{"id":32751,"date":"2018-03-24T07:37:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-24T12:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32751"},"modified":"2018-03-24T07:38:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-24T12:38:32","slug":"paul-ehrlich-collapse-of-civilisation-is-a-near-certainty-within-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=32751","title":{"rendered":"Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades’<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Fifty years after the publication of his controversial book The Population Bomb, biologist Paul Ehrlich warns overpopulation and overconsumption are driving us over the edge<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The toxification of the planet with synthetic chemicals may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change, says Ehrlich. Photograph: Linh Pham\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n
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A<\/span><\/span>shattering collapse of civilisation is a \u201cnear certainty\u201d in the next few decades due to humanity\u2019s continuing destruction of the natural world that sustains all life on Earth<\/a>, according to biologist Prof Paul Ehrlich.<\/p>\n

In May, it will be 50 years since the eminent biologist published his most famous and controversial book, The Population Bomb<\/a>. But Ehrlich remains as outspoken as ever.<\/p>\n

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Prof Paul Ehrlich of Stanford University. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The world\u2019s optimum population is less than two billion people \u2013 5.6 billion fewer than on the planet today, he argues, and there is an increasing toxification of the entire planet by synthetic chemicals that may be more dangerous to people and wildlife than climate change.<\/p>\n

Ehrlich also says an unprecedented redistribution of wealth is needed to end the over-consumption of resources, but \u201cthe rich who now run the global system \u2013 that hold the annual \u2018world destroyer\u2019 meetings in Davos<\/a> \u2013 are unlikely to let it happen\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Population Bomb, written with his wife Anne Ehrlich in 1968, predicted \u201chundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death\u201d in the 1970s \u2013 a fate that was avoided by the green revolution in intensive agriculture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Many details and timings of events were wrong, Paul Ehrlich acknowledges today, but he says the book was correct overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cPopulation growth, along with over-consumption per capita, is driving civilisation over the edge: billions of people are now hungry or micronutrient malnourished, and climate disruption is killing people.\u201d<\/p>\n