Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is a Stanford University professor and a renowned entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies). He is the author of the best-selling but controversial book The Population Bomb (published 1968) and other books which apply the lessons of population ecology to economic issues such as resource use and population growth.

Ehrlich was one of the founders of the group Zero Population Growth in 1968.

For his multiple predictions of impending mass famine and economic catastrophe, some have compared him to Thomas Malthus. Ehrlich predicted that hundreds of millions of people would die of starvation during the 1970s because the earth's inhabitants would multiply at a faster rate than world's ability to supply food. According to Ehrlich, the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years because of pesticide usage, the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999, and the use of insecticides in the United Sates would provoke a nuclear war. Ehrlich's predictions of catastrophic famines never materialized.

Critics of Ehrlich also point to his bet with Julian Simon over how the price of metals would move during the 1980s, a bet which Ehrlich lost. Supporters point to his activism, and the impact of The Population Bomb, in helping to raise awareness about overpopulation and in helping to change U.S. laws to make birth control and other reproductive health care more easily available. The U.S. fertility rate dropped from 3.4 children per woman in the early 1960s to 1.8 by 1975, and ZPG credits Ehrlich's influence along with the efforts of National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood of America, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the U.S. Supreme Court for helping to bring this about.

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

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Paul R. Ehrlich

Sympathetic links

• History of the Zero Population Growth organization (http://www.populationconnection.org/About_Us/history.html)
• Ehrlich's Stanford website (http://www.stanford.edu/group/CCB/Staff/Ehrlich.html)
• Info on The Population Explosion, the 1990 sequel to The Population Bomb (http://www.2think.org/tpe.shtml)
• Simon knew what he was doing! (http://www.mnforsustain.org/ehrlich_ehrlich-simon_bet_knew_what_he_was_doing_erickson.htm)
• Paul Ehrlich interviewed by Julian Darley (http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/paul_ehrlich)

Critical links

• A critique of Paul Ehrlich (http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/people/paul_ehrlich.html)
• A critical biographical sketch (http://www.nationalcenter.org/dos7111.htm)
• We're Doomed Again: Paul Ehrlich has never been right. Why does anyone still listen to him? (http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005103)
• Doomsayer Paul Ehrlich Strikes Out Again (http://www.junkscience.com/news/fumento.htm)
• Ehrlich quotes (http://www.igreens.org.uk/paul_ehrlich.htm)