CBS’ 60 Minutes rang in the new year with a segment featuring Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, who declared that humanity is doomed, because the earth is undergoing its sixth great extinction, whereby almost all forms of life will perish.
The cause of this wipeout? Too many people consuming too much stuff.
This segment of What’s Ahead lays out why we shouldn’t take Ehrlich any more seriously than those street corner cranks who cry out that the end is nigh.
In 1968 Ehrlich penned a bestselling book warning that hundreds of millions of people would starve to death during the 1970s. He’s been making incorrect apocalyptic predictions ever since.
It says something about the pessimism of our times that 60 Minutes would take a crackpot like Ehrlich seriously.
