 1979, perhaps in response to Ehrlich, did implement the one child policy, which remained in effect until 2015. Bill Gates surreptitiously sterilized Kenyan women via polio vaccines.
In Chapter four Ehrlich credited Korea, Taiwan, and Japan with cutting their birthrates. Now, of course, all of them are facing an economic and demographic disaster as the birthrates of plummeted far below replacement level.
Ehrlich credits Rockefeller with the initiating a program to limit population growth in America. Rockefeller was involved in Planned Parenthood. He also credits AID – that’s on the for International Development ,with planning with family planning assistance budget increasing from 9 million to 100 million in 1971. He does not mention that USAID was a major advocate of Gay Pride and other elements of the anti-natal homosexual agenda.
The table of contents for Chapter five gives his recommendations. First, Ehrlich refers to his own new organization – Zero Population Growth or ZPG, whose mission is to educate the public and politicians to the necessity of stopping population growth. The organization was founded in 1968 by himself, Richard Bowers, and Charles Remington. Next, he advocates being an advocate: Write letters, organize action groups, proselytize friends and associates.
Ehrlich titles his final, short Chapter 6, “What if I’m wrong?“ He does no more than refer to Pascal’s wager about belief in God. If God exists, I had better believe. If he does not, I have lost nothing. The consequences of being wrong have been vast. In giving up the family, we are losing our culture, the bedrock of our religious belief, and the generations of unborn taxpayers who would have paid our pensions.
The Population Bomb sold 3 million copies. Other books have also been vastly influential as well as vastly wrong.,Sex and the Single Girl, which certainly supported Ehrlich’s cause, sold two million copies and turned a generation of women away from thoughts of family. The best-selling academic works had similar effects. The two Kinsey reports, in the late 1940s, also argued that sex was for recreation more than procreation. An American Dilemma, an academic paper written by two naïve, idealistic Swedes in the late 40s, sold over 100,000 and greatly influenced civil rights legislation.
Ehrlich made a good career for himself, defining a supposed problem and promoting himself as the guy with its solution. It is up to our generation to unravel the mess.
Ehrlich’s cover claims “Overpopulation is now the dominant problem in our personal, national, and international planning. No one can do rational personal planning, nor can public policy be resolved in any area, unless one first takes into account the population bomb. Schools, politicians, and mass media only touch the edge of the major problem.”
The first sentences in the prolog have an air of utter certainty: “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. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to “stretch” the carrying capacity of earth by increasing food production and providing for more equitable distribution of whatever food is available.
The book, published in 1968, says that the doubling time for population is about 35 years. The world population stood at about 3 1/2 billion. By 2026 it should have reached 11 billion by his arithmetic. Instead, it is only 8.3 billion. The fertility rate has dropped dramatically, especially in this new century
Table of contents.
Chapter one: the problem
___Too many people.
___Two little food.
___A dying planet.
Chapter two. The ends of the road.
___Scenario one
___Scenario two
___Scenario three
Chapter three. What is being done.
___Family planning and other failures.
___Multiplying baked bread.
___Protecting our environment.
Chapter four. What needs to be done.
___Getting our house in order.
___Realism and international aid.
___The chances of success.
Chapter five what can you do
___Join his EPG – zero population growth.
___Write letters
___Organize action groups.
___Positive reinforcement
___Proselytize friends and associates.
Chapter six. What if I'm wrong?
Ehrlich wrote that the population doubling time in the underdeveloped countries ranged from 20 to 35 years: Kenya 23, Nigeria 27, Turkey 26, Brazil 25, Costa Rica 19 ,and El Salvador. 21. All of these have fallen dramatically. Had they not it would have been a problem. But even at the time Ehrlich could have determined that the rise was mostly a one-time phenomenon, brought on by better health through increased sanitation and western medicines. Once people observed that fewer children died, fertility would drop within a generation or so.
Ehrlich’s first claim, too many people, proved to be exaggerated, but not wrong in its direction.
His second claim was “At least half the people in the world are now undernourished (have too little food) or malnourished (have serious imbalances in their diet).
“In 1966, only 10 countries grew more than they consumed: United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, France, New Zealand, Burma, Thailand, Romania and South Africa. The United States, Canada and Australia contributed most of the balance. All other countries including China, India and Russia imported more than exported.”
