Message-ID: <970211203659_-1140390721@emout06.mail.aol.com> Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 20:43:16 -0500 From: mailto:EUNSteve@AOL.COM Subject: Re: the Population MYTH...until when???????? To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
I was clearly wrong when I indicated here that no one of substance attends any longer to Paul Ehrlich--that the scientific community, and all who respect the truth have long since turned their backs on his brand of environmentalism.Mr. Hanson still quotes him, as in these words, typical of Ehrlich's insensitive style:
<< "The relatively small population of rich people therefore accounts for roughly two-thirds of global environmental destruction, as measured by energy use. From this perspective, the most important population problem is overpopulation in the industrialized nations." >>
So much for me and my neighbors, and all of us here with automobiles: we're too many for Dr. Ehrlich.
It is quite easy to create a library of Dr. Ehrlich's failed predictions, distortions of the truth, and half truths.
"No one has done ore to raise fears of worldwide hunger and famine than Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of THE POPULATION BOMB (1968) and THE POPULATION EXPLOSION (1990). Ehrlich began his first book with these frightening words:
"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 spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. . ."
"Ehrlich is a master of the scare tactic. In addition to repeated predictions of massive worldwide starvation, he has predicted that world population growth will be stopped only by wholesale death from starvation, that the U.S. will experience food riots and a dramatic fall in life expectancy, and Lakes Erie and Michigan will experience ecological 'death'.
None of these predictions has come true or is ever likely to come true."
Mr. Hanson has threatened me with a lawsuit over my statements regarding Ehrlich and starvation.
I would be honored to be sued by Dr. Ehrlich.
Or any of his epigones.
Steve Eskow