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The Malthusians Are Back
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Climate activists who worry that the world has too many
people are joining an ugly tradition.
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By
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and
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<section
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<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Scolding regular people for contributing to climate change is out
of fashion. But scolding people for making new people is,
apparently, totally fine. Many
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change"
>climate activists</a
>
say the
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/02/climate-kids/"
>worst thing</a
>
an individual can do, from an emissions perspective, is have kids.
The climate-advocacy group Project Drawdown lists “<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://drawdown.org/solutions/family-planning-and-education"
>family planning and education</a
>,” which are intended to lower fertility rates, as leading
solutions to global warming. Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard historian
and celebrated climate researcher, published an
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-billion-people-in-the-world-is-a-crisis-not-an-achievement/#:~:text=The%20world%20reached%20two%20important,one%20billion%20people%20since%202011."
>op-ed</a
>
in <em>Scientific American</em> this month titled “Eight Billion
People in the World Is a Crisis, Not an Achievement.”
</p>
<p
id="injected-recirculation-link-0"
class="ArticleRelatedContentLink_root__v6EBD"
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data-event-element="injected link"
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>
<a
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/underpopulation-problem/585568/"
>Trent McNamara: Liberal societies have dangerously low birth
rates</a
>
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
In recent years, many climate advocates have emphasized human
population itself—as opposed to related factors such as
consumption and technology—as the driving force behind
environmental destruction. This is, at bottom, a very old idea
that can be traced back to the 18th-century cleric Thomas Malthus.
It is also analytically unsound and morally objectionable. Critics
of overpopulation down through the ages have had a nasty habit of
treating people less as individuals with value and agency than as
sentient locusts.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Malthus argued against aid to poor Britons on the grounds that
they consumed too many of the nations resources. In making his
case, he semi-accurately described a particular kind of poverty
that we still refer to as the “<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://ourworldindata.org/breaking-the-malthusian-trap"
>Malthusian trap</a
>” today. Agricultural productivity in poor societies is not high
enough to support the population without significant labor input,
so most people work on small subsistence farms to feed themselves
and their families. The inescapably linear growth in the food
supply could never outstrip the exponential growth in human
populations, he argued.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
But human societies have proved repeatedly that they can escape
the Malthusian trap. Indeed, agricultural productivity has
improved to support a British population seven times larger than
in Malthuss time and a global population eight times larger. As a
result of these stubborn facts, most Malthusian imitators havent
come out and said theyre Malthusians. And instead of focusing on
famine, they have tended to emphasize humanitys destruction of
nature.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
The Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich has been the worlds leading
overpopulation hawk since the publication of his 1968 book,
<em>The Population Bomb</em>. Ehrlich did warn about food
shortages, but as an entomologist and a conservationist, his
primary concern was our influence on the natural world. “The
progressive deterioration of our environment may cause more death
and misery than the food-population gap,” he wrote.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
In a description of a trip to New Delhi, he was vividly
forthcoming about his distaste for the living, breathing
individuals who make up a population:
</p>
<div
class="ArticleLegacyHtml_root__oTAAd ArticleLegacyHtml_standard__Qfi5x"
>
<blockquote class="">
<p>
People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People
visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands
through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and
urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals.
People, people, people, people.
</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
If people, people, people are the primary threat to the natural
world, what is the solution? Uncomfortable as it is to say,
conservationist and eugenicist theories have long been
intertwined. Indeed, in his newly published autobiography,
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/life-a-journey-through-science-and-politics-paul-r-ehrlich/18399234"
><em>Life: A Journey Through Science and Politics</em></a
>, Ehrlich credits the early-20th-century thinker William Vogt,
whom he calls “a liberal conservationist,” as inspiration for his
work on population. Here is how Vogt explained his proposal to
offer “sterilization bonuses” to the poor:
</p>
<div
class="ArticleLegacyHtml_root__oTAAd ArticleLegacyHtml_standard__Qfi5x"
>
<blockquote class="">
<p>
Since such a bonus would appeal primarily to the worlds
shiftless, it would probably have a favorable selective
influence. From the point of view of society, it would
certainly be preferable to pay permanently indigent
individuals, many of whom would be physically and
psychologically marginal, $50 or $100 rather than support
their hordes of offspring that, by both genetic and social
inheritance, would tend to perpetuate the fecklessness.
