The man who was always wrong

Paul Ehrlich

By Tom Quiner, Board President, Pulse Life Advocates

Paul Ehrlich transformed environmentalism into a religion. His 1968 watershed screed, “The Population Bomb,” launched a fanatical movement that has metastasized into climate alarmism, despite the fact that he was always, always wrong.

But his dire prognostications were embraced as articles of faith by impressionable youth, a pliable media, and cynical political types. They had faith in the man who died this week at the age of 93, even though he was always, always wrong.

It’s not nice to speak ill of the dead, and I won’t. But I will speak ill of his ideas, because I watched them explode with alarming speed as a sophomore at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1968 when his book was published. Upperclassmen fanned out from classroom to classroom spreading his gospel of doom.

One false prediction after another

He predicted that:

• Overpopulation would lead to the death of 65 million Americans in the 1980s in the “Great die-off.”

Wrong.

• 4 billion people worldwide would die of mass starvation by 2000.

Wrong.

• Oil supplies would dry up by 1985.

Wrong.

• Citizens would have to wear gas masks to survive our polluted atmosphere.

Wrong.

People are the problem …

He believed that people were the problem, not the solution. To that end, he called for draconian measures to cut the world population in half. Measures included forced sterilization, abortions, and even the introduction of chemical contraceptives into our water supply to suppress birth rates.

He held special animus for the Catholic Church, asserting:

“Thus you have ‘God-fearing’ people trying to maintain their rigid positions, especially trying to control the lives of women. I consider that their rigid opposition to something so basic, so critical to the future of life on Earth, as controlling reproduction to be just as unethical as any major affront to the environment or terrorist act.”

His toxic ideas spread beyond the U.S. to all four corners of the earth, including Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia, and most notably China, whose one-child policy reached the pinnacle of Ehrlich’s toxic religion.

Ehrlich helped spawn climate alarmism

Climate alarmism flows from the Ehrlich religion, asserting that population pressure is the driver to climate catastrophe. Just as young people bought into his nonsense in 1968, new generations continue to believe in it. Social and legacy media fuel the fear of fertility as unhealthy for the planet with pieces like this:“

“… having a child, especially for the world’s wealthy, is one of the worst things you can do for the environment.”

Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fuel the frenzy by piling on with fear-driven declarations like this:

“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?”

In reality, the earth faces a pending depopulation crisis now, thanks in part to pro-abortion, anti-fertility policies promoted for half a century by his apostles. 

Depopulation begins now, today, in Europe, as their population begins a steady decline THIS year, culminating in a 20% population decline by the end of this century.

Demographers with the United Nations forecast a world-wide population decline within the next four or five decades.

In light of the hundreds of billion dollars the U.S. federal government spends on climate change initiatives via the Inflation Reduction Act, The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS and Science Act, one might be tempted to respond to an Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the affirmative:

“Yeah … how ARE we going to pay for all this with a shrinking pool of taxpayers? Was it really a good idea to abort 65 million future taxpayers???”

Paul Ehrlich, the man who was always wrong, spawned an anti-Life, ecological and godless religion which thrives to this very day in the face of overwhelming evidence to its contrary.

May he rest in peace.

[Guess who is the keynote speaker at our November 21st Christmas Gala? He’s a big name! Get details here.]