Slaying the Doomsayers

Abstract

This chapter considers how Colin Clark confronted the 1970s zeitgeist of doom-laden prophecies revolving around resource depletion, population growth and pollution. Over his life Clark had seen several prophets of doom come and go, invariably telling people that the world was running out of food, resources, water, land or energy. He sought to overturn this prevailing mood of negativity by scientific and empirical persuasion. He believed it was important to confront such prophecy since widespread disillusion about the Earth’s future, coupled with a low level of scientific education, spread anxiety about the future and lay behind falling birth-rates. Besides contesting many of the claims by the zero population growth movement, Clark also confronted the Club of Rome on its environmental pessimism and preconceived idea of food production falling behind population growth and related fears of the world ‘running out’ of resources. It irritated Clark that much of this literature of environmental doom and over-population had all been rebutted in the past. Since 1964 Clark had been involved in the early stages of discussions that would culminate in the 1968 Papal Encyclical on birth control which banned Catholics from practicing artificial forms of contraception. It was argued that Clark’s work on the Papal Commission damaged his academic objectivity.