The prospect of famine was simply not true and Ehrlich should have known it. Prominent economist Julian Simon placed a series of five bets with Ehrlich about future availability of food, water and other resources. Simon, with a clearer view of the future, was to win all five bets. The world is not short of food or raw materials. For the most part. Gold and silver deposits have been exploited for centuries. New finds are fewer and scarcer.
What happened was a considerable revolution, largely in international trade. The great food exporting countries became more and more productive. They had a lot of land and increasing used crops with higher yields. They tapped aquifers. They put somewhat more acreage under cultivation.
The Americas are underpopulated, having only about a seventh of the world’s population. They have adequate land area. They have recently become more productive. The problems were and are political, as in Cuba, Venezuela and Argentina, where government policy depressed productivity.
Underdeveloped countries benefited from green technologies. Some like Brazil, the Philippines and Ukraine became major food exporters. It was mostly the small, rich countries that could afford imports, and chronically misgoverned countries such as the Soviet Union, Cuba and various parts of Africa that did not become self-sustaining. Ehrlich wrote that the green revolution could at best buy only a decade or two. He was wrong.
Ehrlich named obesity as a first-world problem. It now affects the undeveloped worl as well.
Chapters two through four, the heart of the book, go not go to directly to his point about overpopulation, but focus on other environmental and social issues
Chapter 2 consists of three disaster scenarios: nuclear destruction, deadly diseases, civil unrest and the like. They are presented as fiction, with no claims as to their likelihood, stirring up fear and discontent.
Chapter 3, entitled “A dying planet,” points out the problems of salinization, dehydration, and desertification, then continues with a long piece to the effect that pesticides are killing us, and that they become ineffective due to growing resistance. This is Rachel Carson’s theme in Silent Spring, another best-seller of the late 1960s.
Ehrlich contends that monocultures are a problem. Soil erosion is a problem. Synthetic pesticides are a problem. Big agriculture is locking farmers into patented seeds, chemical fertilizers and pest control. These chronic problems remain, unsolved but not dramatically worse, after fifty-five years.
He is flat wrong to claim that “We are also depleting the world supply of oxygen by burning (oxidizing) vast quantities of fossil fuels and by clearing iron rich tropical soils in which the iron is then oxidized.” Just the opposite. Plants release oxygen as they metabolize the carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. It is quite elementary. We will not run out of oxygen.
At the time of his writing, California and the United States had gotten the lead out of gasoline. Los Angeles and London were still smoggy but improving fast. Ehrlich dwells on the mercury in industrial processes on pesticides. He does not mention it in vaccines, the one place where it remained a big danger.
He could not fail to mention the threat of species extinctions. The ones on the brink then, such as California condors and black rhinos, remain on the brink a half-century later. There is no sixth great extinction.
Chapter 3, “What is Being Done” laments the ineffectiveness of birth control, lambasting the Catholic Church. What he failed to consider is the phenomenal success of synthetic hormone birth control which had come into widespread use in the prior decade.
He wrote that “The story is depressingly the same everywhere. – People want large families. They want families of a size that will keep the population growing. If each couple had an average of just over two children (to replace themselves, with slight allowances for child mortality), population growth would eventually stop after about two generations, and the population would stabilize.”
That is exactly what happened, as birth control became widely used. He lamented that forcing birth control by means such as vasectomies, tubal ligation and such was impossible. Wrong. China, in 1979, perhaps in response to Ehrlich, did implement the one child policy, which remained in effect until 2015. Bill Gates surreptitiously sterilized Kenyan women via polio vaccines.
In Chapter four Ehrlich credited Korea, Taiwan, and Japan with cutting their birthrates. Now, of course, all of them are facing an economic and demographic disaster as the birthrates of plummeted far below replacement level.
Ehrlich credits Rockefeller with the initiating a program to limit population growth in America. Rockefeller was involved in Planned Parenthood. He also credits AID – that’s on the for International Development ,with planning with family planning assistance budget increasing from 9 million to 100 million in 1971. He does not mention that USAID was a major advocate of Gay Pride and other elements of the anti-natal homosexual agenda.
The table of contents for Chapter five gives his recommendations. First, Ehrlich refers to his own new organization – Zero Population Growth or ZPG, whose mission is to educate the public and politicians to the necessity of stopping population growth. The organization was founded in 1968 by himself, Richard Bowers, and Charles Remington. Next, he advocates being an advocate: Write letters, organize action groups, proselytize friends and associates.
