In 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed a check for $576.07 to an economist named Julian Simon. Simon had bet him that the price of five metals would fall over a decade. Ehrlich took the bet because he believed scarcity was inevitable. Every price dropped. The market optimist won. The catastrophist paid up.
Last Friday, Ehrlich died in Palo Alto at 93. Every obituary this weekend noted that he got virtually everything wrong. That’s true, but it undersells the damage. Ehrlich’s legacy isn’t a series of bad predictions. It’s a record of what happens when governments believe a catastrophist.
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