Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet

by Hannah Ritchie

Of course, we now know that his predictions did not come true. That’s totally fine: nearly everyone who makes predictions about the future turns out to be wrong. What makes his book so terrible are the inhumane policies he advocated for based on this strong (and wrong) conviction. World population had to be strictly managed. Humans were cancer – a reproducing organism that had to be controlled. As he put it: ‘we can no longer afford merely to treat the symptoms of the cancer of population growth; the cancer itself must be cut out’. In the US and other rich countries, he discusses the option of adding temporary sterilants to the water or food supply.ii Rather than providing financial support to families, ‘responsibility prizes’ could be handed out to couples who reached five years of childless marriage, or men who accepted irreversible sterilisation. Another idea was to have special lotteries where tickets were only handed out to the childless. That’s nauseating. But it’s nothing compared to his suggestions for ‘underdeveloped countries’. Not only did he suggest sterilisation programmes, but he also proposed a ‘triaged’ system of who should be left to starve to death. Some countries could be redeemable – they might be able to dig their way out of it. But some countries were a lost cause. Rich countries should withdraw any food aid and support, and just leave them to die. It’s not clear how committed Paul R. Ehrlich really was to these ideas. But many – including senior offi...