Zero Population Growth from Life magazine

'Zero Population Growth': Life Magazine, April 17, 1970

Far out ! I was only nine years old at the time.

There was considerable attention being paid to the inaugural Earth Day in April of 1970, and Life magazine, at that time one of the most high-profile media outlets in the country, decided to focus on the overpopulation crisis, which at the time was very much of a phenomenon.

This Life article has no author attribution (common for the magazine at that time) but does credit Arthur Rickerby for the photographs. 

Since Life primarily was a picture-based magazine, the accompanying text is rather spare. It focuses on efforts by college students at a number of east-coast schools to promote Zero Population Growth ('ZPG') via demonstrations and teach-ins. The article features Mr Population Bomb himself, Paul R. Ehrlich, and reveals that he had a vasectomy to do his part to control the population explosion !

There's no mistaking the earnestness of the younger participants. One must remember that the Vietnam War still was going on, and thus there were causes competing for visibility on the campuses. So it's significant that attention was given to the overpopulation issue.

Paul Ehrlich, the Population Bomb, and ZPG reached their apogee around 1972 - 1973, after which they quickly receded due to the advent of other, more immediate crises, such as the Arab oil embargo of October 1973 and its consequent economic dislocation. But for a time, the overpopulation movement was very much in the public eye.