Source: New York Times
“Paul R. Ehrlich, an eminent ecologist and population scientist whose best-selling book, ‘The Population Bomb,’ was celebrated as a prescient warning of a coming age of food shortages and famine … died on Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 93. … In 1980, Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, challenged Dr. Ehrlich and two of his colleagues with what Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, called ‘one of the great revelatory bets.’ Convinced that the growing population would make natural resources ever more scarce and thus drive up costs, Dr. Ehrlich accepted Mr. Simon’s challenge, betting that the prices of five key metals would rise in the 1980s. Mr. Simon believed that innovation would drive prices down. In 1990, Dr. Ehrlich and his colleagues conceded defeat and sent Mr. Simon a check for $576.07 — an amount that represented the decline in the metals’ prices after accounting for inflation.” (03/16/26)