Scientists who blasted the book pointed to research indicating that sperm counts have been known to vary wildly across regions and ethnicities for quite some time—longer than can be explained by the recent widespread introduction of synthetic chemicals. At any rate, lower sperm counts have failed to suppress a worldwide baby boom.
Gore also promoted Paul Ehrlich's 1990 book, The Population Explosion, a follow-up to his 1968 bestseller, The Population Bomb. In his book-jacket blurb, Gore announces that "The time for action is due, and past due. The Ehrlichs have written the prescription...." Ehrlich's prescriptions include encouraging abortion, restricting family choice, increasing foreign aid, doubling the price of gasoline, and even dumping toxic chemicals into the water supply to control population. The alternative, Ehrlich has long believed, is worldwide famine, war, and human misery. A trained entomologist who likens global population trends to the uncontrolled growth of test-tube microbes, Dr. Ehrlich has been consistently wrong when offering predictions on human population growth.
Gore also wrote the introduction for a re-issue of Rachel Carson's anti-pesticide tract, Silent Spring. Visitors to his home have noticed signs on the lawn warning of pesticide use.
[Ed.: The February, 1999 issue of the Journal of Urology reported on research determining that the apparent decline in American sperm counts since the 1930s was only a statistical illusion that arose from the fact that sperm counts vary widely from one city to another, and most of the earlier studies used volunteers from the city with the highest measured sperm counts in America, New York, which happens to be my hometown.]
