Only if you don't know the difference between Ehrlich's work being used to claim the Great Dieoff by the end of the 1980s and the McPeakster Doom claimed for 2005 on Thanksgiving day.
Time for clarification. For starters, Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 The Population Bomb provided a FORECAST that was presented as "likely scenarios". Nowhere in the text is PREDICT used. His primary focus on the global population nailed it. At the time his book was published, the global population was 3.5 billion. Today the population is near 8 billion AND global resource consumption continues to grow exponentially as the global population aspires to a standard of living equal to that of the average US citizen. And, while the timing may be off, his mention of the greenhouse effect, along with a sound and expansive analysis of ecosystem degradation, pollution, and the fragility of industrial agriculture are more true today than ever before.
It is an undeniable fact that the world needs a wake-up call. The world is on an exponential growth curve leading to complete unsustainability on almost all fronts. From population to food production, we have exceeded the sustainable consumption cap.
For those who are pinning all hope on technology to save the day, Fred Guterl, a writer at Scientific American, makes the point that innovation won’t be able to save us from the effects of population explosion. Accordingly, “the cycle of innovation needs to increase in frequency as the size of the population increases”. Though we make new discoveries every day, our population is increasing at an exponential rate that cannot possibly be matched by innovation."
The result: No meaningful action will be taken to reverse desertification, coral reef bleaching, ocean acidification, soil erosion, oceanic dead zones, deforestation, mass species extinctions, over-fishing, drought, water shortages, population, over-consumption, a breakdown of the intricate web of life, etc.
No action will be taken until catastrophe greets us on a personal level, but by then it will be too late. I recently returned from the Amazon and I can personally testify that the forests are being bulldozed, burned, and chainsawed at a furious rate. There is nothing stopping the land barons and agri-business enterprises except meagerly armed native people. However, when an indigenous group becomes too troublesome the entire clan is murdered by hired assassins from Brasilia or Bogota or Quito, etc. The bulldozer opens a large pit where the bodies are dumped and it's back to business as usual. The entire region was suffering from an unrelenting and vicious drought. These morons are too greedy to recognize that they're cutting their own throat. By removing the forest, the evaporative process by which moisture develops into rain no longer exists. Even now, some areas of what was once lush rainforest is being transformed into dry savannah.
He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.