In 1980, Simon challenged Ehrlich to name any raw materials and any period longer than a year, and bet him $10,000 that the price of each of these metals, adjusted for inflation, would be lower at the end of the period than before it. Ehrlich picked copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten, which were all materials he had predicted would run out. Yet, in 1990, the price of each of these metals had dropped, and the level of annual production had increased, even though the intervening decade had seen human population increase by 800 million people, the largest increase in a single decade
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