Doomsday environmental scientists and pseudo-scientists have been around for a long time. (See: Thomas Malthus 1766-1834) In 1968 Paul Erlich became a household name after he published his influential book “The Population Bomb.” It was written at the suggestion of David Brower (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Brower), at the time the executive director of the environmentalist Sierra Club (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Club). The book begins: "[t]he battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines -- hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death…" He predicted the United States would see its life expectancy (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy) drop to 42 years by 1980 and the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999. Ehrlich's theory influenced 1960s and 1970s public policy worldwide. He was supported by other doomsday environmental scientists, including Carl Sagan. Ehrlich did not see any means of avoiding the disaster and the solutions for limiting its scope that he proposed included starving whole countries that refused to implement population control measures. He also proposed that: "(We need) compulsory birth regulation... (through) the addition of temporary sterilants to water supplies or staple food. Doses of the antidote would be carefully rationed by the government to produce the desired family size.” The growth of population is central to the doomsday ‘Population Bomb’ theory. The common assertion is that the population of the world grows more quickly than the supply of food. The flaw is that population does not expand exponentially at a constant rate, and the food supply does not expand at a linear rate, as frequently proposed. We are feeding more people today with more food with less famine (except that which is politically caused, i.e., Ethiopia, Zimbabwe) than in known history. (See interesting discussion of population/food supply here:
http://members.optusnet.com.au/exponent ... hrlich.htm) Population increase is a long term concern. Doomsday predictions that precipitate hysteria in terms of public policy should be an even greater concern.
Other doomsday predictions: In the 1970s, it was The New Ice Age. In the 1990s, Carl Sagan famously predicted that the black clouds from smoky oil fires in Kuwait (set by Saddam Hussein's army) would cause a worldwide ecological disaster. Retired atmospheric physicist Fred Singer dismissed Sagan's prediction as nonsense, predicting that the smoke would dissipate in a matter of days. Singer was correct. MMGW (Man Made Global Warming) is the disaster the doomsayers have now adopted.
Critic Julian Lincoln Simon (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Lincoln_Simon) noted: "As soon as one predicted disaster doesn't occur, the doomsayers skip to another..."
and was replaced by a pinch runner. Next day, the St. Louis papers said he had a 'short' yet notable career.