I Watched The ’60 Minutes’ Doomsday Diatribe On Overpopulation So You Don’t Have To

CBS News believed that the best way to begin 2023 was through a “60 Minutes” segment on overpopulation featuring Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University’s Bing Professor of Population Studies, Emeritus, as the centerpiece voice.

Ehrlich is perhaps best known for being the author of “The Population Bomb,” A book that was published almost 55 years ago. He’s also known for making a catastrophically wrong prediction in that same book.

If you were born during the 1970s, thank your parents that Ehrlich was not mentioned.

The next time the media trots out Paul Ehrlich — and there will be a next time — it would be best to associate him with another name: Harold Camping. Mr. Camping was a radio personality, evangelist, and radio personality who often predicted. “the rapture” And the end of the universe most famously on May 21, 2011. Let’s take a look at the failed predictions of Camping and Ehrlich and see if we notice anything:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now,” wrote Ehrlich in “The Population Bomb.”

“We’re not talking about a ball game, or a marriage, or graduating from college. We’re talking about the end of the world, a matter of being eternally dead, or being eternally alive, and it’s all coming to a head right now,” Camping.

Here’s where their paths diverge, however. After his failed prediction, Camping was ridiculed widely. Ehrlich, on the other hand, still enjoys massive credibility and is then featured as a voice of authority on one of the legacy media’s most prestigious programs. Perhaps it is because Ehrlich has been there. ‘PhD’ After your name, you are not responsible.

Ehrlich was unblemished after his 50-year failure and shared his latest doomsday predictions to the ever-shrinking legacy news audience.

Reporter Scott Pelley: “You seem to be saying that humanity is not sustainable?”

Paul Ehrlich: “Oh, humanity is not sustainable. To maintain our lifestyle (yours and mine, basically) for the entire planet, you’d need five more Earths. Not clear where they’re gonna come from.”

Ehrlich and the parade of PhD’s in the story seem to feel this latest mass extinction is unavoidable, even at one point saying that if you look out your window in the future, “three quarters of what you think ought to be there is no longer there.” Unfortunately, this alarmism is being heard by the Biden administration as well as their allies in Congress. Perhaps when your record of failure is as bad as Biden’s, you can look past the failed prediction doomsday professors.

In one of the many forms of the $1.7 trillion federal spending bill, was over half a billion dollars in funding For “family planning services” An area with population growth “threatens biodiversity.” Conveniently, and most likely coincidentally, “60 Minutes” Just three days after Biden signed a spending package, Ehrlich was brought in along with the overpopulation team. Nobody thought to inquire if the federal funding is being cut to dole out their latest alarmism to doomsday scholars. Those questions would mean you’re a flat earther, daring to “question the science.”

One “solution” CBS experts offer people money to retain their land “wild.” We can offer them more if they are farming on their land. Keep in mind, this is the same group who say we’re overpopulated advocating we use less land for food … and Joe Biden loves the idea.

Shortly after taking office President Biden introduced his 30 by 30 plan. The government aims to seize 30% of American land, water and forests by 2030. He hasn’t mentioned it much over the last two years, but Paul Ehrlich and CBS News are already leading the charge.

These failed prophecies by doomsday experts are not being dismissed. Instead, they are gaining ground in billions of dollars and millions upon millions of acres.

These ideas will cause significant disruption, and the Biden administration represents the tip. It appears they’re all adopting a new mantra: Never let a doomsday scenario go to waste.

Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can follow him on Twitter @larrybehrens, or send him an email: [email protected]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.

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