I believe that species loss is inversely proportional to wealth. The poorer the country the faster its loss.

And due to advances in agricultural technology, since the Population Bomb book was published, global population has doubled while hunger has greatly diminished.

So wouldn’t the answer be more technology & wealth, not less?

> more technology & wealth

the exact things Ehrlich and his colleagues would like to prevent

EDIT- from the horse's mouth:

- If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000

- giving society cheap, abundant energy at this point would be the moral equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun

- Too many rich people in the world is a major threat to the human future

- Technology does nothing to solve problems of biodiversity or living space or arable cropland

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_R._Ehrlich

Things changed in direct response to the warning. That is exactly how it is supposed to go.

People who don't know insist too that Y2K was a big nothing, but it was nothing only because of $billions spent to ensure that it would be.

People who don't know say the same about whales, acid rain and stratospheric ozone. Same thing: global effort, crisis reduced, although further effort needed.

2038 still looms, but much has been done already.

I'm very skeptical that increases in agricultural productivity and political stability, two leading preventers of famine, were a direct result of a single book. The Population Bomb was controversial and had many detractors at the time. It seems much more likely that he was simply wrong in his predictions (which he insists were simply possible scenarios). Otherwise, you'd have much more evidence of the book being cited in public policy and industrial investment strategies.

It doesn't need to be just because of that book - e.g. companies can see impending food scarcity and invest in agricultural research etc. to avoid it and profit by meeting the growing demand.

The thing is although we now we can often figure out solutions when the problems become more apparent, we can't guarantee it - so it makes sense to start working on solutions as soon as possible.

The Green Revolution and improvements in political stability were each the result of huge amounts of hard work by people who recognized crippling problems ahead, and acted to avert them. If you were to tell them they were wrong to perceive a problem and invest the effort, they would be well justified in punching you in the nose.

"Things changed in direct response to the warning. That is exactly how it is supposed to go".replace('the warning', 'profit motive')

fixed it for you