The Bet by Paul Sabin

Author:Paul Sabin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2013-09-22T04:00:00+00:00

Paul and Anne Ehrlich in London, 1986. Courtesy of Sally Kellock.

Despite his accomplishments, Julian Simon felt frustrated, too. He also had tried to start a new advocacy group to promote his point of view. After the 1984 Mexico City population conference, which he had been disappointed not to attend, Simon proposed a new organization to “celebrate human life.” The new entity, alternately called Pro People or Committee on Population and Economy, would counter the population establishment and show that there was no “consensus” on the need for population control. Sensing a “shift in the wind” after two decades of media despair about overpopulation, Simon wanted to remind people that “children are the heart of progress” and the “measure of all things in the Jewish-Christian-Islamic-Western tradition.” “An additional human being tends to benefit rather than harm others economically.” Limits to human progress were receding, and population growth, on average, increased the standard of living rather than reducing it. Pro People would oppose legislative efforts to discourage parents from having children and to stabilize the United States population. Most importantly, Pro People would provide the media with “an organizational address” that could provide contrasting viewpoints on population issues. In the absence of such an organization, Simon complained, “the anti-natalists frequently characterize those who do not agree with them as a tiny and bizarre fringe group.” Pro People would “combat the anti-population and anti-growth ideas” of groups such as Zero Population Growth and the Global Tomorrow Coalition, which was promoting The Global 2000 Report. Pro People, like Ehrlich’s Club of Earth, went nowhere organizationally. Simon continued to lack strong organizational support for his views. The Heritage Foundation proved too tactically focused on the short-term for Simon, whose independent and scholarly attitude did not mesh well with the action-oriented, policy-focused think tank.64

Simon’s frustration came from his feeling that he had won the intellectual argument but failed to change policy behavior or break up the population establishment. The 1986 National Research Council report provided a new scientific synthesis that largely repudiated Ehrlich’s views on population growth. Simon described the shift on population issues as “the unreported revolution.” Population control advocates had the same prominent media platform for their views. In May 1989, Ehrlich presented three five-minute segments on NBC’s Today show, reaching an audience of millions. The television segments, Simon complained, showed “nary a whiff of the ‘balance’ that journalists pride themselves on.” What could be done about this? Simon had little hope. “Efforts to change the beliefs of the public and the assertions of journalists,” he wrote, “are likely to be a waste of time.”65

Powerful governmental institutions also continued to urge population control. The 1986 National Research Council report had not left much of a mark on international population policy. In a talk at the World Bank in 1988, Simon asked, “How can the World Bank, the UNFPA, AID, Planned Parenthood, and the population establishment go on repeating the same old scary statements?” Simon took his contrarian views right into hostile territory. The bank’s

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