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32 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This book is poorly researched., April 30, 2000
By A Customer
When one makes a major claim, such as saying that the poverty in Africa is caused by overpopulation and a lack of natural resources, then one should be able to provide facts, sources, statistics, empirical evidence, etc., to be able to back up one's claim. Because without such evidence, the claim has no merit.When Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, he did not have any evidence to prove his claims. And the reason for this is because such evidence in fact does not exist! For example, consider his claim that Africa is overpopulated. Well, the United Nations has kept population statistics for many decades. These statistics can be looked at by anybody. And according to these statisitcis, most of the countries in Africa have very low population densities. Despite this, Ehrlich claims that there are too many people in Africa. Hmm. Can anybody say 'racism'? Another of Ehrlich's claims is that Africa does not have enough natural resources. And once again, Ehrlich does not proivide any evidence to support his claim. And again, this is because such evidence simply does not exist. If Ehrlich had simply taken the time to look in any geology textbook, he would have seen that the land in Africa has an abundant supply of many valuable natural resources, including gold, coal, iron, copper, aluminum, lead, diamonds, and many other natural resources. Again, Ehrlich didn't do his homework. Shame on him. Another claim by Ehrlich is that Africa is incapale of feeding itself. What Ehrlich completely ignores is the fact that Africa has vast expanses of land that could be used to grow crops. In fact, the fact that Africa is situated at the equator allows for Africa to grow food year round. So Ehrlich makes all these false claims, but he does not back them up with any evidence. There are reasons for why the people in Africa are so poor. But Ehrlich has ignored these reasons. The reason that Africa doesn't grow enough food to feed itself is because the government policies regarding land use in most African counties are based on collective farming, instead of on private onwership. The reason that Africa does not benitfit from its vast supplies of natural resources is because most of the countries in Africa do not protect private property rights and contracts, and so private companies are afraid to do business in Africa. Thus, the problems of poverty in Africa have everything to do with Africa's own ridiculous government policies, and nothing to do with overpopulation or a lack or natural resources. All of this has been discussed in The Economist, which is a very reliable source. Ehrlich claims that overpopulation causes poverty. If this were true, then Hong Kong and Japan would be the poorest countries on Earth. Again, the real world shows that Ehrlich is wrong. Again, Ehrlich has not done the proper research. Ehrlich claimes that a lack of natural resources causes poverty. If this were ture, then Hong Kong and Japan would be the poorest countries on Earth. Once again, Ehrlich has not done his homework. Ehrlich claims that as population goes up, the quality of life would get worse. According to Ehrlcih, during the 10 year period from 1980 to 1989, four billion people were going to starve to death in the world. And this number was to include 65 million people in the U.S. According to Ehrlich, by the year 2,000, the world was going to run out of oil, copper, iron, aluminum, coal, and many other resources. And according to Ehrlich, life expectancy in the U.S. was supposed to drop to about 40. According to Ehrlich, pollution was going to be so bad that everybody would have to wear a gas mask. Fortunately, the U.S. government keeps statistics on all of these things. And fortunately, the evidence shows that Ehrlich was wrong in all of his predictions. Today people have more calories per capita and a higher life expectancy than ever before. Natural resources are more abundant than ever before, and this is reflected by the fact that their prices are at historic lows. According to the EPA, pollution levels have fallen substantially since Ehrlich wrote his book. Today the world has more people than ever before. And today the standard of living is higher than ever before. So in reality, as the population goes up, the quality of life actually gets better! And there is a reason for this. When you have more people, then that means that there will be more minds to invent technology. More scientists. More inventors. More engineers. Etc. All of these things make life better. During the past two decades, the country Bostwana in Africa has had a relatively strong amount of private porerty rights and economic liberty. This is one of the few countries in Africa that seems to appreciate the economic system known as capitalism. And during the past 20 years, the GNP in that country has more than tripled. So really, if the people in Africa want to bring an end to their massive poverty, they really ought to consider adopting the ideas of private property rights and economic liberty.
