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The Media's Overpopulation Panic

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Peter Suderman | 3.17.2026 9:32 AM

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History's wrongest man. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, died over the weekend. I think there's a strong case to be made that he is History's Wrongest Man. 

The thesis of Ehrlich's book was that the world was destined to become overpopulated. And as the population grew, resources would become more scarce, and humans would become poorer and less well fed. He predicted a world wracked by starvation, shortages, and famine. This has not happened. 

In 1980, Ehrlich also famously bet economist Julian Simon that the price of five critical metals would increase. Simon, who believed that markets and human ingenuity would overcome scarcity, bet that the price would decrease. Ehrlich lost the bet and paid Simon the price difference with a check—signed not by Ehrlich, but by his wife. 

Yet here is how the subhead to The New York Times obituary for Ehrlich casts his legacy: "His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature." 

No. Ehrlich wasn't prematurely correct. He wasn't ahead of his time. He was simply and utterly wrong. 

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