That's true over the short-term. But a 2012 peer-reviewed study published in PNAS found that slower population growth could reduce total emissions from fossil fuel use by 37–41% by 2100. It's very disturbing that there seems to be almost no ongoing research in this area. Apparently, population is a taboo topic, even for scientists.
Riverkeeper in NYS has legal and conservationist and environmental activist struggles to protect our rivers. The EPA is the Fed. Their standards for clean drinking water welcome cancinogens (only a small portion of which occur in nature) into your tap water. Their standards are archaic compared to what is needed as pristine lands are developed for real estate. And yes population never stops increasing.
Protecting wildlife is of no concern as govt officialdom disuss plans to build sea walls around parts of NYC which will increase inland flooding and further damage the environment needed for wildlife which protect our rivers. America isn't a land of pristine waterways but of sewage trouble as populations increase and real estate development harms the ecology.
Riverkeeper in NYS is one example among many. The sister group in FL faces apparently hopelessly uphill battles. The public will to support environmental justice is as weak as all pursuits of justice.. It's left to the few to try to reason with govt while reservoirs dry up in the West and sewage problems and flooding characterize the East. What to do about dumping nuclear waste? And don't forget, whatever conservation friendly admins help pass environmentally friendly regs the regs get repealed by politicians whose pockets are lined with Big Oil & Gas if not illegally, politically.
In general, I have agreed with these takes. There is a tradeoff and human flourishing has real value. If the damage from climate change can be held to a lower value, the increase in human flourishing surely outweighs it.
Previously, it has been argued that climate change models have revised the risk of the worst outcomes downward. However, this post slips from that to "But rapid Chinese economic growth has undeniably pushed global greenhouse gas emissions up. And comparable growth in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh would have had an even larger impact since these countries, in aggregate, have more people than China. The more rapid warming of the planet would have considerable downsides for people in South Asia and elsewhere. But crucially, on net, people in Bangladesh would be better off with triple the income and bigger climate problems because they could invest in air conditioning, more productive agriculture, and better flood control."
Consider that global carbon output continues to increase, which is what matters. This is happening because China is dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere even while the west is cutting back. If all of south Asia matched that, it would be very bad.
I'm sort-of amazed how much we continue to tolerate lead. I just got back from a fishing trip to Canada where I ended up talking a lot with my guides about lead fishing equipment and how they want to discourage it (fortunately, I was using tin/bismuth jigs). I'm surprised that it's still legal to sell lead weights and lures in the US, Europe, and Canada.
Good post. You see this on a micro level with fights between access vs preservation in a lot of fights about parks and open spaces. Paving a trail through the woods makes it less natural but it also makes it more accessible say to people in wheelchairs or whatever. In the American political context I think you have to lean towards access to build a broad coalition of support for the environment in general, hence all those roads and parking lots in National Parks, but there is a real tension there. I remember a guy from Texas getting mad when he learned motor boats aren't allowed in the Boundary Water Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, "That's unfair!" etc. Likewise there can be real disagreements between bee keepers and native species boasters as honeybees are an invasive species in North America and compete with native pollinators. It's a real difference of philosophy.
This is something I've thought about for a long time, I'm happy to see an article about it. I think we should use the original term "conservationist" to separate a human-centered climate philosophy from environmentalism.
I'd love to hear MY chime in on a truly difficult question on this subject, like should we take down Dams to protect a single species of Salmon? That would seem to both take us in the wrong direction from climate change as well as decreasing the quality of life for lots of humans. To me this is a much more complicated question than whether or not to keep people in abject poverty to fight climate change.
Once we've replaced all energy production from fossil fuels with zero-emission sources, we can start to replace our hydroelectric production as well if it makes sense. A geothermal well, for example, ought to have fewer ecological ramifications than redirecting entire rivers and creating unnatural lakes. I guess dams have utility beyond electricity generation, though, you have to weigh all factors. But first priority should be to reach net-zero global greenhouse gas emissions ASAP, because those currently pose the greatest risk of species extinctions worldwide. After that, we can look at the other ways to reduce and mitigate our total environmental footprint, such as the danger to a salmon migration patterns, with minimal cost to humans.
