To the editor:
Laurie Mazur has written a mixed message on population growth. ("China drops its 'one-child' policy, now let's ban the 'population bomb,'" Op-Ed, Nov. 3)
She claims incorrectly that Paul Ehrlich was wrong in 1968 when he wrote about the “population bomb” and says population growth must slow. She points to the cruel and inhumane “one-child” policy in China as a failure, but for the Chinese, they got their rate of population increase below the rate of their economic growth. As the result, China is now a world power.
Ehrlich was wrong only in his timing. Most of his prognostications have come true and then some.
Overpopulation has led to mass famine in the Sahel and elsewhere in Africa. The loss of arable land has led to political instability, wars and mass migrations. The United States has an influx of people from South and Central America, and Europe has hordes coming from Africa and Asia.
Her prescription for more education to slow growth has worked where secular education is available to the masses. But every fundamentalist religion (you name it) opposes family planning, and their acolytes control many parts of the world.
It is not the facts of Erlich's “bomb” that are wrong; rather, it is the unwillingness of so many to acknowledge the limitations of Mother Earth.
Emil Lawton, Sherman Oaks
Note from KBJ: Does this mean that if you predict that X will happen, you can never be proved wrong, because X might happen eventually? I hereby predict that a dog will be elected president.
