6 ms·

Isn't Paul Erlich the guy who, in 1968, predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s due to overpopulation?

by jayess 9y ago

agentultra 9y ago
Yes. Turns out the "population bomb" didn't occur as he had predicted. I don't think that rules out the possibility of the effect human populations are having on our ecological resources. The current global demand for beef has led to massive deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest in order to plant soy crops... just to feed cows. We might be able to sustain our population at the current size but I doubt our consumptive habits will be maintainable.
- taw55 9y ago
  Exponential economist meets finite physicist is a fun read. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
  - antisthenes 9y ago
    It's not a mystery why economics is treated with such disdain, when economists are portrayed as bumbling idiots unable to comprehend anything outside of the narrow mindset of perpetual growth and deregulation. It's a fun read (of a hopefully fictional story), but I would seriously doubt the qualifications of any such "economist" had they replied in the same manner in real life. It should, however, be noted that Economics is a fairly young science, so people trained in the 20th century maybe be stuck in their obsolete growth mindsets forever. Unfortunately there seems to be little hope to change their minds, so we should all do our best to ignore them, since their views no longer represent reality when you consider the newest data.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    I doubt the economist agreed with this - or maybe there'd been a little too much alcohol consumed: "then GDP continues to grow while energy remains at a fixed scale. This means that energy—a physically-constrained resource, mind—must become arbitrarily cheap as GDP continues to grow and leave energy in the dust. Economist: Yes, I think energy plays a diminishing role in the economy and becomes too cheap to worry about." This inaccurately conflates two concepts - decoupling economic growth from energy (we see this in computing, as you carry an 80s supercomputer in your pocket) and the cost of fixed resources in a growing economy. A necessary, fixed resource increases in cost as GDP increases. That is, if there are only 100 works by van Gogh, and the available cash goes for $100 to $100,000,000, people will be willing to pay more $ for the fixed set of van Gogh works. The cost of the fixed resource depends on the economic efficiency of that resource, and may go up or down as a percentage of GDP. Limits to energy efficiency hypothesized in the article would suggest that energy costs would go UP as a percentage of GDP (and inescapable energy demands would thus form the limit of economic growth).
- pyre 9y ago
  > I doubt our consumptive habits will be maintainable. Found the commie-pinko bleeding-heart liberal! Economic theory says that nothing bad can ever happen so long as demand increases, and the economy grows! /s
  - cgmg 9y ago
    Does your comment add anything productive to the discussion?
deepnet 9y ago
Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism
deepnet 9y ago
Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism
Turing_Machine 9y ago
Close. He said that 4 billion people would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, including 65 million Americans. Other Ehrlich scenarios (he gets prickly nowadays if you call them "predictions", as well he might): "Smog disasters" in New York and Los Angeles, claiming of the order of 200,000 lives. U.S. life expectancy falling to 42 years by 1980. All "important animal life" (whatever that means) in the oceans being extinct by 1980. Why anyone still pays attention to this chucklehead is a mystery to me.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  IIRC Al Gore was predicting as recently as in early aughts that ice caps would be gone by now and we'll all be underwater. And look at him, still the authority on global warming, private jetting all over the world from his 5000sqft mansion.
  - jperrot 9y ago
    Close. He predicted ice-free arctic summers by 2014. We are not quite there yet -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#/media/File:Arctic-death-spiral.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#/media/... He did not predict that ice caps would be gone by now.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- stcredzero 9y ago
  Things would've been far worse, had the green revolution not happened, and if we didn't have things like the Clean Air Act.
  - splawn 9y ago
    With all the current attempted and actual dismantling of the factors you mention, perhaps his predictions just need to be time shifted a few decades. Obviously, I hope not.
  - 9y ago
DennisP 9y ago
That didn't happen because the green revolution increased agricultural productivity faster than population. That process was just getting started in 1968, and Erlich acknowledged the possibility. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-01/why-paul-ehrlich-s-population-bomb-finally-bombed https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-01/why-paul-... It's difficult to imagine a similar possibility for wild populations, short of humans using much less land area.
- kbutler 9y ago
  Early editions of The Population Bomb began with the statement: The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s 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
  - DennisP 9y ago
    Even if he completely missed the possibility of dramatically increased food production, it's irrelevant to my point, which is that there's no realistic way for him to be wrong in the same way about this new claim. I guess you could argue that because he's demonstrated that he can't perfectly predict the future, we shouldn't pay attention to anything he says, but in that case we shouldn't pay attention to anyone.
    - kbutler 9y ago
      I'd say that, because he has demonstrated a willingness to exaggerate predictions and maintain them in spite of evidence to the contrary and even direct falsification, I consider his predictions to have no predictive power. The informational content is incidental, the analysis is suspect.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
m777z 9y ago
Yes, and in 1970 he predicted that in "ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception

Isn't Paul Erlich the guy who, in 1968, predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s due to overpopulation?