</p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
In the beginning of the previous century, there was simply no
contradiction in being a “liberal conservationist” and being a
eugenicist. Vogt was the national director for the Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, which has recently
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/our-history"
>reckoned</a
>
with the eugenicist commitments of its founder, Margaret Sanger.
The Sierra Club, which was
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club"
>initially led</a
>
by a number of avowed eugenicists, commissioned Ehrlich to write
<em>The Population Bomb</em> and for decades operated a<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://vault.sierraclub.org/population/#:~:text=The%20Global%20Population%20and%20Environment,health%20and%20sustainable%20development%20initiatives."
>
program</a
>
focused on ways to reduce fertility and immigration.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Now 90 years old, Ehrlich still takes pride in the work he did
turning population growth into a global concern, even though the
mass famine and pestilence that he predicted in the 60s never
came to pass.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
“I must admit,” he writes in his autobiography, “that in 2019 I
was pleased to find an article in a history journal that credited
us neo-Malthusians with stimulating thinking of the planet as a
whole and anticipating its future.’”
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
And Ehrlich remains a venerated figure. In January of this year,
CBS featured Ehrlich on an episode of <em>60 Minutes</em> on
species extinction. The climate scientist Michael Mann called the
memoir a “wide-ranging, wondrous, and pleasantly amusing account
of his amazing life—as a scientist, thinker, communicator,
influencer, and champion for a sustainable world.”
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Intellectual descendants of Ehrlichs in the environmental
movement continue to sell old Malthusian wine in new bottles.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Oreskes draws attention to the same problem that Ehrlich did in
his day: biodiversity loss associated with high-fertility,
low-productivity societies caught in the Malthusian trap. Because
subsistence farms have low yields, and because the farmers tend to
rely on wood and other biomass for energy, they remain a major
driver of deforestation, land-use change, and wildlife
extirpation.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
In Oreskess recent <em>Scientific American</em>
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-billion-people-in-the-world-is-a-crisis-not-an-achievement/"
>op-ed</a
>, she acknowledges that her ideas have a tarnished legacy.
“Population control is a vexing subject,” she writes, “because in
the past it has generally been espoused by rich people (mostly
men) instructing people in poor countries (mostly women) on how to
behave.” Her workaround is to emphasize educational opportunities
as a “reasonable” way to “slow growth.” In an email, Oreskes said
that she does not consider herself a Malthusian and that she
focuses on education “because we know that it can work, and unlike
some other approaches it is good for women, and non-coercive.”
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
The Overpopulation Project (TOP) also highlights education,
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://overpopulation-project.com/solutions/"
>arguing</a
>
that governments in every country should “make population and
environmental issues and sex education part of the basic
educational curriculum.” Likewise,
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://populationconnection.org/about-us/"
>Population Connection</a
>
(formerly
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/population-connection-zero-population-growth/"
>Zero Population Growth</a
>, which Ehrlich co-founded in 1968) develops “K-12 curricula and
secondary education materials for teachers and professors so they
can easily incorporate population studies into their classes.”
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Access to education—in general, or to sex ed and “population
studies” in particular—is certainly preferable to Vogts forced
sterilization. But what about solutions to environmental decline
that emphasize better growth instead of slower growth? Solutions
such as modern energy infrastructure, high-productivity
agriculture, and access to global markets?
