What a collecdtion of discredited scare stories in both the article and the posts.. and even a defence of Paul Ehrlich! Bwwwwhahahahahahah!
I liked the bit about Ehrlich's warmings sparking a response that made a difference, although Bugsy was probably quoting some other deluded writer.
Ehrlich was hopelessly wrong in almost all his forecasts, not just about a food crisis. The interplay between food prices, technology and cultivation long pre-dates Ehrlich.
In any case, the author of teh article is perhaps not fully aware of some of the modern trends in agriculture - how land in the US and Australia is graudally shifting back towards forest use - but then he also seesm to have trouble with the basic numbers. The ABS source for population growth in Australia he cites gives top range estimate of 42.5 million by 2056. the detailed projection can be downloaded from the ABS sire. The projection for 2060 is about 44-45 million, not the 55-62 million he cites.

With all these posts about letting them starve, I do not think you have seen the end result of a mice plague. Perhaps your experience in life has been a well stocked supermarket and full wallet.
I would like to bring up the biofuel issue in the context of world food security.
Developed countries can outbid the poor countries for biofuel feedstock which involves grain, arable land, water and so on. We are outbidding them with the help of Government subsidies so it is not even market forces operating.
So I pose the question, are you prepared to activly and purposfully starve the world population back to levels where your own standard of living is maintained. That is are you prepared for the consequences of converting food to fuel.
Bear in mind that the proportion of food producing resources currently diverted to subsidises and mandated biofuels could be approaching 10 percent, with no limit in sight.
World food harvests are variable whereas biofuel demand is fixed with biofuel plants, investors, bowsers all demanding continuous feedstock supply. So, even at this early stage of development of the biofuel industry, in times of poor harvests you really will see the cull of the world's poorest. Will you really just turn off the TV.?

"Man also has acquired the means to reduce the rate of human reproduction effectively and humanely. He is using his powers for increasing the rate and amount of food production. But he is not yet using adequately his potential for decreasing the rate of human reproduction. The result is that the rate of population increase exceeds the rate of increase in food production in some areas.

There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort. Fighting alone, they may win temporary skirmishes, but united they can win a decisive and lasting victory to provide food and other amenities of a progressive civilization for the benefit of all mankind."

-Norm Borlaug 1970 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

And what has changed?
Yes, Borlaug agreed with Ehrlich, but started earlier. I accept that the way I wrote that paragraph, it may have seemed chronologically causative, which it wasn't. Having a pathological compulsion to ridicule Ehrlich isn't healthy Mark.

Yes, Ehrlich was wrong on many fronts, especially because he never factors in unknown future technological advancements. He does this for a very good reason.

Oh yes, and while we're at it, in fact there has been substantial progress in combating hunger and reducing pverty in recent decades - so substantial that even the UN agencies have almost acknowledged it. This has nothing to do with food supply but everything to do with both China and India opening up their economies, and dumping ideology. Economists argue about the degree of progress but no-one outside lobby groups questions that there has been progress. There has even been progress in Africa.
Where mass hunger occurs it is noticeably due to a major distrubance, such as a civil war, rather than any shortage of food as such.

Bugsy - I won't disagree with your defence. But there is nothing wrong in treating Ehrlich as a joke, albeit a joke from which we can learn what not to do in forecasting.

Does anybody think we are going in the right direction? Is it okay that a billion people don't have clean drinking water and over a billion don't have a toilet? Is it okay that millions of people die of starvation each year? Will the brilliant new technologies (if they can be found) be used by the 800 million people who can't read or write? What are the massive benefits of increasing human population?

Is it good that in the process of seeing how many people we can cram on to our planet that many other species die out? Wouldn't it be easier to feed 8 billion people than 9 billion people? Our species has to be sustainable some day. What is the point of wearing out the ecosystems and using up all the easy resources before we have figured out how to be sustainable?

Ehrlich might be a joke to you Mark, but he has sold more books than certain other authors ever will.

He is also a well-published ecologist, who has studied local extinction phenomena in biological systems. On this score, he is worth listening to.

I'd have to agree though, he is a great lesson on what not to do when forecasting, i.e. one shouldn't make predictions, especially about the future, at least not in public.

Because then, any old armchair economist and journalist can have a good laugh and say how you were wrong.

Maybe you will know how it feels in a couple of years. Who knows?