Ehrlich titles his final, short Chapter 6, “What if I’m wrong?“ He does no more than refer to Pascal’s wager about belief in God. If God exists, I had better believe. If he does not, I have lost nothing. The consequences of being wrong have been vast. In giving up the family, we are losing our culture, the bedrock of our religious belief, and the generations of unborn taxpayers who would have paid our pensions.
The Population Bomb sold 3 million copies. Other books have also been vastly influential as well as vastly wrong.,Sex and the Single Girl, which certainly supported Ehrlich’s cause, sold two million copies and turned a generation of women away from thoughts of family. The best-selling academic works had similar effects. The two Kinsey reports, in the late 1940s, also argued that sex was for recreation more than procreation. An American Dilemma, an academic paper written by two naïve, idealistic Swedes in the late 40s, sold over 100,000 and greatly influenced civil rights legislation.
Ehrlich made a good career for himself, defining a supposed problem and promoting himself as the guy with its solution. It is up to our generation to unravel the mess.
August 23, 2023
There's a lot to agree with in this book, however the overarching misguided idea around population control of specific groups of people, instead of curtailing the consumption of others is a rather outdated approach to environmentalism. Some of the anecdotal experiences that are supposed to reinforce a demonstration of need for control are sadly misinterpreted versions of history (suffering of people in a post war India vs too many people, urban concentration vs suburban sprall).
What's really dangerous is that this book is still in the zeitgeist of both lay and academic minds. People like David Attenborough even still pedal this shit.
What's really dangerous is that this book is still in the zeitgeist of both lay and academic minds. People like David Attenborough even still pedal this shit.
June 23, 2026
The Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich died a couple of months ago at the age of 93. Best known for his work on human overpopulation, the media has posthumously attacked him, primarily arguing against his Malthusian message.
He published his influential book The Population Bomb in 1968 and was under no illusions about the task at hand. Despite this, he tries to show some optimism as regards the American and global predicament.
"Let's make the unlikely assumption that this country will turn aside from its suicidal course and start a sensible domestic program of population and environmental control."
It has been fashionable to bash the two original Cassandras of overpopulation doom, Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich. Malthus was a cleric who registered more births than deaths in his parish. In his 1978 essay, he postulated that as soon as the poor have more money, they have more children and thereby become poorer. We grow geometrically, whereas food production doesn't. Therefore, he put a large emphasis on population.
Ehrlich, meanwhile, played a key part in triggering movements such as Zero Population Growth and the "one and done" and "stop at two" mantras. Activists such as Les U Knight and his Voluntary Human Extinction Movement would eventually follow. The UK Green Party was formed on an understanding of Ehrlich's book and the Limits to Growth study, initially going by the Ecology and People parties. Now, that party, infused with left-wing ideology, has done away with its population policy. Their candidate on Question Time recently professed that she was shocked to hear population growth (via immigration) linked to an increased need for housing.
Ehrlich was constantly haunted by his predictions of collapse; however, predictions of scarcity that were delayed only by the work on food production of Norman Borlaug and "The Green Revolution." In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Borlaug warned that short-term measures such as nitrogen capture and pesticides only offered a sticking plaster compared to the monster of overpopulation.
This message has largely been ignored by ecologically illiterate economists and Guardian journalist George Monbiot, who continued to belittle Ehrlich, even in obituaries. In practice, the can has been kicked further down the road, maintaining our numbers at the expense of ecologically unsustainable practices such as fossil-fuel-based pesticide and fertiliser runoff polluting water sources and adding to the climate change predicament. i.e., utilising everything that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring warned us against.
Ehrlich's writing has been quite diverse; he even wrote a book on the topic of our waning jaw strength. The Population Bomb has some bizarre sci-fi writing in a section full of hypothetical stories; perhaps he was a frustrated fiction writer, too. He makes a fair point regarding the idea of Spaceship Earth and our prospects of peopling other planets.
"Interstellar transport for surplus people presents an amusing perspective. Since the ships would take generations to reach most stars, the only people who could be transported would be those willing to exercise strict birth control. Population explosions on space ships would be disastrous. Thus we would have to export our responsible people, leaving the irresponsible at home on Earth to breed."
