An Inconvenient, Overcrowded Truth Paul Ehrlich, co author of The Population Bomb

Finding Genius Podcast

Richard Jacobs

Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today's episode features Paul Ehrlich, co-author of The Population Bomb. This book, published in 1968, predicted that the earth's growing population would soon surpass a sustainable number. Dangers of continued population growth, Ehrlich predicted, would lead to global pollution, famine, economic collapse, and exhaustion of resources such as food and water. Ehrlich argued that a growing population would threaten the existence of humanity as we knew it in 1968. Now that the global population has doubled since the book's publishing, we revisit Ehrlich's predictions and compare them to current events. In this episode, Ehrlich discusses what he believes to be the "optimal" amount of people that the earth may sustain, as well as the barriers we face in reaching that population.

Listen in for a fascinating discussion on history, ethics, and the current trajectory of the human race.

Transcript

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1:08.5	Podcast and I have a returning guest Paul R. Erlich, a famous guy who's been around for a long time. He heard a book called The Population Bob, I believe in 68. Is that right, Paul?
1:18.0	That's right. Yeah, we were only two years old. You got to, I mean that's an important thing to point out
1:26.3	I was negative seven yeah
1:30.0	It was a big accomplishment. Yeah last time I like I said, we talked about the epidemic of recess jaws and
1:36.1	small amounts, but this is a totally different topic.
1:38.8	So I know this book was written a long time ago, but I'm sure this is something you thought about your whole life
	...

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