famine

Growing up as the fifth of six kids, I never saw any special virtue in small families. Back then, at the tail end of the baby boom, apparently no one else did either. So perhaps it was no wonder that Paul Ehrlich caused such a commotion when, in 1968, he tossed The Population Bomb into the world’s emerging environmental conscience. Written in just a few weeks, the book sold in the millions. Ehrlich’s forceful and confident arguments, and his authority as a Stanford biologist, compelled attention.