What defused the Population Bomb? Opinions vary, but there’s no doubt that Paul Ehrlich’s dire predictions of overpopulation, mass starvation and resource wars have failed to come to pass. In fact, pretty much the opposite of everything he predicted in his 1968 book, “The Population Bomb,” has happened.

That doesn’t stop many on the left from still taking Ehrlich seriously. Last week, a piece in The New York Times wondered where the food riots are (hint: socialist nations).

But first, let’s look at those predictions.

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over,” he wrote in his book. “In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

There would be 4 billion deaths from hunger in the 1970s, he prophesized — including 65 million Americans.

“By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people,” Ehrlich continued. “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

The New York Times admits those predictions seem to have been off a bit.

“As you may have noticed, England is still with us,” the Times notes. “So is India. Hundreds of millions did not die of starvation in the ’70s. Humanity has managed to hang on, even though the planet’s population now exceeds seven billion, double what it was when ‘The Population Bomb’ became a best-seller.”

Why? That’s where it gets more complicated. Technology helped.

“One thing that happened on the road to doom was that the world figured out how to feed itself despite its rising numbers,” the Times explains. “No small measure of thanks belonged to Norman E. Borlaug, an American plant scientist whose breeding of high-yielding, disease-resistant crops led to the agricultural savior known as the Green Revolution.”

We’re so good at producing food, in almost any environment, that in modern times, famine is a purely political phenomenon. As the Times notes, “While shortages persisted in some regions, they were often more a function of government incompetence, corruption or civil strife than of an absolute lack of food.”

Population, in fact, is getting ready to decline, rather than explode.

“Because of improved health standards, birthing many children is not the survival imperative for families that it once was,” the Times reports. “In cramped cities, large families are not the blessing they were in the agricultural past. And women in many societies are ever more independent, socially and economically… If anything, the worry in many countries is that their populations are aging and that national vitality is ebbing.”

The Times fails to mention free trade as one reason the Population Bomb failed to detonate. It has resulted in greater availability in food — and ideas — throughout the world.

This should be a lesson in how we deal with contemporary predictions of doom.