CJ, > The predictions came true, but the effects are mainly unfelt in the developed world.
Which predictions? You really ought to read the entire Wiki article:
> Famine has not been eliminated, but its root cause is political instability, not global food shortage
> Amongst other remarks, Ehrlich also stated that "India couldn't possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980," and "I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971." These predictions did not come to pass. In the book's 1971 edition, the latter prediction had been removed.
> According to Ehrlich, the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide usage, and the nation's population would drop to 22.6 million by 1999 (These days, the US life expectancy is dropping not because of nutritional problems, but because of obesity.)
> While of the repeated theorizing Simon complained "As soon as one predicted disaster doesn't occur, the doomsayers skip to another... why don't the [they] see that, in the aggregate, things are getting better? Why do they always think we're at a turning point -- or at the end of the road?"
> In a 2004 Grist Magazine interview, Ehrlich acknowledged some specific predictions he had made, in the years around the time his Population Bomb was published, that had not come to pass. However, as to a number of his fundamental ideas and assertions he maintained that facts and science proved them valid
> At the same time, Ehrlich also notes that many things critics claim were "predictions" were actually scenarios. (In other words, anything that came true was a "prediction," while anything that didn't come true was a "scenario.")
Tenchusatsu |