Well, it depends in part on whether one is seeking zero population growth for a given place or globally. Certainly, like any nation, we have internal debates, even deep fissures, but we tend to assume that the challenges and attitudes prevalent in the US apply everywhere. Interestingly, the topic of overpopulation seems far less taboo in many less-developed nations than it is here in the US. Also, the number of unplanned births in the US significantly exceeds net migration to the US. Addressing unplanned births through poverty reduction, improvements in education (including sex ed), and removing barriers to all reproductive health services is inherently of value and may also move the US in the direction of zero population growth. The strange thing about immigration (and I say this as the proud son of an immigrant to the US) is that everyone seems to agree that the current system stinks, but we're unable to find common ground.
I wholeheartedly endorse your perspective, Karl, but it's unfortunate that almost all US environmental groups have abandoned sustained efforts to increase access to voluntary international family planning. Of course, we - and they - oppose all forms of "population control," but some have deployed that opposition in ways that essentially abandon hundreds of millions of women with unmet needs for contraception. Also, unless one assumes that people in the Global South will remain trapped in deep poverty for generations to come, meeting those needs now will result in smaller families that can reduce ecological pressures over the long run.
On the glandular instinct-politics level of things, I think a lot of people get turned on to environmental activism by an urge to protect what they "grew up with". It's a literally conservative mentality, coded as "liberal" for normative and coalitional reasons.
As a result, it often ends up thinking of humans and their flourishing as an annoying distraction at best, a malign factor at worst. Hence Ehrlich waxing furious about "people" in his numerous tracts, as if they were some kind of infestation.
It's an unfortunate puzzle we've got to solve. There's no technical or logical reason why humans and nature have to have a zero-sum relationship--but conventional wisdom, borne from old ways of doing things, is going to say otherwise unless we push back on it, and prove to the contrary through example.
The US didn't ban lead paint and leaded gasoline until 1978 & 1975. We started recycling lead-acid batteries in the 1920s, but not to modern standards. How much worse is the lead situation in these countries today? And is it bad enough that they'd consider it a high priority when their incomes are so much lower than US-1975 incomes? Obviously the better we can make things, we absolutely should. I just mean, it's worth asking if their development trajectory is actually more damaging to health and well being than ours was.
Also, coal is no longer the world's cheapest power, and that will either become more true, or coal will get cheaper as demand from developed countries shrinks in the coming decades. Bangladesh has more development options just because it's developing later, not fewer, and that includes cleaner options at less of a price premium than in the past.
Nature doesn't care about biodiversity, ecological preservation, or animal welfare. Nature is amoral and apathetic. 99% of all species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct; this gradually approaches 100% over time. Earth's environment and biosphere have been devastated and reformed countless times by the natural processes.
Any moral imperatives regarding the environment exist solely in the values and preferences of humans. Preventing biodiversity and habitat loss is important because living alongside lots of different animals and plants pleases us; protecting ecological features from pollution and environmental catastrophe is important because we enjoy seeing them in their pristine form.
Humans value high standards of living, we value rights and freedoms, and we value the environment. When we put environmental values into that framework with our other preferences, we can evaluate policies on the basis of costs and benefits, maximizing total value.
Focusing on the distinctions of "a human-centered view of environmental problems versus a neopastoralist one" is a false, or perhaps more accurately outdated, dichotomy - albeit one that alas remains widely prevalent.
It also plays into Americentrism. Many leading voices in the Global South recognize the links between the ecological and human impacts of rapid population growth. Yet, as usual, it’s all about us, meaning those of us living in the US and other highly developed nations.
By recentering the conversation around the positive impact on both people’s lives and on Nature that can flow from the full empowerment and absolute reproductive autonomy of women everywhere, we can stop endlessly repeating what has become a very stale exchange.
When women have true agency, they overwhelmingly choose smaller families. Now, that alone doesn’t solve the overconsumption problem, but failing to recognize the impacts of overpopulation is a classic example of “Whataboutism.”
Helping women achieve smaller families what that's what they want is good. How much that affects the impact of human populations on negative externalities like climate change or collective goods protection depends a lot more on the incentives people have that how many of us there are.
