US EditionPaul R. Ehrlich, Author of The Population Bomb, Dies at 93
Paul R. Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, warned of overpopulation and environmental collapse and influenced global debates despite many of his predictions not materializing.
- On Friday, Paul R. Ehrlich, ecologist and author of The Population Bomb, died in Palo Alto at age 93 from cancer complications at the nursing facility where he lived.
- As a young Stanford professor, Ehrlich turned lectures into a December 1967 New Scientist article and, encouraged by David Brower, published The Population Bomb six months later, selling 3 million copies.
- Taking a public wager, Ehrlich accepted Julian Simon's 1980 challenge, betting a $1,000 basket of five metals that prices would rise, but conceded in 1990 and mailed Simon a $576.07 check.
- Ehrlich co-founded Zero Population Growth and Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology, receiving major honors including a MacArthur prize in 1990 and National Academy of Sciences membership.
- World population has climbed to 8.3 billion, not collapsing as Ehrlich predicted, with undernourished proportion dropping to 8.2 percent and population projected to peak around 2080, according to UN data.
18 Articles
18 Articles
NYT is getting crushed online for downplaying infamous 'population bomb' false alarm
The ecologist responsible for one of history's most infamous false global predictions died on Friday, and the New York Times used the occasion to try to keep his anti-population prognostications alive. In his best-selling book "The Population Bomb" from 1968, Paul Ehrlich popularized the idea that the world was heading toward massive famine and starvation. Ehrlich argued that the Earth's natural resources were being depleted at such a rate that …
The Conversation
Paul Ehrlich, often called alarmist for dire warnings about human harms to the Earth, believed scientists had a responsibility to speak out
Biologist Paul R. Ehrlich in 2010. Paul R. Ehrlich/Wikipedia, CC BYStanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, who died March 13, 2026, in Palo Alto, California, was a scientific crusader whose dire predictions about population growth, world hunger and environmental collapse made headlines and sparked controversy for decades. Sometimes called a “prophet of doom” by his detractors, Ehrlich was among the most public figures of the environmental mo…
Paul Ehrlich dies at 93 – A scientist who predicted a dire future for humanity in his book The Population Bomb – He got things ‘so badly wrong’
He said western governments should end all food aid and argued for the forced sterilisation of Indian men with three or more children Paul Ehrlich, who has died aged 93, was an entomologist special…
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- 60% of the sources lean Right
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