The bet
" In 1980, the iconoclastic economist Julian Simon challenged celebrity biologist Paul Ehrlich to a bet. Their wager on the future prices of five metals captured the public's imagination as a test of coming prosperity or doom. Ehrlich, author of the landmark book The Population Bomb, predicted that rising populations would cause overconsumption, resource scarcity, and famine-with apocalyptic consequences for humanity. Simon optimistically countered that human welfare would flourish thanks to flexible markets, technological change, and our collective ingenuity. Simon and Ehrlich's debate reflected a deepening national conflict over the future of the planet. The Bet weaves the two men's lives and ideas together with the era's partisan political clashes over the environment and the role of government. In a lively narrative leading from the dawning environmentalism of the 1960s through the pivotal presidential contest between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan and on into the 1990s, Paul Sabin shows how the fight between Ehrlich and Simon-between environmental fears and free-market confidence-helped create the gulf separating environmentalists and their critics today.
Stats for nerds
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What Hacker News says
- Thanks for bringing this up! An excellent book on this is: The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and Our Gamble over Earths Future by Paul Sabin
- OK, but remember that the experts said the same thing about oil and natural gas, and were wrong in that case. Here the estimate of ~10 megatonnes assumes that seawater extraction will never be economically viable, one possible source of error.
If you're interested in the history of "peak resources" here is a good book about Paul Ehrlich's famous bet with Julian L. Simon:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bet-Ehrlich-Julian-Earth%C2%92s/dp...
- This is my list(Most of these books aren't from 2013): 1. The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff by Jane Smiley
2. Halting State by Charlie Stross
3. Levels of Life by Julian Barnes
4. The Particle At The End Of The Universe by Sean Carrol
5. Churchil Bomb by Graham Farmello
6. The Science Of Memory by Charles Fernyhough
7. The Anatomy of Violence: The biological roots of crime by Adrian Raine
8. The Bet: Paul Ehrlich, Julian Simon, and our gamble over Earth’s future by Paul Sabin
9. Experiencing Art: In the brain of the beholder by Arthur Shimamura
10. The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing Genius by Kristine Barnett
