Overview
- Ehrlich died on March 13 at age 93, prompting a new wave of obituaries and opinion pieces reweighing his influence on environmental and population debates.
- Coverage stresses that his predictions of mass famine did not occur as global population more than doubled while famine deaths and extreme poverty fell sharply, with Our World in Data cited.
- Reports revisit his 1980 bet with economist Julian Simon on commodity prices, which Ehrlich lost when the inflation‑adjusted cost of the chosen metals declined by 1990 and he paid the wager.
- Several op-eds argue that his population‑control rhetoric lent legitimacy to coercive measures, including forced sterilizations in India and China’s one‑child policy era.
- Accounts also note his respected ecological research on butterflies, population dynamics and extinction risk, with some voices maintaining that his broader warnings still warrant attention.