Paul R. Ehrlich

For the Nobel Prize winning Immunologist, see Paul Ehrlich.

Paul Ralph Ehrlich
Born	May 29 1932 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Known for	The Population Bomb
Scientific career
Fields	Entomology
Institutions	Stanford University

Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a renowned entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies). He is also well known as a researcher and author on the subject of human overpopulation, notably for his 1968 book The Population Bomb, and is Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University.

Life and career

Education and academic career

Ehrlich earned a B.A. in zoology in 1953 at the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in 1955 at the University of Kansas, and a Ph.D. in 1957 at the University of Kansas, under the prominent bee researcher C.D. Michener. During his studies he participated in surveys of insects on the Bering Sea and in the Canadian Arctic, and then on a National Institutes of Health fellowship, investigated the genetics and behavior of parasitic mites. In 1959 he joined the faculty at Stanford, being promoted to full professor of biology in 1966. He was named to the Bing Professorship in 1977.

Ehrlich currently is the president of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

Ehrlich's research group at Stanford currently works extensively on the study of natural populations of checkerspot butterflies (Euphydryas). Along with Dr. Gretchen Daily, he has conducted work in "countryside biogeography", or the study of making human-disturbed areas hospitable to biodiversity. Ehrlich continues to conduct policy research on population and resource issues, focusing especially on endangered species, cultural evolution, environmental ethics, and the preservation of genetic resources.

Marriage and family

On December 18 1954, Paul Ehrlich married Anne Fitzhugh Howland, a research assistant. They remain married and have one child, Lisa Marie.

Other activities

Ehrlich was one of the founders of the group Zero Population Growth in 1968, along with Richard Bowers and Charles Remington. He and his wife Anne were on the board of advisors of the Federation for American Immigration Reform until 2003. He is currently a patron of the Optimum Population Trust.

With Stephen Schneider and two other authors, writing in the January 2002 issue of Scientific American, he critiqued Bjørn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Population growth predictions

Ehrlich wrote an article that appeared in New Scientist in December 1967. In that article, Ehrlich predicted that the world would experience famines sometime between 1970 and 1985 due to population growth outstripping resources. Ehrlich wrote that "the battle to feed all of humanity is over ... In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now." Ehrlich also stated, "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980," and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." These specific predictions did not actually come to pass, and his later book The Population Explosion is much more cautious in its predictions.

The article led to a book (The Population Bomb), the founding of Population Connection|Zero Population Growth, a vigorous policy debate, and both widespread support and criticism of Ehrlich.

Dr. Ehrlich reviewed the predictions in his book The Population Bomb in a 2004 interview and the subsequent criticism that followed due to the specificity of the dates in his predictions. He stated that some of his predictions did not occur, but noted that it was still “horrific” that 600 million people were very hungry and billions under-nourished or malnourished. He stated that his predictions about disease and climate change were correct.

The Population Explosion (1990, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich) was followed two years later by a Centers for Disease Control publication which noted, "During the past three decades, the most common emergencies affecting the health of large populations in developing countries have involved famine and forced migrations." Famine was defined as "a condition of populations in which a substantial increase in deaths is associated with inadequate food consumption".

Other academic authors have echoed Dr. Ehrlich’s concerns about overpopulation. Professor Jared Diamond has argued that population growth and overusing natural resources lead to social collapse. Professor Diamond predicts that these combined factors create an environmental time bomb with an estimated fuse of 50 years, after which he speculates the situation will be resolved one way or another.

Dr. E.O. Wilson, a Harvard biologist and twice a Pulitzer winner, argues that overpopulation and overconsumption could result in the extinction of half of Earth's species sometime in the 21st century.

On the other hand, Professor Ehrlich and his wife Anne have been praised for raising awareness of environmental matters and for bringing to public awareness issues regarding population, resources and environment, as well as making ecology a household word.

Predictions and Quotes

"In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish." Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day 1970

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make, ... The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years." Paul Ehrlich in an interview with Peter Collier in the April 1970 of the magazine Mademoiselle.

"By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s." Paul Ehrlich in special Earth Day (1970) issue of the magazine Ramparts.

