In 1968, Stanford University professor Paul Ehrlich and senior research Anne Ehrlich made a dire prediction about the human race’s immediate future in the national bestseller The Population Bomb. “The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” they wrote. “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines – hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to ‘stretch’ the carrying capacity of the Earth by increasing food production. But these programs will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control.”
For the Ehrlichs, as well as many Americans throughout the country at the time, the rate that people were multiplying across the planet was of great concern. It took until the year 1804 for the world’s population to reach one billion, climbing to two billion by 1930 – a mere 130 years later. A third billion was then added within a thirty-year span and was quickly closing in on four billion when Paul and Anne Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb.
Although the apocalyptic predictions within the book never came to pass, and the drastic measures that they advocated for controlling population growth were never enacted, The Population Bomb effectively warned of the dangers of not only overpopulation but the continual degradation of the environment nonetheless.
As part of their “Hard Travelin’ Heroes” storyline – in which the liberal Green Arrow embarked on a cross-country road trip with the more conservative Green Lantern – writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams offered their own vision of an overpopulated planet in issue 81 of their comic book series. With a cover date of December 1970, “The Population Explosion” saw the two DC superheroes travel to the planet Maltus, where they find a world packed with too many people and violent mobs lashing out against their unexpected arrival.
Green Arrow and Green Lantern learn that Maltus passed through a cosmic dust storm at some point in its past, resulting in its inhabitants being unable to bear children. To compensate, a scientist named Mother Juna created Maltusan clones that grew to adulthood in a matter of days and were then transported to various locations around the globe. When the effects of the cosmic dust later ended and new children were again being born naturally, Mother Juna continued her clone creation, resulting in a population explosion with dire consequences.
“People are love, creativity, art, gentleness, beauty,” Dennis O’Neil explains next to Neal Adams’ illustrations of the overpopulated Maltus. “But people have limits. They need food, and the remains of food are garbage. And when there are too many people to dispose of it properly, vermin grow fat, multiply. Each sip of water is more valuable than gemstones. Maltusans stand in long queues for a taste of cool liquid. Bathing is a luxury, and so they go dirty and their grimy flesh is a breeding place for disease. Every square foot of ground is precious. Tempers are short, and a simple accidental nudge is cause for terrible violence. Hatred rages, a woman with child is reviled, and her husband is the target for murder because there is not enough – not enough of anything except poverty, agony, death.”
In addition to population growth, Paul and Anne Ehrlich also explored issues surrounding the environment in The Population Bomb. “It is fair to say that the environment of every organism, human and nonhuman, on the face of the Earth has been influenced by the population explosion of Homo sapiens,” they wrote. Many animal species had become extinct, for example, while others had their numbers greatly reduced. Thousands of acres of land had likewise been lost due to soil erosion and strip mining. Of greatest concern for the Ehrlichs, however, was air pollution, regardless of whether it was from the use of pesticides for agriculture or the emission of carbon dioxide from automobiles.
“A clear link between air pollution and respiratory disease has been established,” they explain in The Population Bomb. “Pollution also may be linked with certain kinds of heart disease and tuberculosis, not as a cause but as a contributor to higher death rates. In addition to this disease threat there is also the strong suspicion that occurrence of certain cancers is associated with specific pollutants in the air.”
Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams also explored environmental concerns within their Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic book series. In issue 89, Green Arrow is elated over the ecological vandalism of a man simply known as Isaac. His latest antics involved posing as a painter at the local office of the Ferris Aircraft Company, claiming that he was hired to redecorate. It was only after he left that anyone realized he had painted the walls with a mixture of industrial waste and sewer refuse.
“The Ferris Gang has been pumping poison into our air and water,” he claimed in a note sent to the local newspaper. “I merely returned the compliment.”
When Green Lantern is invited by Carol Ferris – CEO of Ferris Aircraft and a former love interest – to the same small town were Isaac lives, Green Arrow likewise makes the journey and unexpectedly meets the rebel environmentalist. “I was a scientist,” Isaac tells him. “Content, productive. One day I began coughing. My chest felt like it was in the grip of a vise. The doctors reminded me that both of my parents died of lung disease aggravated by industrial pollution. They told me I too would die unless I escaped the pollution, but I cannot escape. None of us can. I moved on, and on, and finally decided to stand! To strike back!”
While Paul and Anne Ehrlich would have agreed with Isaac’s views on air pollution being a threat to human health, they also argued that there was a larger concern. “Even more important is the potential for changing the climate of the Earth,” they wrote in The Population Bomb. “All of the junk we dump into the atmosphere, all of the dust, all of the carbon dioxide, have effects on the temperature balance of the Earth. Air pollution effects how much of the sun’s heat reaches the surface of the Earth and how much is radiated back into space. And it is just this temperature balance that causes the changes in the atmosphere that we call ‘the weather.’”
While Green Arrow is conversing with Isaac about the dangers of air pollution, Green Lantern is discussing a different kind of pollution with Carol Ferris – those caused by aircrafts. A similar debate was raging within the real-world United States regarding a supersonic transport program under development by the federal government.
“Most people have been opposing this project on the basis that the ‘sonic booms’ generated will drive half the people in the country out of their skulls while benefitting no one,” Paul and Anne Ehrlich noted. “But ecologists, as usual, have been looking at the less obvious. Supersonic transports will leave contrails high in the stratosphere, where they will break up very slowly. A lid of ice crystals gradually will be deposited high in the atmosphere, which might add to the ‘greenhouse effect.’” As a result of the concerns raised by the Ehrlichs and others, Congress dropped funding for the SST program in March 1971 and likewise banned all commercial supersonic flights at that time.
In the fictitious small town that serves as the headquarters for Ferris Aircraft, Carol Ferris explains that her company is close to bankruptcy and hopes that a new jet engine – which burns cheaper fuel – can reverse their fortunes. “This fuel,” Green Lantern replies. “Hasn’t it been the subject of considerable controversy? A few experts are saying it’ll do more harm to the environment than good to the economy.” Carol Ferris simply replies, “All I can say is, we’ll solve the environment difficulties when they arise.”
For Paul and Anne Ehrlich, “when they arise” wasn’t good enough. The Population Bomb may have been bombastic in style and filled with flawed warnings of a coming dystopian future but its main thesis – that action needed to be taken sooner rather than later – continues to be a rallying cry for environmentalists across the country and around the world.
Anthony Letizia