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It turns out the population issue is an easier thing to deal with than the consumption issue. Some obvious extremes in consumption we can deal with. The standard cure for a stuttering economy is to go out and buy an SUV and three more refrigerators. That's obviously not the way to go.

Paul R. Ehrlich

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Paul R. Ehrlich
Age: 92
Born: 1932
Born: May 29
Academic
Demographer
Ecologist
Environmentalist
Lepidopterist
Population Biologist
Researcher
University Teacher
Zoologist
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Paul R. Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich
Paul R Ehrlich
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Refrigerators
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More quotes by Paul R. Ehrlich

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The National Academy of Sciences would be unable to give a unanimous decision if asked whether the sun would rise tomorrow.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth's population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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There are substitutes for oil there is no substitute for fresh water.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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We ought to take good care of everybody we have on the planet, but we ought to regulate the rate at which people join us. The old saying is, It's the top of the ninth inning, and humanity has been hitting nature hard, but you've always got to remember that nature bats last.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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We're one of the most highly regulated industries, and we have to pay attention to what government is doing.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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If we were redesigning around people instead of around automobiles, which I think the market is more or less going to do, although too slowly, than I'd be a lot cheerier.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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Woman should have the choice whether to have an abortion or not, but I like what Bill Clinton said: It ought to be safe and rare. You don't want to offend people with it. You try and do as much as you can to let people be different, but also to try and protect them from things that they think are bad. And it's worth all of us giving a little.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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I thought if the climate was heating that CO2 was the only forcing, and it would be late in the century before we had trouble. Now that we know about the other half of the forcing, it's obvious that the trouble is coming much sooner.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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For example, I'm a great fan of pornography, but I don't see any reason not to restrict it so that people walking down the street who hate pornography don't have full color pictures outside of movie theaters. Let them be in a different district. I'm kidding about pornography, but you get the point.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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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 our government that isn't followed nearly enough - one of the jobs of the majority is to try and make the minority feel comfortable.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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We've all got to get together and demand something better out of our government and out of each other. We've got a system that's making us working harder, and isn't giving us satisfaction. We've got to sit down and decide what the hell we really want to be as human beings.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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I don't like the idea of teaching religion in schools, and creation is not my thing, but that's a trivial point compared to saving the creation. I'd much rather have half of the people in the country be creationists and work really hard to save the creation than have everybody be evolutionists and be destroying the planet.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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I see harm reduction as a way of engaging people as part of that path to recovery.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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All scientists who've looked at it know we have to phase away from burning fossil fuels. That means we've got to put a lot of effort into alternate energy technologies, but we're still subsidizing fossil fuels and not subsidizing most of the alternatives. It's not going to be an easy transition.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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Actually, the problem in the world is that there are too many rich people.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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There's no question at all that the population explosion will come to an end. The two basic choices are it'll come to an end because we control our reproduction, and in many areas we have started to do so, or we'll end up with a high death rate. You have to take a personal moral stand on this.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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The mother of the year should be a sterilized woman with two adopted children
Paul R. Ehrlich
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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, if we trained people to really try and look into things on their own. That's a tough thing to do, particularly with the educational system staggering.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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The main thing is, and of course this is a pedant talking, we should start our education on these issues in kindergarten. Instead of saying, See Spot run, we ought to say, See the plant grow in the sun. We ought to explain what runs the weather in the third or fourth grade to start out with.
Paul R. Ehrlich
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I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.
Paul R. Ehrlich