What Happened to the Population Bomb?

Only you older readers have clear memories of 1968, but I remember it well. That was nearly 60 years ago, and it was a pivotal year in my career. I also remember it because of a book that was published that year, a work that had widespread societal as well as personal impact. 

Paul Ehrlich was the author of The Population Bomb (1968), the book just mentioned. He was born in Philadelphia in 1932, and after graduating from Pennsylvania University in 1953, he received the Ph.D. degree in Entomology (the scientific study of insects) in 1957 from the University of Kansas. From 1959 to 1968, he was a professor at Stanford University.

When Ehrlich’s soon-to-be bombshell book was first released in May 1968, it was initially ignored—no major newspaper reviewed it for four months. Its rise to prominence came through a different route entirely. In February 1970, Johnny Carson invited Ehrlich onto the Tonight Show, and the book soon became a bestseller.

The book received the Bestsellers Paperback of the Year Award in 1970, selling over two million copies. It raised general awareness of population and environmental issues as well as influencing public policy in the 1960s and 1970s.

It should be noted that Paul, with the assistance of his wife Anne, wrote the first draft in about three weeks, based on his lecture notes. The publisher, though, insisted on listing only Paul's name—a decision Ehrlich later called a mistake he was “stupid enough to go along with.” Anne was genuinely the co-author from the beginning.

Paul died on March 13 at the age of 93, and Anne, his wife for 71 years, is still living and now 92 years old.

Why would a biology professor be qualified to write a book about human overpopulation? The answer is found in his emphasis on “coevolution,” about which he wrote a landmark paper in 1964. That work, co-written with botanist Peter Raven, was titled “Butterflies and Plants: A Study in Coevolution and published in the journal Evolution.

Ehrlich’s entomology background trained him to think in terms of populations, limits, adaptation, and ecological relationships rather than just individual organisms. That perspective made it easier for him to frame human population growth as part of a larger biological system with finite resources.

In his ecological studies, Ehrlich repeatedly saw that when a population (of any species) undergoes exponential growth, it then experiences a subsequent crash as it has grown beyond what its environment can support. Since his research led him to believe that to be true, then humanity, he thought, was due to experience a cataclysmic downsizing of the population.

As it turned out, Ehrlich's dire prophecy proved self-defeating. The alarm he sounded was taken seriously enough to trigger responses that averted the catastrophe he foresaw for the 1970s.

Ehrlich himself was a keynote speaker at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, helping to shape the day's sense of urgency. In addition, the Green Revolution, international family planning initiatives, and agricultural investment in vulnerable regions also contributed substantially to staving off the outcome he feared.*

Although there were an impressive 8-9 million people at the No Kings protests on March 28, that is far less than half the number estimated to have participated in the first Earth Day activities. However, the latter covered a very broad range of activities while the No Kings figure refers to concentrated, single-day marches and rallies, which makes comparison tricky.

What was averted in the 1970s has been coming true in the 2020s. Since what he predicted in 1968 didn’t come true in the 1970s, Ehrlich changed his position during that decade and later. In the present decade, however, what is happening in the Global South resonates powerfully with his original warning.

The population explosion Ehrlich feared in 1968 largely did not materialize in the wealthy nations he was most focused on, but population growth now is concentrated in the poorest and most climate-vulnerable regions, primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa and other vulnerable regions of the Global South.**

The main issue now is climate-related disasters displacing millions—what many now call “climate refugees.” Drought, desertification, erratic rainfall, and crop failures is displacing large numbers of people primarily in the Sahel region (Mali, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso) and the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea).

Next month, Earth Day will be termed Earth Week, with major activities beginning on April 18 and continuing through April 25. Those activities will likely be much smaller but potentially more important than the No Kings activities on March 28. What will you do for humanity and for Mother Earth that week?

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 * The Green Revolution refers to a series of agricultural research and development initiatives, spanning roughly the 1940s through the 1970s, that dramatically increased food production in developing countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America. It was led principally by American agronomist Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

** The Progress Network posted “The Underpopulation Bomb” in their March 26 newsletter. It is largely critical of Ehrlich’s “prophecy of catastrophe” in The Population Bomb and, contrastingly, writes of the current concern with underpopulation and pronatalism. That article, and the Progress Network itself, is overly focused on the wealthy West and negligent of the population and ecological issues of the Global south.

