Few Believe in ‘Population Prophet’

M on Dieu! Twice in as many days we hear from a pop intellectual like Paul Ehrlich. Your editorial section gives free space to his ramblings (“One Potentially Lethal Disease,” April 4), then your View section affords this aging Cassandra front page celebrity status (“Population Prophet Hurls New Bombs,” April 5).

This man has written a book that, by his own admission, is for people “who want to know the current situation but don’t have to be persuaded.” Can you believe a scientist would say such a thing? Of course not. We now have proof, straight from Mr. Ehrlich’s mouth, that he is not a scientist, but a politician, that his arguments are therefore emotional and founded on beliefs, not the testing of hypotheses.

The Ehrlichs’ argument is the paean of most environmental extremists: Human beings are a blight upon the Earth. To your reader, this is little more than intellectual misanthropy. Apparently, ivory-tower elitists like Ehrlich do not notice that every stomach comes complete with two hands and a brain. Must the human species be insulted by Ehrlich as he insults women by displaying them in wet T-shirts on his door?

For all those who agree with the doomsayers, please note that food supplies are indeed growing faster than population, greater wealth has historically reduced population growth and actions are actively being taken to remediate damage to our environment. We have better tools, transportation, minds and technological methods to fix our mistakes than ever before.

ROBERT H. JACOBS

Los Angeles