The origins and development of eek!-o-freakery (Part 4)

Paul Ehrlich - Hitler had the right idea, but the wrong people

The daddy of academic eek!-o-freakery is probably known to only a handful of people on this side of the pond; a few more will know the name of John Holdren, The One's influential advisor for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Well, Ehrlich and Holdren are symbionts. They wrote a Bioscience article together in 1969 arguing that "if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come." In 1977 they co-authored Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment, in which they proposed enforced population controls such as compulsory sterlisation for women after they give birth to two children.

The myth of the Oxford debate on evolution in 1860 has it that, upon hearing a labored witticism with which "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce closed his argument, Thomas Huxley muttered: ‘The Lord hath delivered him into my hands.’ Much the same sentiment crossed my mind when I learned in 1996 that Ehrlich and wife had published a book entitled The Betrayal of Science and Reason. Given Ehrlich's previous form, I turned first to the notes and my excitement rose as the self-references went through the previous mark (seventy-eight in Healing the Planet) at a canter, broke the century mark at page 208, to finish with a new world record at 115.

There are a couple of simple rules for notes that hold good despite their disappearance from the discipline-enforcing foot of the page. First, if material was not good enough for inclusion in the text, then it is eminently dispensable; a scholar's first duty, especially in this age of information over-load, is to edit his work severely. Second, the purpose of notes is to identify the source of direct quotations, or works by others to whom the author owes an intellectual debt. To cite yourself, or to cite another who cites you, is masturbation.

Yeah - that's ad hominem. But eek!-o-freakery has prospered because it has cunningly dressed up an appeal to (comfortable) mankind’s baser nature in the clothing of science and reason, when it is in fact a savage assault on both. The fact that Ehrlich is a vain little cockerel crowing atop his own dung-heap is therefore highly relevant to an accurate assessment of his contribution, as is the fact that he has from the start been assisted and funded by interests devoted to pulling up the social ladder.

In a sentence that echoes Al Gore's vision, Ehrlich wrote: "Achieving environmental security should be recognized as a top priority for all societies. These unpopular (and to the average economist, politician, and Sunday TV pundit, utterly unacceptable) notions need to be converted into common wisdom". Would a weekday pundit be acceptable? Ehrlich's undisguised animus towards economists stems from the fact that Julian Simon publicly humiliated him by winning a bet that all the major premises of Population Bomb would prove false - but his economic and social naivety does the requisite number on him without any assistance.

"Making the carbon tax revenue-neutral by coupling it with lower social security taxes or personal and corporate income taxes would encourage individuals to work harder [to keep warm?] and earn more, while corporations would have an incentive to hire additional employees rather than buy energy-using machinery". Take that, you numb-nuts economists! HE hath cut through your sad externalities Gordian knot. Now go forth and convert it into common wisdom.

However patently ridiculous Ehrlich's comments are on the surface, his sub-text is too sinister to dismiss with a laugh. Note the following subliminal suggestion: "on a planet with one billion inhabitants, each person would be more than ten times as wealthy as if there were 10 billion inhabitants". Leaving aside his economically moronic zero-sum basic premise, the last time a concept like that gained widespread acceptance it went by the name of Lebensraum and a mere 55 million people died as a result.

Then there is tree worship: "Many [forestry scientists] are even unaware of the benefits of old-growth stands as reservoirs of genetic diversity that may be essential to the long-term health of the local timbering industry". All over the world, forestry scientists must have smacked themselves on the forehead at not having realized this before. Fancy not noticing that old trees, far from suffocating young saplings, are instead wise elders eager to lend them an experienced helping hand!

Or is the exclusiveness of ancient trees the heart of their appeal to an old man who demands that human population should be reduced substantially and speedily? With stunning obliviousness from one of his ethnic background, Ehrlich approvingly quoted some silly Brit who suggests that producers of alleged environmental hazard should be considered guilty until proved innocent, because: "waiting for final proof . . . would be the height of imprudence".

So you decide who is a Jew, right Paul? To hell with civil liberties: HE hath come to be a judge and a divider among us, a big improvement on the last wimpy emissary, who claimed to be merely the Son of God.