Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich, who died March 13, 2026, in Palo Alto, California, was never your typical academic.

Ehrlich was an environmental crusader, a ‘public scientist’ who was just as comfortable in front of an audience or a television camera as he was writing academic papers.

But his regular talks and TV interviews never felt motivated by ego or personal gain. If they were sensationalist, it’s because they were driven by personal passion and the need to deliver a message that Ehrlich fundamentally believed the world needed to hear; that human overpopulation was a serious threat to mankind and to the planet it inhabits.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published his bestselling book The Population Bomb, which predicted that hundreds of millions would starve by the end of the twentieth century due to food shortages resulting from overpopulation.

Ehrlich received much criticism over subsequent decades as his predictions about mass starvation appeared inaccurate. But in response to his detractors he argued that humanity had simply deferred the disaster by the use of more intensive agricultural techniques. He claimed that continued population growth and affluence were increasingly stressing the global environment, specifically in the form of biodiversity loss, overfishing, global warming, urbanisation, chemical pollution and the depletion of raw materials. Ehrlich maintained that reducing consumption and human population was critical to protecting the environment and maintaining living standards, and that current rates of population growth remained unsustainable.

The Population Bomb polarised the public, creating conversation around the issue of human overpopulation and regularly placing Ehrlich on television screens around the world.

Paul Ehrlich made over twenty appearances on The Tonight Show throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including this interview with host Johnny Carson on January 31, 1980.

Click the video below to watch the interview.

One of the interesting things to reflect on from this interview is Ehrlich’s numerous mentions of the increasing demands on energy resources resulting from population growth, and the conflicts that this could trigger.

Turn on a news channel today and Ehrlich’s predictions feel more plausible than ever.

Paul Ehrlich’s passing is certainly a loss for a world that needs visionaries more than ever. The timelines may have shifted ever so slightly, but his warnings about overpopulation have lost neither importance nor urgency.

Paul R. Ehrlich, May 29, 1932 – March 13, 2026.

Submitted by Friends of Retha


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