She has written or co-written more than thirty books on overpopulation and ecology, including The Stork and the Plow (1995), with Gretchen Daily, and The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment (2008), among many other works.
[11] She began her scientific collaboration with Paul Ehrlich in the late 1950s through research on butterflies as a test system for answering key questions of biological classification, ecology, and evolution.
[3] For ten years she was a member of the board of directors at the Center for Innovative Diplomacy, Pacific Institute, Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (1989-1999).
As a teenager she read Our Plundered Planet by Fairfield Osborn, Columbia University professor of zoology, member of the wildlife conservation organization Boone and Crockett Club and fossil collector.
However, they continued to argue that societies must take strong action to decrease population growth in order to mitigate future disasters, both ecological and social.
"While the Ehrlichs concede that consumption and technology must also share the blame for environmental crises, priority should be given to achieving population control as a means of stopping further destruction.
"[21] A well-reasoned book of how poverty forces unsustainable use of natural resources, with proposals how food production might stay ahead of population growth, together with Gretchen C. Daily.
Their proposals include improving the status of women by giving them equal education, reducing racism and religious prejudice, reforming the agricultural system, and shrinking the growing gap between rich and poor.
We can all hope this urgent message is carefully heeded.The title refers to Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "Recessional", "Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Named a Notable Book for 2005 by the American Library Association, Ehrlich offers a lucid synthesis of the major issues of our time: rising consumption, still-growing world population, and unchecked political and economic inequity.
Grounded in science, economics, and history, she puts political and environmental debates in a larger context and formulates a range of possible solutions for improving our future prospect, from local actions to reform of national government to international initiatives.
[24] The Ehrlichs in this popular book explore in a unique way how humans have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing nourishment from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it: they have become the dominant animal.
Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers; dramatic cultural change provides the main hope of averting calamity.