Actually, I think that kind of proves the point. More empowerment and opportunities for women in the Global South is a great outcome and will indeed lead to women choosing fewer children, but also one that results in those women achieving higher standards of living and increasing personal consumption of energy and resources. Now, it's worth it for people to be better off even if that results in environmental costs. So we should implement policies that provide the most benefit to people for the least amount of harm to the environment, such as increasing the amount of energy from environmentally-friendly sources. That way, people in the Global South can have more education, access to resources, and better quality of life with less environmental cost.
>But is this a good objection? We can’t allow immigration because it’s too beneficial to immigrants? I’m skeptical.
Yeah this is why I grew to hate the neo pastoralists almost immediately; their style of environmentalism only works by keeping billions of minorities unfathomably poor.
Environmentalists obviously don’t like to see things built on greenfield, but something people don’t necessarily realize is that the character of existing built-up communities is also an “environmental resource” subject to the same legal protections and advocacy by the same groups. I disagree with Matt’s characterization that the movement is sensitive to location but indifferent to building overall. It’s opposed to building in essentially every case.
I'm curious how much actual political clout any neopastoralist groups have. I'm a pretty environmentally conscious urban liberal who recycles and rides an e-bike to work. And I would definitely characterize myself as humanist in my environmental concern. And I think that's true of all of my liberal friends. Are there really any neopastoralists who wouldn't be convinced that it's better to raise someone's standard of living by 2-3x at the expense of more carbon emissions?
I'm not convinced that anti-growth environmentalists are actually any kind of sizable interest group.
There are a number of examples of environmental groups blocking solar and wind farms from being built, which they justify by saying it harms the surrounding ecology and impedes local wildlife and whatnot. These projects would obviously allow people to consume more energy without producing more carbon emissions, or replace fossil fuel plants and reduce emissions. But the environmental groups still block it anyway while still demanding lower emissions, which is a pair of views that are only compatible with people reducing overall energy consumption (and standard of living).
I think the question is what’s going on with the gas pipelines. My understanding of Matt’s view is that a gas pipeline helps the poor people of the world get more affordable natural gas, which helps their economic development, which is worth the slight cost in emissions, and a little bit of habitat destruction in West Virginia. He says the environmental mitigation is best done by means of rich countries taxing carbon consumption or subsidizing low carbon alternatives, rather than by restricting supply, because restricting supply hurts poor countries most.
I think that restricting US supply of fossil fuels just has close to zero impact on CO2 emissions as the supply will just come from somewhere else at almost the same total cost. So you prevent income from being generated in the US for almost NO benefit. Does not pass CBA.
On the neopastoralism front, in local development conversations, it's pretty striking how often you encounter aging Berkeley hippie types who, with just the slightest scratch at whatever "greedy developers/not right for the neighborhood/etc" talking point, will quickly reveal some kind of hardcore population control view.
Paul Ehrlich Thought has remained pretty pervasive even though there’s now almost no chance that his fears will come true (partly because the population control advocates successfully made contraception widely available worldwide, partly because with Green Revolution crop improvements, we could comfortably manage 10B people or so.)
Without even weighing in on the merits of anything, getting the All Are Welcome here sign set to imply that they would support an American One Child Policy roughly 45 seconds into a conversation can give you some whiplash.
I'm not even sure what "reactionary leftism" could mean. Seems like an oxymoron. I think there's maybe a bit of reflexive authoritarianism that comes out when folks haven't really thought about their positions much, but I don't think any of that is "prominent" except maybe in particular geographic or social media enclaves. American liberals aren't aliens. We drink Miller Light and watch football games on Sunday afternoons just like everyone else.
Perhaps prominent is over-stating it. But I am referring to the group of people referenced in the parent comment. People who are in favor of liberalism in the abstract yet seem to be NIMBY, neopastoralist, anti-growth. Essentially it’s a zero-sum worldview where progress is suspicious and the government redistributes.
That's true over the short-term. But a 2012 peer-reviewed study published in PNAS found that slower population growth could reduce total emissions from fossil fuel use by 37–41% by 2100. It's very disturbing that there seems to be almost no ongoing research in this area. Apparently, population is a taboo topic, even for scientists.
