On The Population Bomb
(EDIT: Turns out that every point I was making was made much better by Thomas L. Macdonald on the Patheos Website: Paul Ehrlich: Still Wrong After All These Years. Apparently he's still shooting off his mouth, and saying everything he's been talking about is right. Amazing. I apparently picked up his book at a fairly good time.
(I'm very glad that no money went to Paul Ehrlich for the copy of his book I'm reading for some time--it was in a car that once belonged to Bill's grandmother, many many years ago... and there's a note inside that's neither to or from someone with her name, so I think that she got the book from a used bookstore. Kinda cool.)
Anyway, back to the post.)
ford_prefect42 and I were prepping a car to go to the scrapyard today when I noticed a few books in the back. One of them was that famous piece of literature, Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1971 revision). This book makes the basic argument that, seeing as we're failing to even feed our current global population, we must use population control measures to reduce the population of the earth drastically--say, to half a billion--in order to be able to sustain the human race for generations to come at an acceptable standard of living.
Lots of people talk about the predictions made in this book, and how they were wrong. (The defense to this is that Paul Ehrlich never said they were going to happen--which applies to the three scenarios he outlines in the middle of the book, but not at all to the sweeping statements he made elsewhere. The other defense to this is that it's because he wrote the book, which--given that very few nations have implemented comprehensive population control measures--is a questionable claim.) That is a notable problem, but not the one that really came out at me. Well, one of the ones.
See, while most every concrete statement he's made has been demonstrably false so far (I'm so far halfway through the first scenario, so I'm mostly referring to his laying out of "the problem" here)--that actually refers to remarkably few of his statements. For any of you who have read Atlas Shrugged, do you remember the report on Rearden Metal? How it didn't actually say anything, but was orchestrated in such a way to indicate that Rearden Metal was doomed to destroy everything?
That's how huge portions of this book read.
Concern about this problem has been greatly increased by the prospect of supersonic transports. Most people have been opposing this project [of supersonic transport] on the basis that the "sonic booms" generating will drive half the people in the country out of their skulls while benefiting almost no one.But ecologists, as usual, have been looking at the less obvious. Supersonic transports will leave contrails high in the stratosphere, where they will break up very slowly. A lid of ice crystals gradually will be deposited high in the atmosphere, which might add to the "greenhouse effect" (prevention of the heat of the Earth from radiating back into space). On the other hand, they may produce a greater cooling than heating effect because of the sun's rays which they reflect back into space. One way or another, you can bet their effect will not be "neutral."
(This was from Page 48, about two-thirds of the way through the Dying Planet subchapter.)
There's also a fact that he's fairly obviously speaking from the international Communist philosophy, wherein a minimum standard of living (having more in common with the first world than the third world) must be provided to every person in the entire world, and anyone that would come in between us and that--and anyone who would unfairly keep their resources from making that happen--is... well, he so far hasn't done much but express disapproval at the notion, but I find the very idea that he appears to find national governments and personal volition as little more than irritating obstacles in the way of that goal is... concerning.
And in any case, once you reject this international Communist philosophy, most of his conclusions, already questionable (due to his lack of concrete statements and--well, the fact that none of his predictions ever came to pass), fall utterly apart.
I mean, really. Let's look at the text on the back of the book. There is no summary, merely a list (and a brief bio of the author, not listed):
Mankind's inalienable rights:
It's rather an amazing book so far. This claims to be a scientific book, but it isn't. And between its non-statements, its appeals to emotion, its appeals to consequence (we can't know this is right, but imagine if it is! We'd best take precautions)... it's not a very good piece of persuasive literature.
I'm going to try to make my way the rest of the way through it--it's entertaining in its boldfacedness, and I just have to wonder if the reason I don't hear things so baldly anymore is because the world got over-saturated with it in the past forty years--but it's... a rather startling book overall to be reading. And this is a hugely influential book? I felt like I could play Logical Fallacy Bingo with it (and I could certainly get a blackout in Liberal Talking Points Bingo).
I feel remarkably disillusioned. I mean, okay, I'm well aware that most of my information on the liberal mindset comes from internet arguments and political talking points. And I know that me and Bill can't argue laissez-faire economics like Mises or Rand (for example), so... well, I'd been hoping to get to one of the books that Explains It All in a way that I'd hopefully understand.
And finding what I think was one of those books (The Population Bomb was supposed to be incredibly influential), and finding that it did not, in fact, explain these things very well at all... well. It's disappointing.
I'll try to find another book to explain the liberal argument to me after this, I think. But I won't be expecting as much.
