Энн Эрлих: Биолог и автор теории «демографического взрыва»

American conservation biologist and writer

Anne Howland Ehrlich (born Anne Fitzhugh Howland; November 17, 1933) is an American scientist and author who is best known for the predictions she made as a co author of The Population Bomb with her colleague and husband, Paul R. Ehrlich. She has written or co written more than thirty books on overpopulation and ecology, including The Stork and the Plow (1995), with Gretchen Daily, and The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (2008), among many other works. She also has written extensively on issues of public concern such as population control, environmental protection, and environmental consequences of nuclear war. She is seen is one of the key figures in the debate on conservation biology. The essence of her reasoning is that unlimited population growth and man's unregulated exploitation of natural resources form a serious threat to the environment. Her publications have been a significant source of inspiration to the Club of Rome. She co founded the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University with Paul Ehrlich, where she serves as policy coordinator after being an associate director from 1987 on. She served as one of seven outside consultants to the White House Council on Environmental Quality's Global 2000 Report (1980). She began her scientific collaboration with Paul Ehrlich in the late 1950s through research on butterflies as a test system for answering key questions of biological classification, ecology, and evolution. She has served and serves on the board of a wide range of organizations: Friends of the Earth (1976 1985), Conferences on the Fate of the Earth (1981 1984), the Center for Innovative Diplomacy (1981–1992), Redefining Progress (1994–1996), the Ploughshares Fund (1990 2003) and the Sierra Club (1996 2002).

Ehrlich was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the daughter of Virginia Lippincott (Fitzhugh) Howland and Winston Densmore. Throughout her childhood she was fascinated by nature, preferring to be outside learning about wildflowers and geography. As a teenager she read Our Plundered Planet by Fairfield Osborn, Columbia University professor of zoology, member of the wildlife conservation organization Boone and Crockett Club and fossil collector.

The phrase "population bomb" was first used in a 1958 pamphlet by advertising professional and entrepreneur Hugh Moore. The original edition of The Population Bomb began with this statement:style=font size:100%|text="When is an area overpopulated? When its population can't be maintained without rapidly depleting nonrenewable resources (or converting renewable resources into nonrenewable ones) and without degrading the capacity of the environment to support the population. In short, if the long term carrying capacity of an area is clearly being degraded by its current human occupants, that area is overpopulated." While the Ehrlichs concede that consumption and technology must also share the blame for environmental crises, priority should be given to achieving population control as a means of stopping further destruction. "Rapid population growth in poor nations is an important reason they stay poor, and overpopulation in those nations will greatly increase their destructive impact on the environment as they struggle to develop,".

In this paper, the Ehrlichs discuss their opinion on the 'optimal size' for human population, given current technological realities. They refer to establishing "social policies to influence fertility rates."

A well reasoned book of how poverty forces unsustainable use of natural resources, with proposals how food production might stay ahead of population growth, together with Gretchen C. Daily. The authors look at the interaction between population and food supply and offer a strategy for balancing human numbers with nutritional needs. Their proposals include improving the status of women by giving them equal education, reducing racism and religious prejudice, reforming the agricultural system, and shrinking the growing gap between rich and poor. text=This generation faces a set of challenges unprecedented in their scope and severity and in the shortness of time left to resolve them. . The Stork and the Plow sets these out thoughtfully [and] accurately. . We can all hope this urgent message is carefully heeded.|author=Henry W. Kendall, Nobel laureate and Julius A. Stratton Professor of Physics, MIT

The title refers to Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "Recessional", "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! ", alluding to the arrogance that went before the fall of historic Mesopotamian civilizations. Named a Notable Book for 2005 by the American Library Association, Ehrlich offers a lucid synthesis of the major issues of our time: rising consumption, still growing world population, and unchecked political and economic inequity. Grounded in science, economics, and history, she puts political and environmental debates in a larger context and formulates a range of possible solutions for improving our future prospect, from local actions to reform of national government to international initiatives.

The Ehrlichs in this popular book explore in a unique way how humans have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing nourishment from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it: they have become the dominant animal. They question why we are creating a world that threatens our own species and offer suggestions what can we do to change the current trajectory.

This report reminds of how the collapse of numerous civilizations have, in the past, been caused by the degradation of nature, and how that process in present times makes a global collapse appearing likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.