Paul Ehrlich, the “sage” of the modern environmental movement, has died. And to be clear, I use scare quotes here because Ehrlich was a rather peculiar sage. He was neither shrewd nor wise. Indeed, he was arrogant and reckless, malicious and destructive. His ideas, which are still observed and revered today, were—and still are—responsible for a great deal of injustice and ugliness.
Interestingly, in the print and various online discussions of Ehrlich and his foul legacy, right-leaning commentators have frequently used the term “Malthusian” to describe him. Steven Greenhut, for example, writing at the Orange County Register, noted that academia, the media, and countless governments worldwide “embraced” Ehrlich’s “Malthusian gloom and shaped generations of Americans to view humanity as blight.” Nicholas Eberstadt, the world’s greatest living demographer, called Ehrlich “the world’s most famous opinionator on the population question since Reverend T.R. Malthus himself.” As with all those who deny man’s creativity and ingenuity, Ehrlich is tied to Malthus, and both are dismissed as cranks and fools—at least among those who have the sense to acknowledge that Ehrlich was not merely wrong, but disastrously so.
Read Full Article: https://amgreatness.com/2026/03/23/in-defense-of-thomas-malthus/