Riverkeeper in NYS has legal and conservationist and environmental activist struggles to protect our rivers. The EPA is the Fed. Their standards for clean drinking water welcome cancinogens (only a small portion of which occur in nature) into your tap water. Their standards are archaic compared to what is needed as pristine lands are developed for real estate. And yes population never stops increasing.
Protecting wildlife is of no concern as govt officialdom disuss plans to build sea walls around parts of NYC which will increase inland flooding and further damage the environment needed for wildlife which protect our rivers. America isn't a land of pristine waterways but of sewage trouble as populations increase and real estate development harms the ecology.
Riverkeeper in NYS is one example among many. The sister group in FL faces apparently hopelessly uphill battles. The public will to support environmental justice is as weak as all pursuits of justice.. It's left to the few to try to reason with govt while reservoirs dry up in the West and sewage problems and flooding characterize the East. What to do about dumping nuclear waste? And don't forget, whatever conservation friendly admins help pass environmentally friendly regs the regs get repealed by politicians whose pockets are lined with Big Oil & Gas if not illegally, politically.
In general, I have agreed with these takes. There is a tradeoff and human flourishing has real value. If the damage from climate change can be held to a lower value, the increase in human flourishing surely outweighs it.
Previously, it has been argued that climate change models have revised the risk of the worst outcomes downward. However, this post slips from that to "But rapid Chinese economic growth has undeniably pushed global greenhouse gas emissions up. And comparable growth in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh would have had an even larger impact since these countries, in aggregate, have more people than China. The more rapid warming of the planet would have considerable downsides for people in South Asia and elsewhere. But crucially, on net, people in Bangladesh would be better off with triple the income and bigger climate problems because they could invest in air conditioning, more productive agriculture, and better flood control."
Consider that global carbon output continues to increase, which is what matters. This is happening because China is dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere even while the west is cutting back. If all of south Asia matched that, it would be very bad.
I'm sort-of amazed how much we continue to tolerate lead. I just got back from a fishing trip to Canada where I ended up talking a lot with my guides about lead fishing equipment and how they want to discourage it (fortunately, I was using tin/bismuth jigs). I'm surprised that it's still legal to sell lead weights and lures in the US, Europe, and Canada.
Same with lead shot, even though you can totally use steel bird shot and copper buck shot and they work fine.
Good post. You see this on a micro level with fights between access vs preservation in a lot of fights about parks and open spaces. Paving a trail through the woods makes it less natural but it also makes it more accessible say to people in wheelchairs or whatever. In the American political context I think you have to lean towards access to build a broad coalition of support for the environment in general, hence all those roads and parking lots in National Parks, but there is a real tension there. I remember a guy from Texas getting mad when he learned motor boats aren't allowed in the Boundary Water Canoe Area in northern Minnesota, "That's unfair!" etc. Likewise there can be real disagreements between bee keepers and native species boasters as honeybees are an invasive species in North America and compete with native pollinators. It's a real difference of philosophy.
This is something I've thought about for a long time, I'm happy to see an article about it. I think we should use the original term "conservationist" to separate a human-centered climate philosophy from environmentalism.
I'd love to hear MY chime in on a truly difficult question on this subject, like should we take down Dams to protect a single species of Salmon? That would seem to both take us in the wrong direction from climate change as well as decreasing the quality of life for lots of humans. To me this is a much more complicated question than whether or not to keep people in abject poverty to fight climate change.
Once we've replaced all energy production from fossil fuels with zero-emission sources, we can start to replace our hydroelectric production as well if it makes sense. A geothermal well, for example, ought to have fewer ecological ramifications than redirecting entire rivers and creating unnatural lakes. I guess dams have utility beyond electricity generation, though, you have to weigh all factors. But first priority should be to reach net-zero global greenhouse gas emissions ASAP, because those currently pose the greatest risk of species extinctions worldwide. After that, we can look at the other ways to reduce and mitigate our total environmental footprint, such as the danger to a salmon migration patterns, with minimal cost to humans.
Actually net zero is probably still not optimal. We'll need to reduce CO2 concentration to reach the minimum damage concentration equilibrium.