Stigmatised by both right-wing and left-wing politics, it is an unpopular position to take that there are "too many of us". There have been brave figures who continued to speak up regardless, though; notably the ecologists Dave Foreman and Garret Hardin in the USA and David Attenborough ("Human population density is a factor in every environmental problem I have ever encountered, from urban sprawl to urban overcrowding; disappearing tropical forests to ugly sinks of plastic waste, and now the relentless increase of atmospheric pollution") and Chris Packham in the UK. Both men have made documentaries on the topic.
Charities such as Overpopulation Connection and World Population Balance continue to speak out, but sadly, even Population Matters in the UK managed to be critical of their patron, Paul Ehrlich, in his obituary. Population Counts, meanwhile, remained unbowed and unapologetic.
There have been other excellent films, such as Greenwashed, GrowthBusters, The Planet of the Humans, and Karen Shragg warned us in her overpopulation book to "move upstream" for the driver of all downstream issues. Stephen Emmott, head of Microsoft's Computational Science Lab in Cambridge, released a book and a film by the titles of Ten Billion, in which he speaks of humanity reaching that number and what it will mean via a statistical slideshow.
Ehrlich coined the IPAT formula, which simply stated that impact = population multiplied by affluence and technology. All of us can understand that, all other things being equal 10,000 people will consume more than a hundred. Also, if we managed the miracle of cutting every individual's consumption by 10%, it would immediately be negated by a 10% rise in human numbers. Initially, his message was understood by an ecologically literate public with regular TV appearances with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Literature and movies followed the initial zeitgeist with books like Make Room Make Room and its Charlton Heston movie, Soylent Green.
The population was 3.5 billion in 1968 and has now more than doubled at 8.2 billion and rising. So why has there been a downturn from this overpopulation golden age of the 60s and 70s? Primarily, so we can live free of any inconvenient warnings, maintaining the status quo. Pollyannas believe we can ride it out with techno-fixes, the left-wing claim there are only too many rich elites (Yet who do they sell their goods to?), the right-wing claim there are too many third-worlders with high birthrates, and we also have the 'underpopulation bogeyman' suggested by Elon Musk and co.
We continue to add more than 200,000 new humans (after deaths) to the planet daily. Despite some birth rates gradually coming down, the Islamic world and Africans still generally reproduce well above replacement levels. Indeed, Africa is set to double in numbers by 2070. This has grave implications for current and future migration routes into high-consuming Western nations. While consumption may be lower in third-world nations, the people still tax local biodiversity hugely; trees are cut down for housing and fuel, and to make room for agriculture. Wild animals are killed for food, etc.
In dense populations, we can see problems with traffic jams, over-utilised schools, health, and sewer systems, a lack of clean water, etc. In growing populations, each individual counts for less, and you get less democratic representation from your politician. This led sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov to declare that "human dignity cannot survive overpopulation."
Unlike other animals, we don't have a limited breeding season and can reproduce at all times of the year. Couple this with decreased infant mortality and increased life expectancies, and you begin to see why Great-grandparents are living side by side with all their many descendants, all simultaneously making impacts. Our species is still hard-wired to register immediate threats, such as a cave bear leaping out at us, rather than long-term planning and battling troubling trends.
So, what did Paul Ehrlich recommend we do in 1968? He suggested activism; that we join Zero Population Growth, write letters to the media and politicians, and generally educate others on this topic. We should praise the good (e.g. instating the two-child tax credit cap) and criticise the bad (e.g. removing the cap). He believed providing contraceptive provision would be ineffective until enough attitudes were changed so that people came to demand it.
Here we are nearly 60 years later, and what is the current state of play? The central argument was clearly won by Ehrlich. We are in an ever-worsening climate crisis, The Doomsday Clock is moved ever closer to midnight, we go into ecological overshoot at an earlier time every year, and we are driving what many are calling the Seventh Great Extinction Event. This time, in the Anthropocene, we are the meteor. As regards mammal biomass on Earth, humans constitute 37%, domesticated animals are 61%, and this leaves only 2% as wild animals.
Ultimately, Paul Ehrlich didn't expect much from his fellow man. Registering that only a small number are likely to even care.
