Paul Ralph Ehrlich passed away  on March 13, 2026 at the age of 93.

I am going to be quite critical of his popular work and its impact. But don’t assume the dangerous category confusion that stifles meaningful  dialogue. Today  critique of an opposing viewpoint is considered hate or violence. I’ll unapologetically state that I think what he said was wrong and dangerous. But I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was a person possessing dignity.

Ehrlich’s most prominent work was 1968’s The Population Bomb. In it he theorized that the planet couldn’t handle the number of lives on it. Or, bare minimum, a carrying capacity threshold was just around the corner. The problem was that  the opposite happened. He prophesied that because of famine, the population in the US would dwindle to 22 million by the year 1999. In actuality? It was  279 million. He also claimed England wouldn’t be around in the year 2000. Things aren’t great across the pond, but it has little to do with the quantity of Brits.

What does this have to do with fly fishing? He also made the bold prediction that all major marine life would die. This would transpire, he said, in the early 1970’s.

Once more, this is not intended to speak ill of the deceased. It is intended to speak ill of using crying wolf as a conservation tactic. And this is coming from someone who has participated in, financially supported, and written about  cold water conservation efforts extensively. So while I do know a thing or two about the science behind the theories in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, I’m much more comfortable addressing the underlying presuppositions behind the statements Ehrlich and others make.

Paul Ehrlich was charismatic. He not only wrote at the popular level, but he spoke to the masses. Johnny Carson had him on his show nearly two dozen times. And as is often the case with personalities who can talk a great game, devotees parrot their promises while downplaying their failures. Not unlike a televangelist, Ehrlich moved the goalpost with dates, numbers, and what he really meant consistently up until his passing.

Are there serious concerns around the issues that he pointed to as the harbingers of mass human extinction? Absolutely. Poor farming practices, overfishing, and  industrial pollution are all bad for all life. But The Boy Who Cried Wolf is taught to children for a reason.  And lumping those issues in with the negative perception of people having babies is  a quick way to delegitimize any  potentially helpful messaging.

Any philosophical or scientific paradigm that assumes the earth can’t sustain natural population growth must arrive at certain conclusions. One is that people are not special creatures; they are just another organism. But it must be stated that no other organism contemplates their existence. Second, “population control” will inevitably lead to reproductive laws, forced sterilization, and euthanasia.  For a long time, human decency would have dismissed those measures outright. These days, not so much.

Within the fly fishing community, we see stocking nonnatives, changing designations of federal lands, and outdated dams as bad for all life in our favorite ecosystems. We see them as bad because they are. Thankfully  none of them are existential threats. And we can’t pretend like what we’re dealing with today rivals the environmental damage caused a century ago. Interestingly, that damage has been remediated in some spectacular ways. It doesn’t mean that we rest on our conservation laurels. We just stop crying wolf when it is the neighbor’s annoying dog.

Certainly much more could be said on this issue.  And these big picture concepts are healthy to contemplate and discuss. But suffice it to say, honesty behooves each of us to acknowledge our presuppositions. Are humans unique or simply primates?  Is flourishing rooted in man’s dignity or can it be engineered empirically and pragmatically? Does the world as we know it have a purpose aiming towards telos or is meaning purely the subjective sparks of neurological systems?

The late Paul Ehrlich had a set of presuppositions and he promulgated  thoughts consistent with them. The methodology was unquestionably flawed. The conclusions were objectively wrong. And ideas have consequences.  Academic institutions and political movements’ itching ears are tickled by the cry of “wolf!” More poignant is an oft-reprinted letter to the Wall Street Journal in 2023, wherein a gentleman wrote: “I was a college student when I read Mr. Ehrlich’s ‘The Population Bomb.’ I took it to heart and now have no grandchildren, but 50 years later the population has increased to eight billion without dire consequences. I was gullible and stupid.”

Say what you will about bad science existing between men’s ears. But there is something dark about sacrificing bloodlines in the attempt to honor its spurious postulations. Fortunately, people behave better than their bumper stickers. That good, insuppressible inner voice that beckons you to one day sit in a boat, fishing with children and grandchildren is usually louder than the cries of “wolf.”