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Environmentalism
The Professor makes reference to Paul Ehrlich – and his wonderfully influential and totally wrong 1970 book “The Population Bomb,” and his predictions of worldwide famine and starvation by 1974. The reference reminds me of a conversation I had with a reporter one Earth Day two or three years ago. I was executive producer in the news department of a TV station and was approving the reporter’s script. She had quoted Ehrlich as authority on some idiotic point - I told her the food riots story as a way of illustrating how you can't simply accept some expert as authority. She jumped back, gasped, clasped her hands to her cheeks with a look of horror on her face, and said, "My parents told me the '70s were tough, but I had no idea people starved." Then I realized that she wasn't born until 1974 - and like many reporters, she had absolutely no knowledge of history. Perhaps that's one reason reports on the traditional media seem so stupid. I'm glad I'm out of it.
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