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Proposals of this sort, which Oreskes refers to derisively as
“cornucopianism,” are the alternatives to Malthusianism that have
proved effective across history. Rough contemporaries of Malthus,
such as the
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com/economic-thought/journal-articles/malthus-versus-condorcet-revisited"
>Marquis de Condorcet</a
>,<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26161690"
>
Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels</a
>, argued that improvements in economic productivity would allow
humans to grow enough food to meet rising population levels, and
they were right. Vogts pessimism lost out to the ingenuity of,
among others, the Nobel Peace Prizewinning agronomist Norman
Borlaug, as the historian
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/charles-mann-can-planet-earth-feed-10-billion-people/550928/"
>Charles Mann</a
>
recounts in his 2018 book,<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Prophet-Remarkable-Scientists-Tomorrows/dp/0307961699"
>
<em>The Wizard and the Prophet</em></a
><em>. </em>Borlaugs innovations in wheat and maize cultivation
helped stave off the famines Vogt and other eugenicists had
predicted. Ehrlich, infamously, lost a
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bet-paul-ehrlich-julian-simon-and-our-gamble-over-earth-s-future-paul-sabin/9358973"
>bet</a
>
with the libertarian economist Julian Simon over resource
scarcity. (Simon goes completely unmentioned in Ehrlichs
autobiography.) And “cornucopianism” can do more than fend off
famine; it can serve conservationist ends. Thanks to innovation
and technological decoupling, an average American today is
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth#:~:text=GDP%20per%20capita%20in%20the,than%2020%20times%20to%20%2455%2C335."
>more than twice</a
>
as wealthy as an average American was the year
<em>The Population Bomb </em>was published, yet
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states"
>generates</a
>
30 percent fewer carbon emissions and
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://ourworldindata.org/land-use"
>uses</a
>
50 percent less land for their diet.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Like Oreskes, the scientists at TOP and Population Connection
insist that their proposed solutions to the population “problem”
are noncoercive. They just want to nudge people in the direction
of fewer people. Another of TOPs
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/solutions-to-overpopulation-and-what-you-can-do/"
>priorities</a
>
is to “reduce immigration numbers” to developed countries with low
fertility rates. Additional ideas include proposals to lower
government support for third and fourth children and for medical
fertility treatments.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
But Ehrlich said the same thing. “Im against government
interference in our lives,” he
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://twitter.com/Shawn_Regan/status/1610871364092665856?s=20"
>told</a
>
an interviewer in 1970. How that sentiment squared with Ehrlichs
demands in <em>The Population Bomb</em> for “compulsory birth
regulation” and “sterilizing all Indian males with three or more
children” remains unclear. And it didnt stop powerful
institutions from taking his warnings about overpopulation
literally as well as seriously. As Betsy Hartmann
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/"
>recounted</a
>
in her 1987 exposé,
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/reproductive-rights-and-wrongs-the-global-politics-of-population-control-betsy-hartmann/10917143?gclid=CjwKCAjw_MqgBhAGEiwAnYOAemFMO_EIxKVfTDg667RBlQ8xlPUk8AQLum3Vfvt7eWmM_HdkNdbz5RoC32cQAvD_BwE"
><em>Reproductive Rights and Wrongs</em></a
>, the Population Council, the International Planned Parenthood
Federation, and other organizations funded fertility-reduction
programs that, in tandem with sometimes coercive government
policies, led to millions of sterilizations in China, India,
Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.
Chinas one-child policy can be
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/chinas-one-child-policy-was-inspired-by-western-greens/"
>directly traced</a
>
to <em>Limits to Growth</em>, the Club of Romes famous Malthusian
screed warning of resource shortages and overpopulation.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
When the problem is defined as too many carbon emissions, the
solutions will be optimized to reduce emissions. When the problem
is defined as too little education and bodily autonomy, solutions
such as schooling and birth control make intuitive sense. When the
problem is defined as too many <em>people</em>, the “solutions”
will surely once again go far beyond the gentle, humane approaches
that the neo-Malthusians emphasize. As <em>The Atlantic</em>s
Jerusalem Demsas
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/population-growth-housing-climate-change/629952/"
>put it</a
>, “Enough with the innuendo: If overpopulation is the hill you
want to die on, then youve got to defend the implications.”
</p>
<p
id="injected-recirculation-link-1"
class="ArticleRelatedContentLink_root__v6EBD"
data-view-action="view link - injected link - item 2"
data-event-element="injected link"
data-event-position="2"
>
<a
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/population-growth-housing-climate-change/629952/"
>Jerusalem Demsas: The people who hate people</a
>
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Fortunately, much of civil society has gotten wise to the new,
friendly Malthusianism. Ehrlichs appearance on
<em>60 Minutes</em> was met with
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1611194936736768000"
>widespread</a
>
condemnation. Last year the Sierra Club shut down its
long-standing population-control program,
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra-club-and-population-issues"
>writing</a
>, “Contraception and family planning are not climate mitigation
measures.”
