Why Did the Population Bomb Not Explode?

Population Bomb Dud In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote the international best seller – The Population Bomb. Not only was everything he propounded in the book taken as Gospel by the nations of the world, it was taught as the harbinger of doom in colleges everywhere, especially in the US. Starvation War was imminent. And just like Al Gore predicted the Arctic Ice Cap would melt by 2000, it didn’t happen.

Population Bomb Taught Everywhere.Unfortunately for me, I was taught this doomsday theory in my college Biology class. It was required reading. And I believed it, like so many others did. The premise was that the population was growing too fast – too fast for food production. Ehrlich predicted that the world by the year 2000 at the latest would be at war over food.

Population Bomb Still Not Reality It didn’t happen. In fact, all major researchers say that though starvation still exists in countries run by totalitarian regimes, as a whole, the entire world is better fed than ever. In America, the problem is not too little food intake, but too much. Hence, the obesity epidemic.

But why didn’t the population bomb explode? The population of the world in the 1950’s was about 2.5 billion people. Today, it is 7.5 billion. Yet, worldwide, people are generally living lives with enough food and a considerably better lifestyle than in the 1950’s.

Here’s why. Before Ehrlich wrote his entirely wrong book, another man who is well known in many countries of the world – Norman Borlaug, an American Agriculture scientist, began research on how to develop better means of food production. US Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace, sent Borlaug to Mexico to find ways to keep the Mexican people from starving by developing higher yield grain. (Borlaug had a doctorate in Plant Pathology)

Through years of research, Borlaug led his team to develop stronger strains of wheat. The research paid off in three ways. The team developed (1) a wheat strain that was disease resistant, then it was also (2) high yield (meaning more grain produced per acre or plant), and with (3) dwarf type stems. These stems were stockier and thus less likely to fold over and rot.

Defeating the Population Bomb. From Mexico, the wheat improvement concept spread to all the poorer countries of Africa, South America, and Asia, including China and India, where Borlaug’s name is well known. Soon all countries were growing stronger yields and more of them.

Now, along with other grain hybridization, the world is not starving. Generally, with the help of mechanized, advanced food production, the world is eating quite well.

Borlaug is known as the man who saved a billion people. He is one of only seven people who’ve received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the Presidential Medal of Honor. He joins the ranks of Dr. Martin Luther King and Saint Mother Teresa.

Here’s the really bad news. The world’s population is not reproducing fast enough. Most developing nations are having fewer than two children per two adults. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand how that will affect economic growth and put a huge strain on older populations because there are not enough young adults to pay taxes and keep the medical entities in the black. By 2050, the world’s population will decline rapidly as more and more older people die off, and the young adults have generally passed best reproductive years.

The Too Few People Bomb In America, in 2017, the average of two people bearing children is 1.78. So not equal to two. Over a very few generations, the producing population of young adults will be overwhelmed. The economy will collapse. There will be more people pushing for “forced euthanasia.”

There could be a war of a different source. The leadership of the world’s developing countries need to work together to encourage loving couples to have children.