John Carlson reasonably gives Mr. Borlaug his due (The greatest man you never heard of), then dumps on Paul Ehrlich. This is honoring an applied scientist, while dishonoring a theoretical scientist.
When I studied debate 30 years ago, the basic positive strategy is called “Need/Plan”. First you lay out the problem, then your proposed solution. “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich is still taught in colleges because he lays out the “Need”. Mr. Borlaug is part of the “Plan”.
Part of how college is different than high school is the professor throws out an idea, and then the students debate it. The solution isn’t in the back of the book, you are expected to come up with it.
Mr. Carlson has disdain for Mr. Ehrlich’s work, as do many conservatives, yet they incorporate his ideas. Illegal immigration is a major issue for conservatives, as is health care for illegals in the current session of Congress. Yet illegal immigration only matters in a world of overpopulation. If Ehrlich is so wrong, then why are conservatives so upset by immigration? Well, obviously, Ehrlich isn’t so wrong in his observations.
Let’s pick some issues where overpopulation has had major impacts on society. Lebanon had a history of many invasions, with the losers retreating into the mountains, and settling in a valley. That was fine, until the 20th century, with better medical care and more food, all those little communities started bumping into each other. Fifteen years of bloody civil war resulted.
Georgia (Soviet), Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Cambodia – all examples of what overpopulation can do.
Mr. Borlaug is an agronomist, yet one of the most disquieting findings to come out of agronomy is the finding that when civilizations lose half their topsoil, the civilization falls.
Fifty years ago, conservatives banned a film on contour plowing in South Dakota, because it was a “Communist Plot”.
To quote Henry Fonda’s character in the movie “The Battle of the Bulge,” “We can still lose this war”.
Sixty years ago, China had almost twice the population of India, and about the same per capita GDP. China limited their population growth, in a cruel, arguably dysfunctional way. Today, China and India have about the same population, yet China has almost four times the per capita GDP.
Gordon Bingenheimer, Bellevue