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
And these concerns are being raised at a peculiar moment in human
history. The total population of human beings on Earth is expected
to
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth"
>peak and decline</a
>
<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://previous.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/WorldPopulation/Reaging/The-growing-divergence-in-population-trends-and-concerns.pdf"
>later this century</a
>, not because of war, famine, or disease, but because of
secularly declining fertility. The challenge that nations
including Germany, South Korea, Japan, and even India and China
are dealing with today is<a
data-event-element="inline link"
href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/underpopulation-problem/585568/"
>
underpopulation</a
>, not overpopulation. Migrants, particularly those who are young
and skilled, will be crucial to generating economic growth in
these countries. This makes the neo-Malthusian dismissal of
technology, infrastructure, and growth particularly troubling.
Supporting an aging population will require an economic surplus
that has traditionally been supplied by a favorable ratio of
younger workers in the labor force to retirees. As that ratio
reverses, it is not clear how infrastructure maintenance and
social-services financing will fare.
</p>
<p class="ArticleParagraph_root__wy3UI">
Given that the Malthusian dream—a peak in global population—is
already in sight, one might think that single-minded efforts to
further suppress population growth would wane. But the old
population-control movement is still alive and well today.
</p>
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"data": "{\"article\":{\"__typename\":\"BlogArticle\",\"id\":\"BlogArticle:673450\",\"categories\":[],\"content\":[{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Scolding regular people for contributing to climate change is out of fashion. But scolding people for making new people is, apparently, totally fine. Many \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.npr.org/2016/08/18/479349760/should-we-be-having-kids-in-the-age-of-climate-change\\\"\u003eclimate activists\u003c/a\u003e say the \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/02/climate-kids/\\\"\u003eworst thing\u003c/a\u003e an individual can do, from an emissions perspective, is have kids. The climate-advocacy group Project Drawdown lists “\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://drawdown.org/solutions/family-planning-and-education\\\"\u003efamily planning and education\u003c/a\u003e,” which are intended to lower fertility rates, as leading solutions to global warming. Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard historian and celebrated climate researcher, published an \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-billion-people-in-the-world-is-a-crisis-not-an-achievement/#:~:text=The%20world%20reached%20two%20important,one%20billion%20people%20since%202011.\\\"\u003eop-ed\u003c/a\u003e in \u003cem\u003eScientific American\u003c/em\u003e this month titled “Eight Billion People in the World Is a Crisis, Not an Achievement.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleRelatedContentLink\",\"idAttr\":\"injected-recirculation-link-0\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/underpopulation-problem/585568/\\\"\u003eTrent McNamara: Liberal societies have dangerously low birth rates\u003c/a\u003e\",\"index\":0},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"In recent years, many climate advocates have emphasized human population itself—as opposed to related factors such as consumption and technology—as the driving force behind environmental destruction. This is, at bottom, a very old idea that can be traced back to the 18th-century cleric Thomas Malthus. It is also analytically unsound and morally objectionable. Critics of overpopulation down through the ages have had a nasty habit of treating people less as individuals with value and agency than as sentient locusts.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Malthus argued against aid to poor Britons on the grounds that they consumed too many of the nations resources. In making his case, he semi-accurately described a particular kind of poverty that we still refer to as the “\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://ourworldindata.org/breaking-the-malthusian-trap\\\"\u003eMalthusian trap\u003c/a\u003e” today. Agricultural productivity in poor societies is not high enough to support the population without significant labor input, so most people work on small subsistence farms to feed themselves and their families. The inescapably linear growth in the food supply could never outstrip the exponential growth in human populations, he argued.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"But human societies have proved repeatedly that they can escape the Malthusian trap. Indeed, agricultural productivity has improved to support a British population seven times larger than in Malthuss time and a global population eight times larger. As a result of these stubborn facts, most Malthusian imitators havent come out and said theyre Malthusians. And instead of focusing on famine, they have tended to emphasize humanitys destruction of nature.