"The population consists of two groups: a comparatively small one dedicated to the preservation of beauty and wildlife, and a vastly larger one dedicated to the destruction of both (or at least apathetic toward them). I am assuming that the first group is with me and that the second cannot be moved to action by an appeal to beauty, or a plea for mercy for what may well be our only living companions in a vast universe."
He published his influential book The Population Bomb in 1968 and was under no illusions about the task at hand. Despite this, he tries to show some optimism as regards the American and global predicament.
"Let's make the unlikely assumption that this country will turn aside from its suicidal course and start a sensible domestic program of population and environmental control."
It has been fashionable to bash the two original Cassandras of overpopulation doom, Thomas Malthus and Paul Ehrlich. Malthus was a cleric who registered more births than deaths in his parish. In his 1978 essay, he postulated that as soon as the poor have more money, they have more children and thereby become poorer. We grow geometrically, whereas food production doesn't. Therefore, he put a large emphasis on population.
Ehrlich, meanwhile, played a key part in triggering movements such as Zero Population Growth and the "one and done" and "stop at two" mantras. Activists such as Les U Knight and his Voluntary Human Extinction Movement would eventually follow. The UK Green Party was formed on an understanding of Ehrlich's book and the Limits to Growth study, initially going by the Ecology and People parties. Now, that party, infused with left-wing ideology, has done away with its population policy. Their candidate on Question Time recently professed that she was shocked to hear population growth (via immigration) linked to an increased need for housing.
Ehrlich was constantly haunted by his predictions of collapse; however, predictions of scarcity that were delayed only by the work on food production of Norman Borlaug and "The Green Revolution." In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Borlaug warned that short-term measures such as nitrogen capture and pesticides only offered a sticking plaster compared to the monster of overpopulation.
This message has largely been ignored by ecologically illiterate economists and Guardian journalist George Monbiot, who continued to belittle Ehrlich, even in obituaries. In practice, the can has been kicked further down the road, maintaining our numbers at the expense of ecologically unsustainable practices such as fossil-fuel-based pesticide and fertiliser runoff polluting water sources and adding to the climate change predicament. i.e., utilising everything that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring warned us against.
Ehrlich's writing has been quite diverse; he even wrote a book on the topic of our waning jaw strength. The Population Bomb has some bizarre sci-fi writing in a section full of hypothetical stories; perhaps he was a frustrated fiction writer, too. He makes a fair point regarding the idea of Spaceship Earth and our prospects of peopling other planets.
"Interstellar transport for surplus people presents an amusing perspective. Since the ships would take generations to reach most stars, the only people who could be transported would be those willing to exercise strict birth control. Population explosions on space ships would be disastrous. Thus we would have to export our responsible people, leaving the irresponsible at home on Earth to breed."
Stigmatised by both right-wing and left-wing politics, it is an unpopular position to take that there are "too many of us". There have been brave figures who continued to speak up regardless, though; notably the ecologists Dave Foreman and Garret Hardin in the USA and David Attenborough ("Human population density is a factor in every environmental problem I have ever encountered, from urban sprawl to urban overcrowding; disappearing tropical forests to ugly sinks of plastic waste, and now the relentless increase of atmospheric pollution") and Chris Packham in the UK. Both men have made documentaries on the topic.
Charities such as Overpopulation Connection and World Population Balance continue to speak out, but sadly, even Population Matters in the UK managed to be critical of their patron, Paul Ehrlich, in his obituary. Population Counts, meanwhile, remained unbowed and unapologetic.
There have been other excellent films, such as Greenwashed, GrowthBusters, The Planet of the Humans, and Karen Shragg warned us in her overpopulation book to "move upstream" for the driver of all downstream issues. Stephen Emmott, head of Microsoft's Computational Science Lab in Cambridge, released a book and a film by the titles of Ten Billion, in which he speaks of humanity reaching that number and what it will mean via a statistical slideshow.
Ehrlich coined the IPAT formula, which simply stated that impact = population multiplied by affluence and technology. All of us can understand that, all other things being equal 10,000 people will consume more than a hundred. Also, if we managed the miracle of cutting every individual's consumption by 10%, it would immediately be negated by a 10% rise in human numbers. Initially, his message was understood by an ecologically literate public with regular TV appearances with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. Literature and movies followed the initial zeitgeist with books like Make Room Make Room and its Charlton Heston movie, Soylent Green.
