Paul Ehrlich

The greatest death-toll cataclysm in human history will occur within the lifetimes of people already alive in 1969.

“Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born”

Said on

1 January 1969 · 1969 magazine article (exact date unknown; Jan 1 used), as quoted by Charles C. Mann in Smithsonian Magazine.

Source

The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation · Smithsonian Magazine

Should come true

No date given

How sure they sounded

are going to (certain)

Categories

Health

Importance

5 of 5 · Predicts the largest catastrophe in human history.

Outcome

Inaccurate

Inferred window: the lifetimes of people alive in 1969, in practice the following few decades (the book-era context points to famines in the 1970s-80s). More than 55 years on, no cataclysm has exceeded history's worst death tolls, and most people alive today were born after 1969, so a future disaster could no longer kill mostly people born before then.

Evidence:

• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb