Paul Ehrlich, prophet of ‘overpopulation’ doom, invited to speak at Vatican conference
January 13, 2017
Paul Ehrlich, who predicted the near-extinction of the human race through overpopulation in his 1968 best-seller, The Population Bomb, has been invited to speak at a Vatican conference on sustainable economic growth.
In The Population Bomb, Ehrlich forecast global famine in the 1990s, resulting in hundreds of millions of deaths. His theory that the world could not sustain a growing human population have been discredited not only by historic developments, but by a series of powerful rebuttals—most notably by the late economist Julian Simon, who won a highly publicized wager with Erhlich over the latter’s contention that natural resources would become scarcer and more expensive over time.
Ehrlich, who continues to argue that human population threatens the earth, favors aggressive family-planning programs and has defended sex-selection abortion as a means of curbing population growth. He will speak at a conference on the dangers of climate change, cosponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The conference is scheduled for February 27 through March 1.
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Posted by: TheJournalist64 -
Jan. 14, 2017 12:39 PM ET USA
As I argued years ago in Culture Wars, the only true prophet Paul from the 1970s was Paul VI. Every one of his predictions has come true; every one of Ehrlich's has been proven false. This is an abomination from a moral and scientific standpoint. The man should go back to counting fruit flies.
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Posted by: Ken -
Jan. 13, 2017 8:37 PM ET USA
It feels like we are experiencing an Obama version of the Vatican.
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Posted by: jalsardl5053 -
Jan. 13, 2017 7:55 PM ET USA
Having failed spectacularly in the grand extinction "hypothesis", Ehrlich now turns to the latest scam re climate change. Of course climate change happens, just go to any natural history museum and see what's go on over the years. The difference here is the political spin which the Vatican not only has bought into but fully supports. It'll be interesting to see how he ties his failed nonsense together with cc. Maybe he can take a cue from Cali's idiocy over cows (hint, hint).
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Posted by: Randal Mandock -
Jan. 13, 2017 2:19 PM ET USA
Ehrlich's invitation makes perfect sense in the political climate of the Vatican. Anyone wanna bet that nobody will throw tomatoes at him or boo him off the stage. I am wondering if the applause at the end of his speech will be polite, or will it be thunderously approving?
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Posted by: Lucius49 -
Jan. 13, 2017 2:08 PM ET USA
It's amazing that the Vatican does not see an anti-human life agenda both in the climate change ideologues and other false catastrophe-forecasters like Ehrlich! Remember the prediction not that long ago about the coming ice-age?? Does ideology trump the Faith in various quarters of the Vatican?
