US EditionPaul R. Ehrlich, Author of The Population Bomb, Dies at 93
Ehrlich’s 1968 book sold 3 million copies and spurred global population control efforts despite widespread criticism and failed predictions, with 75 million annual population growth still a concern.
- This week, biologist and author Paul Ehrlich died at age 93; his 1968 book The Population Bomb made him a leader of the environmental movement.
- The Population Bomb opened by predicting unchecked population growth would exhaust food and resources, causing hundreds of millions to starve in the 1970s and 1980s with rationing by the 1970s.
- Contradicting Ehrlich's forecasts, U.S. life expectancy reached a record high of 79, and global food production has exploded, making famine rare.
- His influence spurred family-planning campaigns that pressured women toward mandated contraceptives and tied health workers’ pay to IUD insertions, causing abuses in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
- Defenders of Ehrlich's thesis argue his core point remains sound as 75 million annual population growth sustains the continuing debate in journalism and academia.
39 Articles
39 Articles
Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, died, one of the most influential and controversial books of modern environmentalism. He was 93 years old. As always happens with such divisive figures, the reactions immediately polarized: on the one hand the celebratory obituaries, on the other hand the satisfaction of those who remember that he didn't get a good one. Let's start from here, without office defenses. Ehrlich made predictions that they…
Paul Ehrlich: A Tribute
While The Population Bomb is the book with which Ehrlich is most closely identified, he wrote dozens of others, including important and fascinating works on birds, human ecology, and conservation biology. He was as insightful as he was prolific, and his work deserves continued attention.
Paul Ehrlich Was Wrong—but He Still Changed the World
Paul Ehrlich, the butterfly biologist turned rock star eco-pessimist, has died at the age of 93. That in itself is remarkable because in 1970, he forecast that within the coming decade “at least 100–200 million people per year will be starving to death” and “by 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.” Furthermore, he warned that by 1980 the life expectancy of the ave…
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