Annotation
The revised edition pushed the famine deadline from the 1970s to the 1980s, but the thesis aged no better for the extra decade. Norman Borlaug's Green Revolution had already made India grain-self-sufficient by the mid-1970s, and global per-capita caloric availability rose steadily through the period. Ehrlich's famous 1980 wager with Julian Simon — in which all five commodity metals he chose fell in price — sealed his reputation as the century's most confident wrong man.
What Actually Happened
No large-scale famines struck the developing world in the 1980s as Ehrlich predicted. The Green Revolution, led by Norman Borlaug's high-yield crop varieties, had already made India grain-self-sufficient by the mid-1970s, and global per-capita caloric availability rose steadily through the decade. Ehrlich's 1980 wager with Julian Simon — betting that five commodity metals would rise in price over ten years — ended in total defeat when all five fell. World population continued to grow but so did food production, consistently outpacing it.