Last night, the TV show "60 Minutes" had an article about the planet being in the middle of an extinction crisis. And they interviewed, in the article... Paul Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich is famous, in 1968, for writing 'The Population Bomb', a book famous for predicting mass starvation in the 1970s. Which turned out to be wrong. He also predicted that the United Kingdom would not exist by the year 2000, that all important sea life would be extinct by 1980... Pretty much every prediction Ehrlich made in his book was wrong. Hell, Economist Julian Simon made a wager with Ehrlich about resources getting scarcer... and won the bet.
Basically, Ehrlich is a doomsayer who predicted the end of mankind over 50 years ago, was proven wrong time and again... and is still considered an expert who gets interviewed on tv. Maybe this time, the Apocalypse will really happen.
But... here's the thing. The world's getting better. Starvation-level poverty is dropping. We are taking steps to creating a carbon-free energy resource that is nearly limitless. We're even using gene editing tools to treat leukaemia.
Are there still problems and concerns? Absolutely... there always are. But looking objectively, there's no reason for this 'The World is Coming to an End' bullshit panic that 60 minutes seems to be embracing. I can't believe anyone takes Ehrlich seriously. I'd have thought people would ignore him, and I would have been wrong.
But not as wrong as Ehrlich.
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