While discussing the future climate and future technologies that could help us live and prosper while having less impact on the environment, I often come across the theory and idea of “growth”, specifically economic growth but this also relates to population growth. If there is one sure way to create less pollution, it is to have less people on the planet. If we don’t want to keep seeing headlines like ocean dead zones are growing, then a stable or lower population is the key.
I am no advocate of population control (or central economic planning), but neither do I encourage population growth as a necessary condition of progress. It occurred to me the other day that there are a lot of engrained societal systems to promote population growth. The most obvious is that many people find meaning in life through their progeny or feel it is their destiny to have children. The old saying goes “children are our future”. While this might be true in today’s world of limited lifespans, it doesn’t mean that we have to generate more kids in the next generation than the last. Children can still be the future, even if there are less of them.
More insidious is the economic reasoning for population growth. American style expansion was all the rage during the 20th century. The most visible sign of “progress” was more houses, more roads, more bridges, more strip malls, taller buildings. In essence, more, more, more! I once attended an investing conference where the speaker assured everyone that the stock market will keep going up because of population growth. I surprised the speaker with the question about the Japanese and German stock markets not growing much during the 1990s and early 200s. I suggested that part of the reason their stock markets had flat-lined is because their populations had stabilized (not growing anymore). For the record, he did not have a good answer but mentioned that you could still pick good stocks in those markets even it they were not going up as a whole. Here in lies the problem: everyone from economists down to regular folk (in America anyway) view progress as more GDP, more building, higher stock markets, etc… I came across this thought process recently in this opinion piece about the 2010 census. Both the writer and most the commenters seem wedded to the idea that population growth is necessary for “progress”
I have had enough already. Enough pollution. Enough sprawl. I would much rather have quality over quantity when it comes to future “progress”. I think it is time we stopped building more, more, and more. I am not naive, I know there will be problems if the population started declining. A lot of current pension plans and various government welfare are constructed like ponzi schemes. The only way they will survive is with more contributions from younger taxpayers/workers. This is why many countries (like Japan, France, Italy) that are experiencing population declines are encouraging and even paying young people to have kids. I would rather find other means of resolving these issues than having more kids.
It is hard to imagine a world where we build less cars, where cities contract instead of expand, where the next generation is smaller than the last, but I think it could be a pleasant future with less crowding, less pollution, and less sprawl. To me, putting more effort into the lives we have instead of kicking-the-can to a larger generation of future offspring sounds like a better plan for society and the environment.
Have a merry Christmas! Meteorologist Justin Loew.