A Sad, Sad Ehrlich Story

Ideas Have Consequences 

Various bloggers and article writers have done an excellent job of laying out the many mistakes of Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich, whom CBS recently devoted a segment to on “60 Minutes.”

So I won’t bother to repeat their cogent criticisms.

Yesterday I went to the Wall Street Journal to see a letter by my friend and economist colleague Francois Melese in which he took on Ehrlich. It’s an excellent letter. Then I read one of the other letters and felt profoundly sad for the writer, Kenneth Emde of Woodbury, Minnesota.

Emde wrote:

I was a college student when I read Mr. Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb.” I took it to heart and now have no grandchildren, but 50 years later the population has increased to eight billion without dire consequences. I was gullible and stupid.

The picture above is of Paul Ehrlich.