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"The Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich has been the worlds leading overpopulation hawk since the publication of his 1968 book, \u003cem\u003eThe Population Bomb\u003c/em\u003e. Ehrlich did warn about food shortages, but as an entomologist and a conservationist, his primary concern was our influence on the natural world. “The progressive deterioration of our environment may cause more death and misery than the food-population gap,” he wrote.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"In a description of a trip to New Delhi, he was vividly forthcoming about his distaste for the living, breathing individuals who make up a population:\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleLegacyHtml\",\"tagName\":\"BLOCKQUOTE\",\"idAttr\":\"\",\"className\":\"\",\"style\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003cp\u003ePeople eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people.\u003c/p\u003e\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"If people, people, people are the primary threat to the natural world, what is the solution? Uncomfortable as it is to say, conservationist and eugenicist theories have long been intertwined. Indeed, in his newly published autobiography, \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://bookshop.org/p/books/life-a-journey-through-science-and-politics-paul-r-ehrlich/18399234\\\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eLife: A Journey Through Science and Politics\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, Ehrlich credits the early-20th-century thinker William Vogt, whom he calls “a liberal conservationist,” as inspiration for his work on population. Here is how Vogt explained his proposal to offer “sterilization bonuses” to the poor:\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleLegacyHtml\",\"tagName\":\"BLOCKQUOTE\",\"idAttr\":\"\",\"className\":\"\",\"style\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003cp\u003eSince such a bonus would appeal primarily to the worlds shiftless, it would probably have a favorable selective influence. From the point of view of society, it would certainly be preferable to pay permanently indigent individuals, many of whom would be physically and psychologically marginal, $50 or $100 rather than support their hordes of offspring that, by both genetic and social inheritance, would tend to perpetuate the fecklessness.\u003c/p\u003e\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"In the beginning of the previous century, there was simply no contradiction in being a “liberal conservationist” and being a eugenicist. Vogt was the national director for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which has recently \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/our-history\\\"\u003ereckoned\u003c/a\u003e with the eugenicist commitments of its founder, Margaret Sanger. The Sierra Club, which was \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2020/07/john-muir-early-history-sierra-club\\\"\u003einitially led\u003c/a\u003e by a number of avowed eugenicists, commissioned Ehrlich to write \u003cem\u003eThe Population Bomb\u003c/em\u003e and for decades operated a\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://vault.sierraclub.org/population/#:~:text=The%20Global%20Population%20and%20Environment,health%20and%20sustainable%20development%20initiatives.\\\"\u003e program\u003c/a\u003e focused on ways to reduce fertility and immigration.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Now 90 years old, Ehrlich still takes pride in the work he did turning population growth into a global concern, even though the mass famine and pestilence that he predicted in the 60s never came to pass.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"“I must admit,” he writes in his autobiography, “that in 2019 I was pleased to find an article in a history journal that credited us neo-Malthusians with stimulating thinking of the planet as a whole and anticipating its future.’”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"And Ehrlich remains a venerated figure. In January of this year, CBS featured Ehrlich on an episode of \u003cem\u003e60 Minutes\u003c/em\u003e on species extinction. The climate scientist Michael Mann called the memoir a “wide-ranging, wondrous, and pleasantly amusing account of his amazing life—as a scientist, thinker, communicator, influencer, and champion for a sustainable world.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Intellectual descendants of Ehrlichs in the environmental movement continue to sell old Malthusian wine in new bottles.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Oreskes draws attention to the same problem that Ehrlich did in his day: biodiversity loss associated with high-fertility, low-productivity societies caught in the Malthusian trap. Because subsistence farms have low yields, and because the farmers tend to rely on wood and other biomass for energy, they remain a major driver of deforestation, land-use change, and wildlife extirpation.