The Population Bomb Doomsday Scam

> To appreciate what an embarrassing reversal this is for the green movement

This is an embarrassing sentence from the authors. Being concerned with the environmental issues of the planet is not a team sport. The "green movement" was never invested in being right about population explosion and have not now lost face with this "embarrassing" reversal, as these conservative writers wish us to believe. Rather, a sustainable population is a good thing that the green movement celebrates. There are a lot of things to track and population was just one of them. But if conservatives want to think they won something and the green movement lost, that is their prerogative.

Ok, we’ll take a mulligan on that one.

But we’re totally right this time, and we’re willing to bet your life on it!

Sincerely, Every Politician

:)

Yikes, the last few paragraphs about how cold kills more than heat sounds a lot like climate change denialist bs.

Looks like the authors missed the point that the population boom was accompanied by an energy consumption boom, which we all know the consequences of. It's painfully obvious that an exponentially growing population evolving in a finite environment is a recipe for problems.

The article reads a lot like "scientists were wrong in the past so they must be wrong now", which has to be the level 0 of rational thinking

Terrible article. It's been decades since anyone has taken Malthusianism -- the naïve version discussed in this article -- seriously. It was never the scientific consensus that we would see mass starvation from overpopulation. "Some prominent scientists believe x" is not proof of a consensus.

Besides, why would it matter if the scientists were wrong? Being wrong might be rational if your belief is based on the best available evidence. Changing your mind doesn't mean you past belief was stupid or a lie. This is how science works. We all should have learned this in middle school.

A version of overpopulation is still very much a concern. Obviously, most kinds of environmental destruction scale with population. Our current farming practices have managed to keep people fed, but only by draining aquifers and polluting waterways. Our current modes of transportation have managed to transport billions of people, but only by pumping out destructive amounts of carbon.

Overpopulation is not, in itself, the problem. We know how to sustainably support a population much larger than the one that exists today. However, a large population is a multiplier to the destruction of all our unsustainable practices.

Why is it a goal to populate the world to a maximal amount? Yeah, we could make room for more people by restricting the lives of the others... but why? Why not identify a comfortable, sustainable level, and keep the level there? The earth is not crying out for more people to be on it, and no societal problems are solved by adding more (quite the opposite). Being told you can only have 2 kids max is less dystopian than outcomes from overpopulation.