A small Chinese child sitting among cables and e-waste, Guiyu, China. Much of modern electronic equipment contains toxic ingredients. Vast amounts are routinely and often illegally shipped as waste from Europe, USA and Japan to countries in Asia.
Credit: Greenpeace

For the world’s rich, it may seem that life is getting better and that human expansion on Earth is not something to worry about. But if we look a bit closer, the ecological data today shows that humanity and Earth’s wildlife would all be better off had we heeded the warnings of Paul Ehrlich, 50 years ago.

In 1968, Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, warning humanity that runaway human population would limit quality of life for humans, lead to increased starvation and malnutrition, and would contribute to ecological decline and biodiversity collapse. At that time, the human population stood at about 3.5 billion. Now, 50 years later, it has more than doubled to 7.6 billion, and we face the most severe biodiversity collapse the Earth has seen in 65 million years.

Ehrlich, at 82, remains one […]