In Law and Liberty, John Bicknell reviews the influence of Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, which advocated “active measures” to sabotage the machinery and works of industrial civilization such as major hydroelectric dam. Despite Abbey’s contradictory and even offensive views – he was openly racist and sexist – his influence was profound, and is still producing devastating echoes in bitter conflicts like pipeline sabotage in British Columbia.
At Least He Paid his Losing Bet
Paul Ehrlich, author of the spectacularly incorrect 1968 best-seller The Population Bomb, recently died at 93. Despite his longevity, Ronald Bailey points out in Reason, Ehrlich did not live to see even one of his numerous apocalyptic predictions come true. The world’s population certainly grew, but not merely larger, richer and fatter too. Most famously, Ehrlich once bet economist Julian Simon that the world was approaching economic collapse – but in 1990 had to mail Simon a cheque.
