I wonder how many were economists. This line of thinking is the old Malthusian catastrophy, expressed in terms of climate change instead of famine. Malthus di

I wonder how many were economists. This line of thinking is the old Malthusian catastrophy, expressed in terms of climate change instead of famine. Malthus did some extrapolations and decided that population growth would outpase food production, causing famines. Now it is clear believe that a huge rise of agricultural productivity prevented this catastrophy. He thought the 19th century would not support more population growth and yet during the 20th century the human population grew more than ever. Politicians and scientists need to learn to target the right problen with their policy, which is greenhouse emissions, not population growth. It is possible to increase productivity while controlling and even reducing emissions. Taxing carbon, investing RnD in greener technology, subsidising energy efficiency and banning the most poluting practices is actually more easy to implement in a non-totalitarian society than population control. With those policies the "output per ton of CO2" will increase. And also consider that reducing emissions would need a workforce, it would be more expensive to do it if a big chunk of it is used to care for elderly masses.. unless productivity rises of course.