Erlich is a believer that people are net resource consumers. Julian Simon is his opposite believing that people are net resource creators. Public policy has favored people who are net consumers (or destroyers). Think idiocracy. Policy makers and society at large are not willing to have open and honest discussion about this. The Bell Curve by Charles Murray(sp?) took this argument on very ably and he was canceled and censored. We will all pay for this lack of honesty and failure to act appropriately. It will be a vast human tragedy.