Well, it depends in part on whether one is seeking zero population growth for a given place or globally. Certainly, like any nation, we have internal debates, even deep fissures, but we tend to assume that the challenges and attitudes prevalent in the US apply everywhere. Interestingly, the topic of overpopulation seems far less taboo in many less-developed nations than it is here in the US. Also, the number of unplanned births in the US significantly exceeds net migration to the US. Addressing unplanned births through poverty reduction, improvements in education (including sex ed), and removing barriers to all reproductive health services is inherently of value and may also move the US in the direction of zero population growth. The strange thing about immigration (and I say this as the proud son of an immigrant to the US) is that everyone seems to agree that the current system stinks, but we're unable to find common ground.
I wholeheartedly endorse your perspective, Karl, but it's unfortunate that almost all US environmental groups have abandoned sustained efforts to increase access to voluntary international family planning. Of course, we - and they - oppose all forms of "population control," but some have deployed that opposition in ways that essentially abandon hundreds of millions of women with unmet needs for contraception. Also, unless one assumes that people in the Global South will remain trapped in deep poverty for generations to come, meeting those needs now will result in smaller families that can reduce ecological pressures over the long run.
Good article.
On the glandular instinct-politics level of things, I think a lot of people get turned on to environmental activism by an urge to protect what they "grew up with". It's a literally conservative mentality, coded as "liberal" for normative and coalitional reasons.
As a result, it often ends up thinking of humans and their flourishing as an annoying distraction at best, a malign factor at worst. Hence Ehrlich waxing furious about "people" in his numerous tracts, as if they were some kind of infestation.
It's an unfortunate puzzle we've got to solve. There's no technical or logical reason why humans and nature have to have a zero-sum relationship--but conventional wisdom, borne from old ways of doing things, is going to say otherwise unless we push back on it, and prove to the contrary through example.
The US didn't ban lead paint and leaded gasoline until 1978 & 1975. We started recycling lead-acid batteries in the 1920s, but not to modern standards. How much worse is the lead situation in these countries today? And is it bad enough that they'd consider it a high priority when their incomes are so much lower than US-1975 incomes? Obviously the better we can make things, we absolutely should. I just mean, it's worth asking if their development trajectory is actually more damaging to health and well being than ours was.
Also, coal is no longer the world's cheapest power, and that will either become more true, or coal will get cheaper as demand from developed countries shrinks in the coming decades. Bangladesh has more development options just because it's developing later, not fewer, and that includes cleaner options at less of a price premium than in the past.
Nature doesn't care about biodiversity, ecological preservation, or animal welfare. Nature is amoral and apathetic. 99% of all species that have ever existed on Earth are now extinct; this gradually approaches 100% over time. Earth's environment and biosphere have been devastated and reformed countless times by the natural processes.
Any moral imperatives regarding the environment exist solely in the values and preferences of humans. Preventing biodiversity and habitat loss is important because living alongside lots of different animals and plants pleases us; protecting ecological features from pollution and environmental catastrophe is important because we enjoy seeing them in their pristine form.
Humans value high standards of living, we value rights and freedoms, and we value the environment. When we put environmental values into that framework with our other preferences, we can evaluate policies on the basis of costs and benefits, maximizing total value.
Criminal lack of likes on this comment.
Focusing on the distinctions of "a human-centered view of environmental problems versus a neopastoralist one" is a false, or perhaps more accurately outdated, dichotomy - albeit one that alas remains widely prevalent.
It also plays into Americentrism. Many leading voices in the Global South recognize the links between the ecological and human impacts of rapid population growth. Yet, as usual, it’s all about us, meaning those of us living in the US and other highly developed nations.
By recentering the conversation around the positive impact on both people’s lives and on Nature that can flow from the full empowerment and absolute reproductive autonomy of women everywhere, we can stop endlessly repeating what has become a very stale exchange.
When women have true agency, they overwhelmingly choose smaller families. Now, that alone doesn’t solve the overconsumption problem, but failing to recognize the impacts of overpopulation is a classic example of “Whataboutism.”
John Seager
President
Population Connection
john@popconnect.org
Helping women achieve smaller families what that's what they want is good. How much that affects the impact of human populations on negative externalities like climate change or collective goods protection depends a lot more on the incentives people have that how many of us there are.
