The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World

by Charles C. Mann

“apocalyptic environmentalism”—the belief that unless humankind drastically reduces consumption its growing numbers and appetite will overwhelm the planet’s ecosystems.

Vogt argued that affluence is not our greatest achievement but our biggest problem.

Borlaug, born twelve years later, has become the emblem of what has been termed “techno-optimism” or “cornucopianism”—the view that science and technology, properly applied, can help us produce our way out of our predicament.

Only by getting richer, smarter, and more knowledgeable can humankind create the science that will resolve our environmental dilemmas.

One example: by using the advanced methods of the Green Revolution to increase per-acre yields, he argued, farmers would not have to plant as many acres. (Researchers call this the Borlaug hypothesis.)

Vogt’s views were the opposite: the solution, he said, is to get smaller. Rather than grow more grain to produce more meat, humankind should, as his followers say, “Eat lower on the food chain.” If people ate less beef and pork, valuable farmland would not have to be devoted to cattle and pig feed. The burden on Earth’s ecosystems would be lighter.

think of the adherents of these two perspectives as Wizards and Prophets—Wizards unveiling technological fixes, Prophets decrying the consequences of our heedlessness. Borlaug has become a model for the Wiz...