‘The Population Bomb’ author, Paul Ehrlich predicts a future of cannibalism
Why is it we keep listening to so-called “experts” after they are proven wrong over and over?
Image/CIA
Well he’s back. Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich, who gained fame from his 1968 book, The Population Bomb and other fantastic apocalyptic predictions that never came true, was interviewed on HuffPost Live last week.
In The Population Bomb, Ehrlich predicted dire consequences like, “During the 1970s “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.” Clearly he was way off but nevertheless, won a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.
So what does Ehrlich have to tell us now nearly five decades later? We will be resorting to cannibalism?!
In one exchange between Ehrlich and HuffPost host, John Zepps, who asked if in the decades and centuries to come, we will need to change the way we use and consume animals in an exchange during the interview, the 81-year-old entomologist said, “I don’t think there’s going to be the centuries to come with our kind of civilizations and with the kind of ethical issues that at least some people in our civilization are concerned with,” Ehrlich noted with a chuckle. “I think the issues are more likely to be “is it perfectly OK to eat the bodies of your dead because we’re all so hungry.”
Zepps, taken a back asked, “Really? We’ll get that bad?” “Oh,” Ehrlich said. “It’s moving in that direction with ridiculous speed.”
I recall the back-and-forth during the 70s, 80s and 90s between Ehrlich and the late economist Julian Simon and how Ehrlich was just so off base concerning these issues, but cannibalism? Wow. So I ask once again–Why is it we keep listening to so-called “experts” after they are proven wrong over and over?
“This is my long-run forecast in brief: “The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today’s Western living standards.
“I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.”
― Julian Simon
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[…] when asked about the ethics of meat consumption during an interview on HuffPost Live, Paul Ehrlich prophesied cannibalism saying, “I think the issues are more likely to be ‘is it perfectly OK to eat the bodies of your […]