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"In Oreskess recent \u003cem\u003eScientific American\u003c/em\u003e \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eight-billion-people-in-the-world-is-a-crisis-not-an-achievement/\\\"\u003eop-ed\u003c/a\u003e, she acknowledges that her ideas have a tarnished legacy. “Population control is a vexing subject,” she writes, “because in the past it has generally been espoused by rich people (mostly men) instructing people in poor countries (mostly women) on how to behave.” Her workaround is to emphasize educational opportunities as a “reasonable” way to “slow growth.” In an email, Oreskes said that she does not consider herself a Malthusian and that she focuses on education “because we know that it can work, and unlike some other approaches it is good for women, and non-coercive.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"The Overpopulation Project (TOP) also highlights education, \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://overpopulation-project.com/solutions/\\\"\u003earguing\u003c/a\u003e that governments in every country should “make population and environmental issues and sex education part of the basic educational curriculum.” Likewise, \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://populationconnection.org/about-us/\\\"\u003ePopulation Connection\u003c/a\u003e (formerly \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/population-connection-zero-population-growth/\\\"\u003eZero Population Growth\u003c/a\u003e, which Ehrlich co-founded in 1968) develops “K-12 curricula and secondary education materials for teachers and professors so they can easily incorporate population studies into their classes.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Access to education—in general, or to sex ed and “population studies” in particular—is certainly preferable to Vogts forced sterilization. But what about solutions to environmental decline that emphasize better growth instead of slower growth? Solutions such as modern energy infrastructure, high-productivity agriculture, and access to global markets?\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Proposals of this sort, which Oreskes refers to derisively as “cornucopianism,” are the alternatives to Malthusianism that have proved effective across history. Rough contemporaries of Malthus, such as the \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com/economic-thought/journal-articles/malthus-versus-condorcet-revisited\\\"\u003eMarquis de Condorcet\u003c/a\u003e,\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.jstor.org/stable/26161690\\\"\u003e Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels\u003c/a\u003e, argued that improvements in economic productivity would allow humans to grow enough food to meet rising population levels, and they were right. Vogts pessimism lost out to the ingenuity of, among others, the Nobel Peace Prizewinning agronomist Norman Borlaug, as the historian \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/charles-mann-can-planet-earth-feed-10-billion-people/550928/\\\"\u003eCharles Mann\u003c/a\u003e recounts in his 2018 book,\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Prophet-Remarkable-Scientists-Tomorrows/dp/0307961699\\\"\u003e \u003cem\u003eThe Wizard and the Prophet\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e. \u003c/em\u003eBorlaugs innovations in wheat and maize cultivation helped stave off the famines Vogt and other eugenicists had predicted. Ehrlich, infamously, lost a \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-bet-paul-ehrlich-julian-simon-and-our-gamble-over-earth-s-future-paul-sabin/9358973\\\"\u003ebet\u003c/a\u003e with the libertarian economist Julian Simon over resource scarcity. (Simon goes completely unmentioned in Ehrlichs autobiography.) And “cornucopianism” can do more than fend off famine; it can serve conservationist ends. Thanks to innovation and technological decoupling, an average American today is \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://ourworldindata.org/economic-growth#:~:text=GDP%20per%20capita%20in%20the,than%2020%20times%20to%20%2455%2C335.\\\"\u003emore than twice\u003c/a\u003e as wealthy as an average American was the year \u003cem\u003eThe Population Bomb \u003c/em\u003ewas published, yet \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states\\\"\u003egenerates\u003c/a\u003e 30 percent fewer carbon emissions and \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://ourworldindata.org/land-use\\\"\u003euses\u003c/a\u003e 50 percent less land for their diet.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Like Oreskes, the scientists at TOP and Population Connection insist that their proposed solutions to the population “problem” are noncoercive. They just want to nudge people in the direction of fewer people. Another of TOPs \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/solutions-to-overpopulation-and-what-you-can-do/\\\"\u003epriorities\u003c/a\u003e is to “reduce immigration numbers” to developed countries with low fertility rates. Additional ideas include proposals to lower government support for third and fourth children and for medical fertility treatments.