The Arguments for More (or Fewer) People
In 'Falling Birthrates Won't Solve Our Problems' (Opinion guest essay, July 2), the economists Michael Geruso and Dean Spears do not mention a major potential benefit to the planet with fewer humans: biodiversity.
In particular, it should likely be far easier to preserve wilderness and to rewild lands that have been 'domesticated' for human exploitation in a world with 500 million to one billion humans instead of a projected 10 billion. There's less motivation to burn down the Amazon rainforest and plant soybeans if there's no market for them.
Wilderness preservation and restoration are critical for maintaining biodiversity; preventing biodiversity collapse is as important as curtailing greenhouse gas emissions for the long-term survival of the Earth's ecosystem. Perhaps the authors think we can invent our way into radically shrinking our land footprint while maintaining a population of 10 billion. I doubt it.
And if you think a billion humans is too small a population because fewer minds will be at work, consider the fact that this is roughly how many people were alive in the year 1800 — yet they and their ancestors had already created by that time the Enlightenment, the engineering breakthroughs that enabled the Industrial Revolution, the democratic nation-state and everything else that human ingenuity dreamed up since we climbed down out of the trees a couple of million years ago.
Besides, now we have A.I.
Randall SommerLos Angeles
To the Editor:
The authors of this essay argue that a large and growing world population is the path to solving humanity's pressing problems with examples of innovation in medicine, engineering and science that only 'a big world could produce.'
In the world as it stands, this is not true. Hundreds of millions of children, particularly girls in poor countries, miss out on the basic education needed to have any chance of realizing their potential. Even in rich countries, access to the university education needed to become a scientist or an engineer (or, for that matter, an economist) is unavailable to many. The more children we have, the harder the task of educating them.
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