Actually, I think that kind of proves the point. More empowerment and opportunities for women in the Global South is a great outcome and will indeed lead to women choosing fewer children, but also one that results in those women achieving higher standards of living and increasing personal consumption of energy and resources. Now, it's worth it for people to be better off even if that results in environmental costs. So we should implement policies that provide the most benefit to people for the least amount of harm to the environment, such as increasing the amount of energy from environmentally-friendly sources. That way, people in the Global South can have more education, access to resources, and better quality of life with less environmental cost.
Nothing is more "Americentrism" that pursing a zero population growth goal.
>But is this a good objection? We can’t allow immigration because it’s too beneficial to immigrants? I’m skeptical.
Yeah this is why I grew to hate the neo pastoralists almost immediately; their style of environmentalism only works by keeping billions of minorities unfathomably poor.
Environmentalists obviously don’t like to see things built on greenfield, but something people don’t necessarily realize is that the character of existing built-up communities is also an “environmental resource” subject to the same legal protections and advocacy by the same groups. I disagree with Matt’s characterization that the movement is sensitive to location but indifferent to building overall. It’s opposed to building in essentially every case.
I'm curious how much actual political clout any neopastoralist groups have. I'm a pretty environmentally conscious urban liberal who recycles and rides an e-bike to work. And I would definitely characterize myself as humanist in my environmental concern. And I think that's true of all of my liberal friends. Are there really any neopastoralists who wouldn't be convinced that it's better to raise someone's standard of living by 2-3x at the expense of more carbon emissions?
I'm not convinced that anti-growth environmentalists are actually any kind of sizable interest group.
There are a number of examples of environmental groups blocking solar and wind farms from being built, which they justify by saying it harms the surrounding ecology and impedes local wildlife and whatnot. These projects would obviously allow people to consume more energy without producing more carbon emissions, or replace fossil fuel plants and reduce emissions. But the environmental groups still block it anyway while still demanding lower emissions, which is a pair of views that are only compatible with people reducing overall energy consumption (and standard of living).
I think the question is what’s going on with the gas pipelines. My understanding of Matt’s view is that a gas pipeline helps the poor people of the world get more affordable natural gas, which helps their economic development, which is worth the slight cost in emissions, and a little bit of habitat destruction in West Virginia. He says the environmental mitigation is best done by means of rich countries taxing carbon consumption or subsidizing low carbon alternatives, rather than by restricting supply, because restricting supply hurts poor countries most.
I think that restricting US supply of fossil fuels just has close to zero impact on CO2 emissions as the supply will just come from somewhere else at almost the same total cost. So you prevent income from being generated in the US for almost NO benefit. Does not pass CBA.
On the neopastoralism front, in local development conversations, it's pretty striking how often you encounter aging Berkeley hippie types who, with just the slightest scratch at whatever "greedy developers/not right for the neighborhood/etc" talking point, will quickly reveal some kind of hardcore population control view.
Paul Ehrlich Thought has remained pretty pervasive even though there’s now almost no chance that his fears will come true (partly because the population control advocates successfully made contraception widely available worldwide, partly because with Green Revolution crop improvements, we could comfortably manage 10B people or so.)
Without even weighing in on the merits of anything, getting the All Are Welcome here sign set to imply that they would support an American One Child Policy roughly 45 seconds into a conversation can give you some whiplash.
There is a prominent strain of reactionary leftism among so-called liberal/progressives.
I'm not even sure what "reactionary leftism" could mean. Seems like an oxymoron. I think there's maybe a bit of reflexive authoritarianism that comes out when folks haven't really thought about their positions much, but I don't think any of that is "prominent" except maybe in particular geographic or social media enclaves. American liberals aren't aliens. We drink Miller Light and watch football games on Sunday afternoons just like everyone else.
Perhaps prominent is over-stating it. But I am referring to the group of people referenced in the parent comment. People who are in favor of liberalism in the abstract yet seem to be NIMBY, neopastoralist, anti-growth. Essentially it’s a zero-sum worldview where progress is suspicious and the government redistributes.