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"But Ehrlich said the same thing. “Im against government interference in our lives,” he \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://twitter.com/Shawn_Regan/status/1610871364092665856?s=20\\\"\u003etold\u003c/a\u003e an interviewer in 1970. How that sentiment squared with Ehrlichs demands in \u003cem\u003eThe Population Bomb\u003c/em\u003e for “compulsory birth regulation” and “sterilizing all Indian males with three or more children” remains unclear. And it didnt stop powerful institutions from taking his warnings about overpopulation literally as well as seriously. As Betsy Hartmann \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/\\\"\u003erecounted\u003c/a\u003e in her 1987 exposé, \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://bookshop.org/p/books/reproductive-rights-and-wrongs-the-global-politics-of-population-control-betsy-hartmann/10917143?gclid=CjwKCAjw_MqgBhAGEiwAnYOAemFMO_EIxKVfTDg667RBlQ8xlPUk8AQLum3Vfvt7eWmM_HdkNdbz5RoC32cQAvD_BwE\\\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eReproductive Rights and Wrongs\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, the Population Council, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and other organizations funded fertility-reduction programs that, in tandem with sometimes coercive government policies, led to millions of sterilizations in China, India, Mexico, Bolivia, Peru, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and elsewhere. Chinas one-child policy can be \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/chinas-one-child-policy-was-inspired-by-western-greens/\\\"\u003edirectly traced\u003c/a\u003e to \u003cem\u003eLimits to Growth\u003c/em\u003e, the Club of Romes famous Malthusian screed warning of resource shortages and overpopulation.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"When the problem is defined as too many carbon emissions, the solutions will be optimized to reduce emissions. When the problem is defined as too little education and bodily autonomy, solutions such as schooling and birth control make intuitive sense. When the problem is defined as too many \u003cem\u003epeople\u003c/em\u003e, the “solutions” will surely once again go far beyond the gentle, humane approaches that the neo-Malthusians emphasize. As \u003cem\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c/em\u003es Jerusalem Demsas \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/population-growth-housing-climate-change/629952/\\\"\u003eput it\u003c/a\u003e, “Enough with the innuendo: If overpopulation is the hill you want to die on, then youve got to defend the implications.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleRelatedContentLink\",\"idAttr\":\"injected-recirculation-link-1\",\"innerHtml\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/population-growth-housing-climate-change/629952/\\\"\u003eJerusalem Demsas: The people who hate people\u003c/a\u003e\",\"index\":1},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Fortunately, much of civil society has gotten wise to the new, friendly Malthusianism. Ehrlichs appearance on \u003cem\u003e60 Minutes\u003c/em\u003e was met with \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1611194936736768000\\\"\u003ewidespread\u003c/a\u003e condemnation. Last year the Sierra Club shut down its long-standing population-control program, \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra-club-and-population-issues\\\"\u003ewriting\u003c/a\u003e, “Contraception and family planning are not climate mitigation measures.”\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"And these concerns are being raised at a peculiar moment in human history. The total population of human beings on Earth is expected to \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth\\\"\u003epeak and decline\u003c/a\u003e \u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://previous.iiasa.ac.at/web/home/research/researchPrograms/WorldPopulation/Reaging/The-growing-divergence-in-population-trends-and-concerns.pdf\\\"\u003elater this century\u003c/a\u003e, not because of war, famine, or disease, but because of secularly declining fertility. The challenge that nations including Germany, South Korea, Japan, and even India and China are dealing with today is\u003ca data-event-element=\\\"inline link\\\" href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/03/underpopulation-problem/585568/\\\"\u003e underpopulation\u003c/a\u003e, not overpopulation. Migrants, particularly those who are young and skilled, will be crucial to generating economic growth in these countries. This makes the neo-Malthusian dismissal of technology, infrastructure, and growth particularly troubling. Supporting an aging population will require an economic surplus that has traditionally been supplied by a favorable ratio of younger workers in the labor force to retirees. As that ratio reverses, it is not clear how infrastructure maintenance and social-services financing will fare.\"},{\"__typename\":\"ArticleParagraphContent\",\"subtype\":null,\"idAttr\":\"\",\"innerHtml\":\"Given that the Malthusian dream—a peak in global population—is already in sight, one might think that single-minded efforts to further suppress population growth would wane. But the old population-control movement is still alive and well today.