The man who bet against humanity — and lost

On February 9, 1970, Johnny Carson did something that would be unthinkable for a late night host today, or really anyone on TV: He gave a full hour of The Tonight Show to a Stanford professor.

But Paul Ehrlich, the author along with his wife Anne of the blockbuster book The Population Bomb, was charismatic, telegenic, and absolutely terrifying. He told Carson’s massive audience that hundreds of millions of people were about to starve to death. Nothing could stop it.

Ehrlich’s first...