by jayess 9y ago

Isn't Paul Erlich the guy who, in 1968, predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death in the 1970s due to overpopulation?

agentultra 9y ago

Yes. Turns out the "population bomb" didn't occur as he had predicted. I don't think that rules out the possibility of the effect human populations are having on our ecological resources. The current global demand for beef has led to massive deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest in order to plant soy crops... just to feed cows. We might be able to sustain our population at the current size but I doubt our consumptive habits will be maintainable.

taw55 9y ago
Exponential economist meets finite physicist is a fun read. https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...
- antisthenes 9y ago
  It's not a mystery why economics is treated with such disdain, when economists are portrayed as bumbling idiots unable to comprehend anything outside of the narrow mindset of perpetual growth and deregulation. It's a fun read (of a hopefully fictional story), but I would seriously doubt the qualifications of any such "economist" had they replied in the same manner in real life. It should, however, be noted that Economics is a fairly young science, so people trained in the 20th century maybe be stuck in their obsolete growth mindsets forever. Unfortunately there seems to be little hope to change their minds, so we should all do our best to ignore them, since their views no longer represent reality when you consider the newest data.
- kbutler 9y ago
  I doubt the economist agreed with this - or maybe there'd been a little too much alcohol consumed: "then GDP continues to grow while energy remains at a fixed scale. This means that energy—a physically-constrained resource, mind—must become arbitrarily cheap as GDP continues to grow and leave energy in the dust. Economist: Yes, I think energy plays a diminishing role in the economy and becomes too cheap to worry about." This inaccurately conflates two concepts - decoupling economic growth from energy (we see this in computing, as you carry an 80s supercomputer in your pocket) and the cost of fixed resources in a growing economy. A necessary, fixed resource increases in cost as GDP increases. That is, if there are only 100 works by van Gogh, and the available cash goes for $100 to $100,000,000, people will be willing to pay more $ for the fixed set of van Gogh works. The cost of the fixed resource depends on the economic efficiency of that resource, and may go up or down as a percentage of GDP. Limits to energy efficiency hypothesized in the article would suggest that energy costs would go UP as a percentage of GDP (and inescapable energy demands would thus form the limit of economic growth).
pyre 9y ago
> I doubt our consumptive habits will be maintainable. Found the commie-pinko bleeding-heart liberal! Economic theory says that nothing bad can ever happen so long as demand increases, and the economy grows! /s
- cgmg 9y ago
  Does your comment add anything productive to the discussion?

deepnet 9y ago

Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

deepnet 9y ago

Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism

Turing_Machine 9y ago

Close. He said that 4 billion people would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, including 65 million Americans. Other Ehrlich scenarios (he gets prickly nowadays if you call them "predictions", as well he might): "Smog disasters" in New York and Los Angeles, claiming of the order of 200,000 lives. U.S. life expectancy falling to 42 years by 1980. All "important animal life" (whatever that means) in the oceans being extinct by 1980. Why anyone still pays attention to this chucklehead is a mystery to me.

0xbear 9y ago
IIRC Al Gore was predicting as recently as in early aughts that ice caps would be gone by now and we'll all be underwater. And look at him, still the authority on global warming, private jetting all over the world from his 5000sqft mansion.
- jperrot 9y ago
  Close. He predicted ice-free arctic summers by 2014. We are not quite there yet -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#/media/File:Arctic-death-spiral.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline#/media/... He did not predict that ice caps would be gone by now.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
stcredzero 9y ago
Things would've been far worse, had the green revolution not happened, and if we didn't have things like the Clean Air Act.
- splawn 9y ago
  With all the current attempted and actual dismantling of the factors you mention, perhaps his predictions just need to be time shifted a few decades. Obviously, I hope not.
- 9y ago

DennisP 9y ago

That didn't happen because the green revolution increased agricultural productivity faster than population. That process was just getting started in 1968, and Erlich acknowledged the possibility. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-01/why-paul-ehrlich-s-population-bomb-finally-bombed https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-06-01/why-paul-... It's difficult to imagine a similar possibility for wild populations, short of humans using much less land area.

kbutler 9y ago
Early editions of The Population Bomb began with the statement: The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s 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
- DennisP 9y ago
  Even if he completely missed the possibility of dramatically increased food production, it's irrelevant to my point, which is that there's no realistic way for him to be wrong in the same way about this new claim. I guess you could argue that because he's demonstrated that he can't perfectly predict the future, we shouldn't pay attention to anything he says, but in that case we shouldn't pay attention to anyone.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    I'd say that, because he has demonstrated a willingness to exaggerate predictions and maintain them in spite of evidence to the contrary and even direct falsification, I consider his predictions to have no predictive power. The informational content is incidental, the analysis is suspect.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

m777z 9y ago

Yes, and in 1970 he predicted that in "ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich#Reception