Note: Research assistance provided by Claude (Anthropic).

 

Jane, Good for All the Earth

Earlier this month, Dr. Jane Goodall celebrated her 87^th birthday. Born in London in 1934, the famous anthropologist spent much of her life in Tanzania studying chimpanzees. She has also become one of the leading spokespersons advocating care for all the earth.  

Photo from The Jane Goodall Institute

Jane Goodall and the Media

Like most of you, I have heard of Jane Goodall for decades. But maybe unlike many of you, I was never particularly interested in her or in her work. I guess I thought there are more important things to do than to spend years and years studying chimpanzees.

My recent interest in Goodall, though, was spurred by a perceptive article about her in the December 30 issue of The Christian Century. After reading that article, “Why Jane Goodall reminds me of Dorothy Day,” I wanted to learn more about her and her work.

So, about six weeks ago, June and I watched Jane, the 2017 documentary, which followed her life and career from 1960 when she left her home country of England to live for decades in the Gombe forest of Tanzania.

Jane Goodall: The Hope is the new 2020 National Geographic film about Goodall. We just subscribed to Disney+, the only place where it seems to be available, in order to watch it last week at our usual “Friday night at the movies.” It is mostly about Jane’s work from 1986 to 2019.

Both of these documentaries helped us understand how Jane Goodall and her work studying and advocating for chimpanzees is, truly, good for all the earth.

Jane Goodall and Earth Day

As you probably know, April 22 is Earth Day; this year’s theme is Restore Our Earth. EarthDay.org has helpful information about various activities, which begin today.

National Geographic is kicking off Earth Day with a free virtual concert special on April 21. (Read more about that here.) Jane Goodall is scheduled to make an appearance at that concert. 

Goodall is certainly a worthy spokesperson for Earth Day. In April 2002, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her a United Nations Messenger of Peace, honoring her for a remarkable career as an environmentalist and her “dedication to what is best in mankind.”

She has done so much for the earth over the last 30 years that a National Geographic photographer who has traveled extensively with her calls Goodall the “Mother Teresa of the environment.”

And the subtitle of the Christian Century article about Goodall refers to her as “a secular saint.”

Jane Goodall and Chimpanzees

Eight years ago today (on 4/20/13) I began my first blog post about Earth Day by citing Psalm 24:1. In the NIV translation, that familiar verse says, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.”

We usually think of “all” in this verse as referring to human beings, but perhaps we should think of all as also including chimpanzees and other living beings. Jane Goodall certainly did, and does.

And maybe Jane Goodall’s meritorious lifework is an example of how “Understanding One Thing is to Understand Everything,” as I wrote about in my February 27 blog post.

As shown in the 2020 documentary, since 1986 Jane has been working tirelessly to save the environment for her beloved chimpanzees—and for the people in their shared environment—and, then, to save the whole earth from environmental destruction.

Indeed, Dr. Jane’s work over the past 60 years has been good for all the earth. May God help each of us to follow her example in our own small ways.

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** Here is the link to The Jane Goodall Institute's website, with links to her impressive “Roots and Shoots” organization as well as to her “Good for All News” website.

Taking Care of Mother

Although it is still three weeks until Mother’s Day, I am writing today about taking care of Mother Earth. This week marks the 50^th anniversary of Earth Day, so it is a fitting time to think about taking care of our planet. 

The First Earth Day

Earth Day was first observed on April 22, 1970. Do you old-timers remember that important event that celebrates its 50^th birthday this week?

To be honest, I don’t remember that day. I was living and teaching in Japan at that time, struggling at the beginning of a new semester to teach Christian Studies in Japanese to hundreds of university students. And at home, June was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with our third child.

Actually, though, for the first 20 years, Earth Day was mainly an event celebrated in the U.S. and did not become international until 1990. But those early years were important for the environmental movement in the U.S.

Gaylord Nelson, the Democratic Senator from Wisconsin, was the founder of Earth Day. In 1995, Nelson (1916~2005) was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of his environmental work.

In its beginning, Earth Day was bipartisan in its support and appeal. The co-chair who served with Sen. Nelson was Pete McCloskey, who was at the time a Republican U.S. Representative from California.

One of the ongoing effects of that first Earth Day was the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). President Nixon proposed the establishment of the EPA in July 1970 and it began operation in December of that year after he signed an executive order.

