Stanford Professor Known for the Book ‘The Population Bomb’ Dead at 93

Stanford Professor known for the book ‘The Population Bomb’ dead at 93

Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich, who died Sunday in Palo Alto at age 93, was a 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 movement. He was admired and often honored for his prophetic warnings. But he was also excoriated when…

Has Anyone Ever Been More Wrong Than Paul Ehrlich?

Abby Eilers would be the type of mother who believes love doesn’t divide but multiplies, especially when it comes to the size of a family. The 32-year-old mother of four triggered an online debate in social media when she reacted to what she perceived to be a growing sentiment against big families. Based on the latest Census, the average family in America consists of 3.15 members, though families with two children are slightly more common than t…

Paul Ehrlich, ‘Population Bomb’ ecologist, dies at 93

The modern environmental movement acquired many of its arguments from scientists who studied forests, oceans and the atmosphere. Few supplied it with a warning as stark, or as controversial, as that delivered by Paul Ehrlich. A population biologist trained on insects, he became one of the most recognizable public intellectuals of the environmental age. His predictions of famine and ecological strain in The Population Bomb helped shape debate abo…

Radical depopulationist Paul Ehrlich has died – good riddance

American biologist and depopulationist Paul Ehrlich died on 13 March 2026. He was the Bing Professor of Population Studies at Stanford University and known for his 1968 book ‘The Population Bomb’ co-authored with his wife, Anne Ehrlich. The book warned of impending global famine and societal collapse due to overpopulation, famously predicting that "hundreds of

The Long Shadow of Paul Ehrlich

Paul Ehrlich died last week at the age of ninety-three, without a doubt the world’s most famous entomologist. Of course, Ehrlich didn’t become a household name because of the butterflies that were his academic specialty, but because of his misanthropy. Whenever civilization despaired, there was Paul Ehrlich to tell us it was all our own fault, and that it would be better if most of us simply didn’t exist. His 1968 pop-science best-seller The Pop…

Paul Ehrlich Helped Create Roe v. Wade

Paul Ehrlich has died at the old age of 93. I am grateful he lived long enough to witness how many of his doomsday predictions were wrong. But he does not seem to have recognized his faults. As late as 2018, Ehrlich predicted (once again) that the collapse of civilization would happen in decades. How could a person who is consistently wrong about everything maintain his status as a public intellectual? I think the short answer is that Ehrlich to…