NPG Forum Paper Highlights Imbalance Between Population Growth and Global Warming

• NPG
• May 21, 2019
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NPG FORUM PAPER HIGHLIGHTS IMBALANCE BETWEEN POPULATION GROWTH AND GLOBAL WARMING

Alexandria, VA (May 21, 2019) – President Donald Mann, head of Negative Population Growth, Inc., (NPG) has announced the release of a new research paper that focuses on how the failure to rein-in population growth in the U.S. is greatly hampering progress on our nation’s efforts to end global warming.

The paper, titled Global Warming: Has Complacency (Finally) Yielded to Panic?, authored by NPG researcher Edwin S. Rubenstein, examines how the U.S. was slow to respond to early alarms by climate scientists decades ago and is now working overtime to play “catch-up.”

Rubenstein presents many facts in his paper including the reality that: “Eighteen of the 19 warmest years have occurred since 2001.”  He cites a January 2019 poll from Yale and George Mason University that shows that more Americans than ever – 29 percent – are “very worried” about climate change.

In presenting the question: “But how much are Americans actually willing to do to help save the planet?” Rubenstein exposes a disappointing answer.  He notes: “Many economists support a carbon tax that would make polluters pay for emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.  Less than half of Americans support such a tax, and even those that do are not willing to spend much.  Seventy percent say they would vote against a $10 monthly fee tacked onto their utility bills; Forty percent would oppose even a $1 per month increase, according to a new AP survey.”

Rubenstein did not find any recent polling as to whether Americans would support population decline as part of the government’s climate change agenda.  However, backed by data presented by Seth Wynes, The Climate Mitigation Gap, July 2017, he found that:  “There is one lifestyle choice that reduces emissions on a scale attainable by government action:  having one less child.”  To Rubenstein’s dismay, the best personal way of constraining global warming –having one fewer child – was not even considered in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Essentially, Rubenstein finds that ever-increasing economic and population growth presents us with a system whereby we can make little progress.  He states:

“Some environmentalists still argue that Americans need focus only on increasing energy efficiency and reducing consumption in order to forestall environmental destruction.  They are right to push for less consumption and increased energy efficiency, but wrong to assume such efforts can replace population control.  A growing population can overwhelm improvements in energy efficiency and CO2 abatement.  Indeed, we have seen this over the past few decades as reductions in energy use per capita and per dollar of GDP have failed to offset the increased numbers of “capitas” and dollars of GDP.  Energy use and CO2 emissions have risen steadily.”

Rubenstein confronts the eco-optimists who hold out great promise for winning the war on climate change without addressing population growth by citing Donald Mann’s An Essay On a Sustainable Economy, presented in August 2014.  In that paper, Mann held:

“Our present goal seems to be to provide an ever rising standard of living for ever increasing numbers, but that must be seen for what it is: an impossible dream.  The great lesson of the industrial revolution is that vast numbers of people are simply incompatible with an industrial society.

Further population growth on the gigantic scale now projected is not inevitable.  With the will, we could start now on a path toward a sustainable global economy by first reducing, then stabilizing world population in the range of 1.5 to 2 billion.  The negative rate of population growth we need in order to do so depends on our achieving levels of fertility substantially below replacement level in all the countries in the world.  Almost all the developed countries have already reached that level.”

With both economic and population growth thwarting great advances in reversing current climate change trends, Rubenstein puts much of the blame on political indecisiveness which is at the heart of finding solutions to so many problems.  In his conclusion to his paper he writes:

“Evidence that economic growth is driving CO2 emissions is overwhelming.  While technological efficiencies have reduced global CO2 emissions per unit of GDP, a growing world economy has overwhelmed those advances.  CO2 emissions continue to rise.  When presented with a choice between reducing greenhouse gas and increasing economic growth, politicians worldwide opt for the latter.

For years, politicians have managed national environmental policies the way Bernie Madoff managed his investment company as a Ponzi scheme, relying on future generations to maintain the illusion of viability.  In the short run, this may be a smart political move.  We are in a time when an increasing share of private citizens discount any scientific evidence that conflicts with their own ideas.”

In all, Rubenstein notes: “Like all such schemes, the scam will eventually implode.  Will it be a soft landing controlled by humans?  Or will we be controlled by starvation, natural disasters, oppressive heat, and the breakdown of societal norms?  Stay tuned.”

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