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22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Brave, Caring, Prophetic, December 19, 2007
By now, late 2007, one can hope that the anti-Ehrlich voices have gotten fewer in number. Our skyrocketing world population should be recognized by everyone as partly or largely responsible for many of our recent worldwide social crises and environmental disasters - global warming, the widespread water shortages, the disappearing arctic ice sheets, the global fish shortage, the extinction of the great apes, the exhaustion of ancient aquifers, uncontrolled urban sprawl, mega-cities, mega-slums, mega-smog, monster hurricanes and typhoons, unprecedented wildfires, disappearing wilderness, longer commutes, massive traffic jams, massive illegal immigrations, multimillions of refugees, various genocides, etc., etc.
Here is the basic history of the overpopulation problem, a history that most people are shockingly ignorant of (and kept ignorant of by the powers that be). The entire human population of the world at the time of Julius Caesar and Jesus of Nazareth, that is, in the 1st centuries B.C. and A.D., was only about 300 million. (It had been merely 10 million in about 10,000 B.C.). It then grew slowly to about 1 billion by 1850. Then, due to the Industrial Revolution, it grew very fast to 2 billion by 1930. Then superfast to 3 billion already by 1950 (WWII, with its 55 million dead, was a minor speed bump on the road), then very fast again to 4 billion by 1975. Let's skip the whiz-by dates for the 5 and 6 billion figures. We are now, in 2007, approaching 7 billion and will reach it within a few more years. By 2050, according to almost all projections, we humans will number 9-10 billion. Most projections I have seen deceptively stop there in 2050, as if that magical year will suddenly cause all couples throughout the world to stop having any more than 2 or 3 children, without even thinking about the subject. Alas, history and human population will not so conveniently stop. The latter will keep growing until it comes to a horrific halt, and long before that halt the great majority of humans will live in crowded misery and daily hunger. Unless some action in the form of worldwide public policy (incentives and penalties to keep population limited) is taken very soon.
Surely most people, if they don't recognize that the world has an overpopulation problem now, would accept the idea that eventually we will have one. If 6.5 billion people is not appalling enough for them, the prospect of 16 billion should be. Or finally 60 billion, assuming they can count (which may be assuming a lot, in some cases).
Paul Ehrlich's understandably frightened 1967 perspective looked out upon the U.S. Baby Boom, that 20-year population explosion 1946-64, when couples had big, healthy families in prosperous times. By 1967, the U.S. population had grown from 150 million to 200 million within a mere 20 years. That growth was phenomenal - but worrisome. And while our U.S. population was reaching its worrisome milestone of 200 million, India reached its own scary milestone of 500 million (today it seems so quaint, merely 500 million in India). The entire world population in the late 1960s was rapidly approaching 4 billion, and truly responsible people like Ehrlich were reflecting on the implications of it all.
Ehrlich's critics rarely if ever acknowledge that his working statistics were taken from the years preceding 1967, when India, for example, was on the brink of mass starvation. The Green/Food Revolution, which prevented (postponed by some decades) Ehrlich's dire predictions of catastrophic starvation from coming true, actually began, very belatedly, in 1966. India first imported the remarkable dwarf wheat seeds, specially bred by Norman Borlaug, in 1966. Those seeds arrived not one moment too soon. Ehrlich briefly and hopefully alludes to them in his book, but he finished writing it in 1967, and it was published in early 1968, before that new technology's beneficial effects were confirmed.
In any case, the Green/Food Revolution that started in the late 1960s has since exacted a heavy toll on soil fertility and other resources. The extensive use of water and fertilizers and pesticides also demanded by that technology has depleted precious aquifers and poisoned vast amounts of farmland. India is now once again in dire shape, as are many other countries. Up to a billion people in the world go to bed hungry or malnourished every night.
In 1960 (just yesterday), the population of India was 443 million; by 1970, only ten years later, it was 553 million; by 1980, 684 million; by 1990, 838 million; by 2000, 1 billion; and now, in 2007, it approaches 1.2 billion. Isn't it obvious where this awful Juggernaut is heading? Toward the rapid meltdown and starvation of India soon (and disastrous side-effects for many other nations), all because the people of India persist in having 5, 6, 7 or more babies per couple.
