The AUTHORS of this article: Mary Ellen Harte is coauthor of "Cool the Earth, Save the Economy." Anne Ehrlich is a senior research scientist at Stanford University. John Harte and Paul Ehrlich contributed to this piece. All are biologists involved in the study of climate change and sustainability.
Overpopulation was an early concern and interest. In a 1969 article, [John P.] Holdren and co-author Paul R. Ehrlich argued that, "if the population control measures are not initiated immediately, and effectively, all the technology man can bring to bear will not fend off the misery to come." In 1973 [John P.] Holdren encouraged a decline in fertility to well below replacement in the United States, because "210 million now is too many and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many."
In 1977, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich, and [John P.] Holdren co-authored the textbook Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment; they discussed the possible role of a wide variety of solutions to overpopulation, from voluntary family planning to enforced population controls, including forced sterilization for women after they gave birth to a designated number of children, and recommended "the use of milder methods of influencing family size preferences" such as access to birth control and abortion.
John P. Holdren CURRENTLY: John P. Holdren serves President Barack Obama as the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy