Study: More Americans Than Not Still Believe Overpopulation Myth
Elon Musk and Paul Ehrlich…
Only a minority of people know who Ehrlich was; fewer still would know why I mention the two men together. But they represent diametrically opposed perspectives on a major issue: population growth.
Billionaire tech mogul Musk has made news in recent years warning that our below-replacement-level fertility rates are a threat. “If people don’t have more children, civilization is going to crumble,” he has stated. “Mark my words.”
Ehrlich, an entomologist by training who passed away March 13 at 93, also had made news. Author of the once-(in)famous 1968 book The Population Bomb, he warned that overpopulation and scarcity would cause civilization to crumble. He once predicted the U.S. population would by 1999 have declined due to starvation — down to 22.6 million people. (Now Florida alone has about that many.) Then there was his prognostication about our friends across the pond. “If I were a gambler,” he’d stated, “I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”
Now, Ehrlich might’ve made a correct prediction, too, though I’m not aware of one. Yet despite his chronic errancy, a new YouGov study finds that more Americans lean toward his perspective than Musk’s. This is even though the vast majority of countries — approximately 136 — have birthrates below replacement level (2.1 children per woman). It’s even though demographers inform that the world’s population will begin declining by our century’s end.
The New Study
This discussion must begin with the acknowledgment that we may not even know what the world’s population is. It’s generally believed to be about 8.3 billion. Yet 2025 research held that we might be under-counting man’s numbers in rural areas by literally billions.
As for the new study on what population notions populate Americans’ minds, YouGov reported Wednesday:
Ehrlich’s core argument — that overpopulation is a big problem that needs to be addressed — is more widely known than Ehrlich himself (and often associated with English economist Thomas Malthus). Americans are more likely to say overpopulation is a problem than they are to say low birth rates are. This is true when Americans are asked about the U.S.: 47% say overpopulation in the U.S. is a very or somewhat serious problem and 41% say low birth rates are. And it’s especially true when Americans are asked about the world as a whole: 62% say overpopulation is a big problem globally and 37% say low birth rates are.
Liberals are more likely than conservatives to say overpopulation is a problem, and less likely to say low birth rates are. But even conservatives are more likely to say overpopulation is a serious problem worldwide than to say low birth rates are.
full story and video at https://thenewamerican.com/us/culture/study-more-americans-than-not-still-believe-overpopulation-myth/