The population was 3.5 billion in 1968 and has now more than doubled at 8.2 billion and rising. So why has there been a downturn from this overpopulation golden age of the 60s and 70s? Primarily, so we can live free of any inconvenient warnings, maintaining the status quo. Pollyannas believe we can ride it out with techno-fixes, the left-wing claim there are only too many rich elites (Yet who do they sell their goods to?), the right-wing claim there are too many third-worlders with high birthrates, and we also have the 'underpopulation bogeyman' suggested by Elon Musk and co.
We continue to add more than 200,000 new humans (after deaths) to the planet daily. Despite some birth rates gradually coming down, the Islamic world and Africans still generally reproduce well above replacement levels. Indeed, Africa is set to double in numbers by 2070. This has grave implications for current and future migration routes into high-consuming Western nations. While consumption may be lower in third-world nations, the people still tax local biodiversity hugely; trees are cut down for housing and fuel, and to make room for agriculture. Wild animals are killed for food, etc.
In dense populations, we can see problems with traffic jams, over-utilised schools, health, and sewer systems, a lack of clean water, etc. In growing populations, each individual counts for less, and you get less democratic representation from your politician. This led sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov to declare that "human dignity cannot survive overpopulation."
Unlike other animals, we don't have a limited breeding season and can reproduce at all times of the year. Couple this with decreased infant mortality and increased life expectancies, and you begin to see why Great-grandparents are living side by side with all their many descendants, all simultaneously making impacts. Our species is still hard-wired to register immediate threats, such as a cave bear leaping out at us, rather than long-term planning and battling troubling trends.
So, what did Paul Ehrlich recommend we do in 1968? He suggested activism; that we join Zero Population Growth, write letters to the media and politicians, and generally educate others on this topic. We should praise the good (e.g. instating the two-child tax credit cap) and criticise the bad (e.g. removing the cap). He believed providing contraceptive provision would be ineffective until enough attitudes were changed so that people came to demand it.
Here we are nearly 60 years later, and what is the current state of play? The central argument was clearly won by Ehrlich. We are in an ever-worsening climate crisis, The Doomsday Clock is moved ever closer to midnight, we go into ecological overshoot at an earlier time every year, and we are driving what many are calling the Seventh Great Extinction Event. This time, in the Anthropocene, we are the meteor. As regards mammal biomass on Earth, humans constitute 37%, domesticated animals are 61%, and this leaves only 2% as wild animals.
Ultimately, Paul Ehrlich didn't expect much from his fellow man. Registering that only a small number are likely to even care.
"The population consists of two groups: a comparatively small one dedicated to the preservation of beauty and wildlife, and a vastly larger one dedicated to the destruction of both (or at least apathetic toward them). I am assuming that the first group is with me and that the second cannot be moved to action by an appeal to beauty, or a plea for mercy for what may well be our only living companions in a vast universe."
June 22, 2014
I read “The Population Bomb” when it was originally published. At the time I was a student of the agricultural sciences, and felt that Erlich had omitted and/or ignored many of the principles of food production. Still I felt that there were some credibility to his words. With an alarmist tone, Erlich foresaw a desperate future with mass starvation for millions or more by the next thirty years. He proposed solutions such as government imposed population control with the United States leading the way for the world to follow. Almost fifty years hence, the world population has increased tremendously. We do have famine and starvation but not to the extent Erlich foresaw. Yes, famine exists now as it did fifty, a hundred, a thousand, or even many more years ago. He predicted famine by extrapolating population and food production at the time without considering the other changes going on in the world we live in. Simply put, there so many variables in this world to consider before making a bold, dogmatic prediction on anything.
About the book. I am a numbers person, and I like to see charts and graphs when discussing any kind of numerical data, especially those involving population and its increase. Also, vitally lacking was a baseline starvation level expressed as a percent of the total world population. With this, future starvation levels could be compared to the original. Erlich did not mention (or highlight enough) other consequences of overpopulation. Therefore I see the work as incomplete and chicken little-like.
About the book. I am a numbers person, and I like to see charts and graphs when discussing any kind of numerical data, especially those involving population and its increase. Also, vitally lacking was a baseline starvation level expressed as a percent of the total world population. With this, future starvation levels could be compared to the original. Erlich did not mention (or highlight enough) other consequences of overpopulation. Therefore I see the work as incomplete and chicken little-like.
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