...AND THE GREAT POPULATION EXPLODER

On the other hand, they can tell us quite unambiguously what is not true, and that includes most of the myths by "Population Bomb" Paul Ehrlich. For example, in the college textbook Population, Resources, Environment he claims that the economic depression of the 1930s made people have fewer children. But the US fertility rate had been declining steadily since the beginning of the 19^th century (it was 278 in 1800 and 130 in 1900) and as the chart shows, if the depression had anything to do with it at all (which is highly doubtful), it coincided with the turn-around in 1936 when birth rates began increasing again.

In the same year his article in The Progressive painted a chain of catastrophies, including the "Great Die-Off" in which 65 million Americans would die by famine through overpopulation in the decade 1980-89. (In the same issue, George Wald reveals what caused the decline of scientific productivity compared to the great scientists of the 19^th century: "Those men ... had no dictaphones, microfilm, computerized information, and the like. They did, however, have peace and quiet, the chance to walk through green fields, along quiet rivers, and to find relief from all the crowding, noise, filth, and endless distractions of modern urban life.")

But the current decline in birth rates, many believe, may well be due to such propaganda, no matter how crude and exaggerated.

Myth. The chart shows that the rapid decline began in 1957; The Population Bomb was published 11 years later, and pressure by the population controllers for a government policy, including serious consideration of involuntary fertility control continues to this day.

Again, many people believe that Zero Population Growth & Co are only worried about the Third World, without seeking to impose their policies on the US.

Double myth. First, fertility rates have been declining for the last 30 years all over the world. A stable population would obviously require an average of about two children to be born per woman per lifetime. Since not all children will reproduce (mainly due to infant mortality), the actual figure turns out to be 2.1. If the decline toward that figure since the 1950-55 period is expressed as a percentage, then the world in 1985 stood at 48% of the full decline to the 2.1 value. This is a weighted average of 51% in the underdeveloped countries and 114% in the industrialized world (which is now below the stable reproduction rate). The decline is insignificant only in Africa (2%) and below 40% only in temperate South America (21%; in Central America: 43%; in tropical South America: 53%).

Second, and more to the point, Ehrlich's recommendations concerning government policy on sterilization and other measures in his 1970 college text were explicitly and exclusively directed at the United States; and though a later version (1977) co-authored with J. Holdren softens the most Nazi-like statements on forced sterilization, it still claims "sound reasons that support the use of law to regulate reproduction."

"If population growth continues at its present rate, we will have squeezed another 40 million people inside the U.S. boundaries by the year 2000!"

This is, of course, the same Paul Ehrlich who is now raving on your boob tube about Nuclear Winter: the Stanford butterfly expert who claimed radioactivity makes oysters glow in the dark.

[Sources: US Bureau of the Census, Fertility and Birth Rates, Series B5-19. World rates: UN 1982 assessment of world population prospects, demographic indicators as quoted by American Enterprise Institute.]