Paul R. Ehrlich: Saving Earth

One problem ecologists have talking to the general public is that we tend to think in much longer terms than the average economist and even the average person. The average person is concerned with everyday affairs, and to a large extent rightly so, but they’ve got to [make] some time for the longer term, if they care about their children and grandchildren.

What practical efforts to keep population down would work? I hate to get phallic about it, but how much carrot and how much stick?

Population is the background driver. The standard line, which I really agree with, is, whatever your cause, it’s a lost cause without population control.

First, you work on the rights of women — job opportunities for women, education, giving women rights — and in most parts of the world, that would get us where we want to be, a gradual population decline over the next century.