Mar

19

Christopher Balding on X:

[Paul Ehrlich's] predictions were not premature but just flat wrong. Not wrong as in they were a little off but wrong as in completely and entirely wrong not even close. However, that is not the part that people are missing.

Ehrlich thinking wormed its way into [so] much thinking and dominates large parts of polite society thinking today. Europe hands out advanced degrees in 'degrowth' and while no one would say it is an advanced degree in Ehrlich's wrongness, his ideas permeate polite society.

It boggles the mind that his ideas which are so universally wrong have such life under a different brand.

William Huggins writes:

It's always useful to understand why a prediction is wrong, rather than simply lambasting anyone with enough guts to take on the humbling task of estimating the outcome of mankind's war against entropy. In this case, Ehrlich, like Malthus, made his predictions on the basis of "the system as we know it, from accumulated data". This made his understanding slow to recognize a new data regime where in both cases, agricultural yields were set to boom as a result of new techs. one of the big contributors to lifting the ceiling on food production between 1960-2010 (+1/3 to +1/2) was the widespread application of chemical fertilizers (from Haber-Bosch, which cratered the cost of nitrogen), while India and much of the rest of Asia began applying Norman Borlaug's seed improvements (plants able to process more fertilizer…). Echoing Malthus' timing right as the British agricultural revolution was hitting its stride, Ehrlich's book came out just as these developments were really kicking into high gear.

The bigger issue appears to be blind spots regarding what "can't happen" (failure of imagination?). Last generation's notion of peak oil was informed by similar thinking but along came improvements in the economics of fracking. While the long-term drop in agricultural commodity prices seems to reinforce the idea that tomorrow is a brighter day, it has been built on processes which are themselves vulnerable to disruption (globalized hydro-carbon trade being the most proximate example) so imo there is also a converse risk in assuming stability.

on that note, is anyone else (long Canada)-(short everyone else) since the attack on Iran? easy macro trade on the stability of oil exports.

Peter Ringel comments:

the problem is, in Europe the base line is Malthusian. always has. Odds are, the inteligencia here has not even heard of Borlaug. And if, then rejected based on the Holy Church of Green. A variation of the idea, that has the world in its grip. Short the continent. Already based on that.


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