Ehrlich's critics (pro-growth capitalists, weak-kneed liberals, religious fundamentalists) have criticized him for a few predictions he made (on a few pages of his book) that did not come true. But those predictions were prevented from coming (immediately) true not only due to the (temporary) effects of the Green/Food Revolution, but also due to the success of the very movement Ehrlich helped to lead, a conscious effort to slow population growth. In the USA and much of the rest of the developed world, native population growth slowed considerably thereafter, partly due to people taking heed of Ehrlich's cautionary book. Legalized abortion and the Pill have also prevented many hundreds of millions of births around the world. In 1979, China instituted its famous "one child only" policy. It has caused serious social problems in China, but has prevented far more horrendous problems in China and the rest of the world. Without that policy, China today would have 400 million more people than it actually does. China today has a terrible system of sweatshop labor - virtual slave labor. But imagine the extent of the problem if China had 400 million more people to feed, in addition to its current 1.3 billion.
Another point: Does anyone believe that the Arab-Israeli conflict and all the other ethnic conflicts around the world will be peacefully resolved by the people in those warring regions having more and more children, creating more and more crowded conditions?
71% of the earth's surface is covered with water and is thus uninhabitable. Of the 29% that is land, the great majority of it is insect-infested jungle, oven-like desert, sub-arctic tundra, or desolate mountain ranges, all uninhabitable in the long term for any but a few hardy people. If a million of Ehrlich's many comfortable critics would kindly volunteer to play pioneer for a decade in the Yukon, the Congo, the Sahara, or the high Andes, as role models to us all of the glorious adaptability of humankind and the wonderful possibilities of modern technology, one could be more sympathetic toward their views (or at least respect their sincerity). Not until then.
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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Wrong then, wrong now, wrong for the foreseeable future, December 4, 1999
Paul Erlich wrote the first edition of The Population Bomb in 1968. In it he predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve to dath in the 1970's, there would be famines in the United States in the 80's, that India was going to wipe itself out through food shortage and even in 1968 could not be saved. Needless to say, none of this has happened (India is now a net grain exporter).Every few years, Erlich pops up again with a new edition in which the calamity is put off for a few more years. One would assume that someone who cried Wolf this often and this fatuously would be ignored, even derided. But no, Erlich and his anti-growth cohorts go from strength to strength. Why, exactly, I am at a loss to explain, but it seems to stem from some deep deathwish that the modern deep ecologists have, coupled with our Lords and Masters desires to coerce us ever more tightly. So why was Erlich so wrong? The reasons are explained lucidly and rigorously in Julian Simon's The Ultimate Resource 2 (also available from Amazon). Erlich fails to realise that human ingenuity has raised food production per capita (yes, per capita!) by more than 50% since WW2. This against a backdrop of so-called 'population explosion'. That the population explosion myth is a fallacy should need no explanation: some of the richest areas of the world have the highest population densities (England, Holland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan) whereas some of the lowest population density is found in the poorest areas (Mali, Nepal, Sudan). Access to free markets is much more important than population density. Having said that, I think the real message of Erlich's book is much more pernicious. His central thesis is that population growth must be stemmed by coercion if necessary. Where does he identify the problem areas? Asia and Africa. There is a tacit assumption that brown and yellow babies are somehow less worthy of existence than the nice, pink Erlich variety, and that their parents will not love and cherish them just as much as their counterparts in the richer countries. There is something terribly wrong with those of us alive today making decisions about who is to be alive tomorrow. Erlich is a racist with views on the acceptable limits of coercion that would make the most foam-flecked eugenicist of the Nazi era nod in agreement. The vicious ad hominem attacks he launches on his opponents allow me to respond in kind. This is a nasty and dangerous little book. Read it, but don't get suckered by it, and then read Julian Simon's book.
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