The Clean Air Act of 1963 came under the aegis of the EPA, and then the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973 were signed into law by President Nixon.

Yes, taking care of Mother Earth used to be a bipartisan concern.

Earth Day Now

There are extensive plans for the celebration of Earth Day 2020, and I encourage you to check out the website (here) for this year’s events, which they say will be “the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people.” 

Enthusiastic observance of Earth Day in the U.S. is especially important now, for the Trump Administration has rolled back many of the programs/activities that started 50 years ago.

Ten days ago, PBS posted “During the Coronavirus Crisis, the Trump Administration’s Environmental Rollbacks Continue.” And it has already been two and a half years since PBS aired “War on the EPA” on their 10/11/17 Frontline presentation.

Much of that war on the EPA, as documented in the PBS program, was led by Scott Pruitt, DJT’s first appointed head of the Agency. Pruitt, a conservative Southern Baptist from Oklahoma, served as head of the EPA from February 2017 to July 2018.

It was no surprise to learn (from this 3/27/18 CBN article) that Pruitt was “one of President Donald Trump's Cabinet members who sponsors and attends a weekly Cabinet Bible study led by Ralph Drollinger, president and founder of Capitol Ministries.”

(If you missed reading my previous blog post about Drollinger, check it out here.)

Things did not improve much when Andrew Wheeler became head of the EPA in February of last year. He previously worked in the law firm that represented a coal magnate and lobbied against the Obama Administration's environmental regulations.

Yes, much needs to be done to take care of Mother Earth—not only because of what is being undone now but also because of the many necessary things that have not yet been done.

And don’t forget, as I quoted at the beginning of the only other blog post I made about Earth Day (here, seven years ago), “The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” (Psalm 24:1, KJV).

Celebrating Earth Day

“The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” Many of us grew up hearing these words from Psalm 24:1 (KJV) from time to time. That being the case, it would seem that churches would be eager to celebrate Earth Day, using the Sunday closest to that day as a special time to emphasize the proper use of and care for the earth.

However, and it may just be my misperception, it seems that churches now are less likely to celebrate Earth Day than most other segments of society.

Monday, April 22, will be Earth Day 2013, and this year’s global Earth Day theme is “The Face of Climate Change.” Maybe even more than in the past, churches may not say much about Earth Day this year, for there are Christians (and a growing number of pastors) who reject the idea of climate change, at least as something that is being caused by or made worse by us humans.

The genesis of Earth Day is credited to Gaylord Nelson (1916-2005), a U.S. Senator (D-Wis.), who called for an environmental teach-in to be held on April 22, 1970. Over 20 million people participated that year. It has been an annual observance ever since. But not everyone thinks that Earth Day is a good or necessary celebration—especially if it talks about such things as global warming.

Chris Mooney is a young (b. 1977) U.S. journalist and academic, a Yale University graduate who now focuses on writing about science and politics. His most recent book is “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality” (2012).

In the Introduction of his new book, Mooney makes reference to a recent survey which indicated that “only 18 percent of Republicans and Tea Party members accepted the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by humans” (pp. 6-7). “In other words,” Mooney goes ahead to say, “political conservatives have placed themselves in direct conflict with modern scientific knowledge, which shows beyond serious question that global warming is real and caused by humans” (p. 7, emphasis in original).

This issue of climate change continues to be a divisive issue among U.S. citizens in general and among Christians in particular. According to Conservapedia.com, global warming is a “liberal hoax.” (In case you don’t know, Conservapedia is written from a self-described American conservative and Christian point of view. The website was started in 2006 by Andrew Schlafly, son of the anti-feminist activist Phyllis Schlafly, to counter what he called the liberal bias of Wikipedia.)

But can or should the problem of global warming be so easily brushed aside? Earlier this month the name of James Hansen was in the news. On April 2 a CBS headline said, “NASA climate scientist James Hansen quits to fight climate change.” Hansen (b. 1941) had been the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies since 1981. Upon leaving NASA he said he planned to take a more active role in the political and legal efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

This is just one example of a multitude of top-notch scientists who have no doubt that global warming is real and caused by humans as Mooney declared. That is why I happy that Earth Day will widely observed on April 22, in spite of conservative Christians, and why I hope it will help more people face up to the fact of climate change and the necessity of us humans doing more to combat the dire consequences of that change.