Skip to main content

More on overpopulation

By
Here's some more evidence from Yglesias for the thesis that overpopulation is not a critical environmental issue:
...the most important point about global population growth is the point David Brooks makes today—it's slowing down almost everywhere and the global trend is clearly toward birthrates that are below the replacement level. Because of "demographic momentum" and rising life expectency, relatively few countries are poised for falling population in the short-term but Russia is already there, Japan will be soon, Spain and Italy will follow, and while China is difficult to predict they're looking at the sharpest cliff.
You hear a lot that if everyone lived like Americans then we would need five Earths' worth of resources to support everyone. That's true, but the converse is that if everyone lived like Ethiopians we could comfortably support 10 billion people or more. You might respond that would eat up all the available land, but if everyone in the United States lived in a city with Brooklyn's density, we could fit everyone into New Hampshire.

Again, the most critical environment issue is climate change, and it isn't caused by overpopulation. It is caused by inefficiency and poor resource allocation.
Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 14, 2012 at 12:14 PM

    I agree that the current population isn't the problem that it's made out to be. All the world's major problems are caused by the cartels that create debt money out of nothing and then foist the yoke of taxation on the peoples to repay these created debts.

    Taxation drives overproduction and consumption artificially. If people were truly free, meaning if they owned themselves and the fruits of their labor, and were not forced at gunpoint to pay taxes; they would produce little more than needed to survive. Artificial consumption would drop off radically.

    The ancient families that have run the world for thousands of years with their debts schemes are the root problem of the majority of the world's ills.

    Create debt free money and free humanity of involuntary taxation you heal the planet. Who would chip in for wars etc.?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Free will, part II

By
This post is dedicated to Mark Bedau , my philosophy professor at Reed, a great guy and a wonderful teacher, by far the least pretentious philosopher I've ever met. He is responsible for this post only insofar as he sparked my interest in the subject; its many shortcomings are mine alone. Who's ready for some unqualified philosophical rambling? I'm not going to do much more than summarize, as this is probably one of the five biggest problems in philosophy and the material quickly gets out of hand. Anyway—let's start with some terms, appropriately hefty philosophical ones. (I'm going to steal shamelessly from Wikipedia, as the free will article is very good.) Free will is "purported ability of agents to make choices free from constraints." Some call it the "ability to have done otherwise," but that definition runs into problems which I'll describe later. Determinism is the view that all events are caused by previous events, while indet...
1 comment
Read more

On Refusing to Vote for Bloomberg

By
Billionaire Mike Bloomberg is attempting to buy the Democratic nomination. With something like $400 million in personal spending so far, that much is clear — and it appears to be working at least somewhat well, as he is nearing second place in national polls. I would guess that he will quickly into diminishing returns, but on the other hand spending on this level is totally unprecedented. At this burn rate he could easily spend more than the entire 2016 presidential election cost both parties before the primary is over. I published a piece today outlining why I would not vote for Bloomberg against Trump (I would vote for Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, or Biden), even though I live in a swing state. This got a lot of "vote blue no matter who" people riled up . They scolded me and demanded that I pre-commit to voting for Bloomberg should he win the nomination. The argument as I understand it is to try to make it as likely as possible that whatever Democrat wins t...
4 comments
Read more

RIP Stephanie Chance, Niger Peace Corps volunteer

By
Our Peace Corps family has been suffering some tragedies lately. Stephanie Chance, a volunteer in Niger, has died of what appears to be natural causes. My thoughts are with her friends and family. Below I'm posting a letter from Director Aaron Williams. I am deeply saddened to write that Municipal Development Volunteer Stephanie Chance, an admired member of the Peace Corps family in Niger, died on Thursday, October 7, 2010. Stephanie, 26 years old, was found in her home in Zinder, and, at this time her death appears to be from natural causes. Her sudden passing is mourned by the entire Peace Corps community, including her fellow training group members, who were recently sworn in together as Volunteers on September 23, 2010. Stephanie was a native of Phoenix, Arizona, and she had arrived in Niger for training in July 2010. She had just arrived at her site in Zinder and was busy getting to know the community to help local officials better coordinate local government servi...
9 comments
Read more