I'm sort of optimistic about what we could do, but I'm very pessimistic about what we will do. I can't tell you that Al Gore's 10-year plan is impossible. I'm old enough to remember the Second World War - if… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
We're never all going to agree with each other. We have to learn to value the diversity. It's one of the presumable principles of… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
With taxes, if they aren't working right, we can change them with a stroke of the pen. It's basically a market-type mechanism. People make… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
There's all of this stuff where we have so much debate over nonsense; it could be cured if we had a better educational system,… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
In ten years [i.e., 1980] all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
So, regarding the time frame, I'm only too willing to admit that my crystal ball, like everybody else's, is cracked. If I could predict precisely, I would have started predicting the stock market and would now be living with a bunch of young women on Bora Bora, having bought it. — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share
If we were redesigning around people instead of around automobiles, which I think the market is more or less going to do, although too… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think the Congress feels that if you only decided tomorrow to switch to wind power that in two years we'd be getting 80 percent of our electricity from wind power. It's nonsense. Normally it takes 20 to 30 years after a new technology is demonstrated and deployed before it powers even 15 or 20 percent of the grid.… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share
Solving the population problem is not going to solve the problems of racism, of sexism, of religious intolerance, of war, of gross economic inequality. But if you don't solve the population problem, you're not going to solve any of those problems. Whatever problem you're interested in, you're not going to solve it unless you also solve the population problem. Whatever… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share
Your children should have it impressed upon them that their adult life-style will bear very little resemblance to yours and that they should now be acquiring knowledge, skills, values, and tastes that will sustain them in less materially affluent circumstances. On the other hand, the fresh insights and imaginations of your children may help you find a viable future while… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share
The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
It turns out the population issue is an easier thing to deal with than the consumption issue. Some obvious extremes in consumption we can… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share Image
Overall, The Population Bomb was probably too optimistic. I was writing about climate change - Anne and I actually wrote the book. We discussed whether or not you'd have to take a gondola to the Empire State Building, and that sort of thing, but we didn't know at the time whether the climate change would be in the direction of… — Paul R. Ehrlich Copy Share
![“In ten years [i.e., 1980] all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” quote by Paul R. Ehrlich](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/552/paul-r-ehrlich-13046_animal_in-ten-years-i-e-1980-all-important-anim_180543.jpg)