"The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines . . . hundreds of millions of people (including Americans) are going to starve to death." (Population Bomb 1968)

"Smog disasters" in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles. (1969)

"I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." (1969)

"Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." (1976)

"By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people." (1969)

"By 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million." (1969)

"Actually, the problem in the world is that there is much too many rich people..." - Quoted by the Associated Press, April 6, 1990

"Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." - Quoted by R. Emmett Tyrrell in The American Spectator, September 6, 1992

"We've already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure." - Quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Trashing the Planet (1990)

Writings

Ehrlich has written numerous books on the subjects of ecology, entomology, overpopulation, and related subjects. His best known book is The Population Bomb, published in 1968.

• How to Know the Butterflies (1960)
• Process of Evolution (1963)
• The Population Bomb (1968)
• Population, Resources, Environments: Issues in Human Ecology (1970)
• How to Be a Survivor (1971)
• Man and the Ecosphere: Readings from Scientific American (1971)
• Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions (1973)
• Introductory Biology (1973)
• The End of Affluence (1975)
• Biology and Society (1976)
• Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment (1978)
• The Race Bomb (1978)
• Extinction (1981)
• The Golden Door: International Migration, Mexico, and the United States (1981)
• The Cold and the Dark: The World After Nuclear War (1984, co-authored with Carl Sagan, Donald Kennedy, and Walter Orr Roberts)
• Earth (1987, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)
• Science of Ecology (1987, co-authored with Joan Roughgarden)
• The Cassandra Conference: Resources and the Human Predicament (1988)
• The Birder's Handbook: A field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds (1988, co-aurhored with David S. Dobkin and Darryl Wheye)
• The Population Explosion (1990, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)
• Healing the Planet: Strategies for Resolving the Environmental Crisis (1991, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)
• Birds in Jeopardy: The Imperiled and Extinct Birds of the United States and Canada, Including Hawaii and Puerto Rico (1992, co-authored with David S. Dobkin and Darryl Wheye)
• The Stork and the Plow : The Equity Answer to the Human Dilemma (1995, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich and Gretchen C. Daily)
• A World of Wounds: Ecologists and the Human Dilemma (1997)
• Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environment Rhetoric Threatens Our Future (1998, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)
• Human Natures: Genes, Cultures, and the Human Prospect (2002)
• One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future (2004, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)
• On the Wings of Checkerspots: A Model System for Population Biology (2004, edited volume, co-edited with Ilkka Hanski)
• New World, New Mind: Moving Towards Conscious Evolution (1988, co-authored with Robert Ornstein)
• The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (2008, co-authored with Anne Ehrlich)

Awards

Ehrlich has been recognized for his work with the following awards:

• The John Muir Award of the Sierra Club
• The Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International
• A MacArthur Prize Fellowship
• The Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
• ECI Prize winner in terrestrial ecology, 1993
• A World Ecology Award from the International Center for Tropical Ecology, University of Missouri, 1993
• The Volvo Environmental Prize, 1993
• The United Nations Sasakawa Environment Prize, 1994
• The 1st Heinz Award in the Environment (with Anne Ehrlich), 1995
• The Albert Einstein Club Commemorative Plaque, 1997
• The Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 1998
• The Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, 1998
• The Blue Planet Prize, 1999
• The Eminent Ecologist Award of the Ecological Society of America, 2001
• The Distinguished Scientist Award of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, 2001

See also

• The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment Interviews and reviews about Ehrlich's latest book.
• Simon-Ehrlich wager

External links

General

• Paul R. Ehrlich's faculty web page at Stanford University
• The Heinz Awards, Paul and Anne Ehrlich profile

Organizations

• Population Connection (formerly Zero Population Growth)

Sympathetic articles

• History of the Zero Population Growth organization
• Info on The Population Explosion, the 1990 sequel to The Population Bomb
• Biographical page at the International Center for Tropical Ecology, University of Missouri, St. Louis
• Simon knew what he was doing!
• Several online Paul Ehrlich interviews
• "Plowboy Interview" of Paul Ehrlich, 1974 from The Mother Earth News

Critical articles

• A critique of Paul Ehrlich
• A critical biographical sketch
• We're Doomed Again: Paul Ehrlich has never been right. Why does anyone still listen to him?
• Doomsayer Paul Ehrlich Strikes Out Again
• Paul R. Ehrlich and the prophets of doom A look at Ehrlich's treatment of exponential growth.
• Ehrlich quotes

Media

• Video of discussion with/interview of Ehrlich by Carl Zimmer on Bloggingheads.tv