\"}],\"editorialProject\":null,\"primaryCategory\":{\"__typename\":\"Channel\",\"displayName\":\"Ideas\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/\",\"slug\":\"ideas\"},\"reviews\":[],\"embeds\":[],\"authors\":[{\"id\":\"Author:38266\",\"displayName\":\"Alex Trembath\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alex-trembath/\",\"biography\":{\"default\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alex-trembath/\\\" class=\\\"author-link\\\" data-label=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/alex-trembath/\\\" data-action=\\\"click author - name\\\" \u003eAlex Trembath\u003c/a\u003e is the deputy director at the Breakthrough Institute.\",\"__typename\":\"Biography\"},\"socialMedia\":[],\"__typename\":\"Author\",\"slug\":\"alex-trembath\"},{\"id\":\"Author:38265\",\"displayName\":\"Vijaya Ramachandran\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/vijaya-ramachandran/\",\"biography\":{\"default\":\"\u003ca href=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/vijaya-ramachandran/\\\" class=\\\"author-link\\\" data-label=\\\"https://www.theatlantic.com/author/vijaya-ramachandran/\\\" data-action=\\\"click author - name\\\" \u003eVijaya Ramachandran\u003c/a\u003e is the director for energy and development at the Breakthrough Institute.\",\"__typename\":\"Biography\"},\"socialMedia\":[],\"__typename\":\"Author\",\"slug\":\"vijaya-ramachandran\"}],\"preview\":null,\"layout\":\"standard\",\"secondaryByline\":\"\",\"dek\":\"Climate activists who worry that the world has too many people are joining an ugly tradition.\",\"url\":\"https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/population-control-movement-climate-malthusian-similarities/673450/\",\"title\":\"The Malthusians Are Back\",\"seoTitle\":\"Meet the New Population-Control Movement\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-03-22T13:40:50Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-22T11:00:00Z\",\"hasMeter\":true,\"primaryChannel\":{\"displayName\":\"Ideas\",\"__typename\":\"Channel\",\"slug\":\"ideas\"},\"shareImage1x1\":{\"width\":1080,\"height\":1080,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/oDl0YHzQcGNG1wVdsM1zNzpltY8=/748x0:2672x1924/1080x1080/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"shareImage16x9\":{\"width\":1600,\"height\":900,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/qS6ALEOJ6rv9sRtxDsipfgBNaZ8=/0x0:3420x1924/1600x900/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"shareImage4x3\":{\"width\":1200,\"height\":900,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/ywupd1YCHRe8OdbxDlSybjXZv08=/425x0:2990x1924/1200x900/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"shareImageDefault\":{\"width\":960,\"height\":540,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/SyxhQTYffL2HEzHSLjghG7V5jf8=/0x0:3420x1924/960x540/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"shareImageSquareDefault\":{\"width\":540,\"height\":540,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/HfiektLzZfQHIa77DzQF_WizeKk=/748x0:2672x1924/540x540/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"shareImageLeadArt\":{\"image\":{\"width\":720,\"height\":405,\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/mOivFCoTyRmu87yZSkr3oL0qEdM=/0x0:3420x1924/720x405/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"__typename\":\"BasicImage\"},\"__typename\":\"LeadArtImage\"},\"shareDek\":\"Climate activists who worry that the world has too many people are joining an ugly tradition.\",\"shareText\":\"\\\"Critics of overpopulation down through the ages have had a nasty habit of treating people less as individuals with value and agency than as sentient locusts,\\\" @vijramachandran and @atrembath write:\",\"shareTitle\":\"The Malthusians Are Back\",\"editorsNote\":null,\"leadArt\":{\"__typename\":\"LeadArtImage\",\"image\":{\"url\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/SyxhQTYffL2HEzHSLjghG7V5jf8=/0x0:3420x1924/960x540/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg\",\"width\":960,\"height\":540,\"srcSet\":\"https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/EYNFohfEg8khrMv7AoO6LKbSGjc=/0x0:3420x1924/750x422/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg 750w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/zXygG3QnFO61wAC-nQojD61OsX0=/0x0:3420x1924/828x466/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg 828w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/SyxhQTYffL2HEzHSLjghG7V5jf8=/0x0:3420x1924/960x540/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg 960w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/XNFlAOXQ8juYzzbSTEyY-RyXItk=/0x0:3420x1924/976x549/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg 976w, https://cdn.theatlantic.com/thumbor/HThDmr9WuW0-2v9fMKHswKVDizE=/0x0:3420x1924/1952x1098/media/img/mt/2023/03/GettyImages_1349242074_copy/original.jpg 1952w\",\"reducedMotionSrcSet\":null,\"altText\":\"Red-and-white graphic illustration showing the Earth from space, but the continents are crowded with giant people\",\"captionText\":\"\",\"attributionText\":\"Illustration by The Atlantic. 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