(I'm very glad that no money went to Paul Ehrlich for the copy of his book I'm reading for some time--it was in a car that once belonged to Bill's grandmother, many many years ago... and there's a note inside that's neither to or from someone with her name, so I think that she got the book from a used bookstore. Kinda cool.)
Anyway, back to the post.)
ford_prefect42 and I were prepping a car to go to the scrapyard today when I noticed a few books in the back. One of them was that famous piece of literature, Paul R. Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1971 revision). This book makes the basic argument that, seeing as we're failing to even feed our current global population, we must use population control measures to reduce the population of the earth drastically--say, to half a billion--in order to be able to sustain the human race for generations to come at an acceptable standard of living.
Lots of people talk about the predictions made in this book, and how they were wrong. (The defense to this is that Paul Ehrlich never said they were going to happen--which applies to the three scenarios he outlines in the middle of the book, but not at all to the sweeping statements he made elsewhere. The other defense to this is that it's because he wrote the book, which--given that very few nations have implemented comprehensive population control measures--is a questionable claim.) That is a notable problem, but not the one that really came out at me. Well, one of the ones.
See, while most every concrete statement he's made has been demonstrably false so far (I'm so far halfway through the first scenario, so I'm mostly referring to his laying out of "the problem" here)--that actually refers to remarkably few of his statements. For any of you who have read Atlas Shrugged, do you remember the report on Rearden Metal? How it didn't actually say anything, but was orchestrated in such a way to indicate that Rearden Metal was doomed to destroy everything?
That's how huge portions of this book read.
Concern about this problem has been greatly increased by the prospect of supersonic transports. Most people have been opposing this project [of supersonic transport] on the basis that the "sonic booms" generating will drive half the people in the country out of their skulls while benefiting almost no one.But ecologists, as usual, have been looking at the less obvious. Supersonic transports will leave contrails high in the stratosphere, where they will break up very slowly. A lid of ice crystals gradually will be deposited high in the atmosphere, which might add to the "greenhouse effect" (prevention of the heat of the Earth from radiating back into space). On the other hand, they may produce a greater cooling than heating effect because of the sun's rays which they reflect back into space. One way or another, you can bet their effect will not be "neutral."
(This was from Page 48, about two-thirds of the way through the Dying Planet subchapter.)
There's also a fact that he's fairly obviously speaking from the international Communist philosophy, wherein a minimum standard of living (having more in common with the first world than the third world) must be provided to every person in the entire world, and anyone that would come in between us and that--and anyone who would unfairly keep their resources from making that happen--is... well, he so far hasn't done much but express disapproval at the notion, but I find the very idea that he appears to find national governments and personal volition as little more than irritating obstacles in the way of that goal is... concerning.
And in any case, once you reject this international Communist philosophy, most of his conclusions, already questionable (due to his lack of concrete statements and--well, the fact that none of his predictions ever came to pass), fall utterly apart.
I mean, really. Let's look at the text on the back of the book. There is no summary, merely a list (and a brief bio of the author, not listed):
Mankind's inalienable rights:
- The right to eat
- The right to drink pure water
- The right to breathe clean air
- The right to decent, uncrowded shelter
- The right to enjoy natural beauty
- The right to avoid pesticide poisoning
- The right to freedom from thermonuclear war
- The right to limit families
- The right to have grandchildren
It's rather an amazing book so far. This claims to be a scientific book, but it isn't. And between its non-statements, its appeals to emotion, its appeals to consequence (we can't know this is right, but imagine if it is! We'd best take precautions)... it's not a very good piece of persuasive literature.
I'm going to try to make my way the rest of the way through it--it's entertaining in its boldfacedness, and I just have to wonder if the reason I don't hear things so baldly anymore is because the world got over-saturated with it in the past forty years--but it's... a rather startling book overall to be reading. And this is a hugely influential book? I felt like I could play Logical Fallacy Bingo with it (and I could certainly get a blackout in Liberal Talking Points Bingo).
I feel remarkably disillusioned. I mean, okay, I'm well aware that most of my information on the liberal mindset comes from internet arguments and political talking points. And I know that me and Bill can't argue laissez-faire economics like Mises or Rand (for example), so... well, I'd been hoping to get to one of the books that Explains It All in a way that I'd hopefully understand.
And finding what I think was one of those books (The Population Bomb was supposed to be incredibly influential), and finding that it did not, in fact, explain these things very well at all... well. It's disappointing.
I'll try to find another book to explain the liberal argument to me after this, I think. But I won't be expecting as much.