On Julian Simon and Environmentalism

Earlier this year, I wrote about Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, one of the most influential works in the population control movement of the 1960s and 1970s, though one with serious flaws. Since then, I knew that someday I would also have to discuss of work of Julian Simon, Ehrlich’s archenemesis and one of the most forceful advocates of population growth in the late 20th century.

The work in question specifically is The Ultimate Resource 2. This is the second edition, published in 1996, of The Ultimate Resource, which was published in 1981. What I recently read specifically is an early rough draft. The draft refers to Al Gore as a “vice presidential candidate”, so I guess that most of the writing was done in 1992 or thenabouts. The draft is very rough and incomplete, and in retrospect I should have sprung for the published version, but this post is meant to be a discussion of the issues that Simon raises rather than a book report.

Free Market Environmentalism

In 2003, science fiction author Michael Crichton likened environmentalism to a religion for atheists. As a practicing Catholic, I take issue with the use of “religion” as an insult, but there is much to be said for the analogy. If we run with it, then environmentalism has its denominations. An unorthodox denomination, or a heretical one in the eyes of critics, is free market environmentalism.

As the name suggests, free market environmentalism is a fusion of free market and environmentalist values. The two are not held together incidentally, but rather with the belief that economic freedom is the best economic system for attaining environmental quality. To that end, Simon discusses the horrific pollution in communist countries, outlined in more detail by DiLorenzo (1992). Free market environmentalism generally embraces economic growth and at least accepts population growth, both unlike most of the environmental movement. The term “abundance” as a distinct political movement is a recent innovation, but were Simon alive today, I suspect that he would at least be an interested bystander, albeit with reservations. Free market environmentalism has much in common with ecomodernism, though they differ in some important respects. For instance, ecomodernism is more comfortable with the active use of government, such as in industrial policy, to achieve environmental goals.

Free market environmentalism has a self-styled humanist orientation as well. Simon states,

Of all the values that I have long held without examining it, the value for progress - along with the value of human life, no matter whose it is - is perhaps the most important.

Mainline environmentalists might take offense at the implication that they are not humanist. But I find it impossible to reconcile population control with any kind of humanist worldview. More on this later.

On the Solution to Environmental Problems

A common theme throughout the book is that environmental and resource problems are solved through a mechanism somewhat like this.

1. A greater population, greater wealth, or new technology creates or exacerbates some problem.

2. Temporarily, the problem is worse.

3. Market forces or political pressure bring about solutions to that problem.

4. With regard to the problem, society is better off than before Step 1.

A classic example is with feared natural resource shortages. As I discussed last February, the reserves-to-production ratio of a resource might sometimes decrease—often mistaken as a sign that the resource is in imminent danger of depletion—perhaps through population or economic growth or from a new demand source. The result may be a price increase, a temporary hardship for society. This induces mining companies to invest more in exploration, or into research and development into new recovery methods, or for the search for alternatives means of meeting the demand. Eventually, the R/P ratio increases again, and the resource is cheaper (relative to incomes) than it was before the problem began.

The same process might play out in the political arena. In discussing the reduction of air pollution in wealthy countries, Simon observes,

The more important factor, however, is that as wealth increases, one of the goods that people are prepared to buy is a cleaner environment. The demand for a cleaner environment may be expressed through political activity, as was observed centuries ago in Great Britain; citizens clamor for businesses to be held responsible for their noxious emissions, which is entirely consistent with free-market principles; ….

Last year, I discussed Kuznets curves, named for the economist Simon Kuznets and introduced in Kuznets (1955) in the context of income inequality. The application of the Kuznets curve to environmental issues dates to Hecht (1985). An (environmental) Kuznets curve is a mathematical formulation of Simon’s observation: certain environmental problems tend to get worse as a society’s wealth increases, to a point, but beyond that point, the problem tends to improve as the society is more able and willing to invest resources into solving the problem.

Kuznets curves have some problems. Gallup (2012) disputes the existence of a Kuznets curve with respect to inequality, as was the original hypothesis. As I discussed in last year’s post, of the many papers have have looked for environmental Kuznets curves, some have found them and some have not. It depends on the region and the environmental problem, but even for the same problem, the evidence is often mixed. I suspect that the data is fouled up by confounding factors. There are global trends in policymaking and technology that affect countries regardless of their current level of wealth, so there is a limit to the extent that we can say that poor countries today are like what rich countries were in the past when they were at the same level of wealth. This is an example of Thornton’s (2005) Reading History Sideways. Limitations aside, there is good evidence that, at least to some extent, the hypothesis that greater wealth gives a society greater technical ability and political will to solve environmental problem is valid.

This pattern breaks down in socialist countries because the lack of economic and political freedom breaks the feedback loop between problems and solutions.

The Severity of Environmental Problems

Simon devotes much effort to criticizing what he regards as fearmongering with environmentalism. He does not reject the idea that there are real environmental problems, with air pollution and water pollution chief among them. But he regards those problems as well on their way to being solved in wealthy countries, and consequently, the environmental movement is forced to move from real problems to exaggerated or fictitious problems.

Simon gives his reasons for believing what he does, but he is very much an ideologue. Even though I share in much of his ideology, we should be alert to the risk that adherence to ideology creates blind spots. He discusses in rapid succession a wide range of topics that were hot environmental issues at the time. Most no longer command much public attention, and so I don’t know much about them, nor can I comment on how accurate Simon’s presentation is. I’ll discuss desertification, one of the many issues raised briefly.

For a variety of reasons, desert such as the Sahara have generally been increasing in area. Simon disputes this, citing Tucker, Dregne, and Newcomb (1991), which consider satellite images and finds that from 1980 to 1990, the maximum extent of the Sahara occurred in 1984 and decreased for the rest of the 1980s. He presents this as knock-down evidence that the desertification is a non-issue, but an astute reader will notice that he cites a single study that covers a single region (albeit an important one) over a short time period. More recent studies covering longer time periods, such as Lie and Xiu (2020) and Thomas and Nigam (2018), show a trend of expansion. You might counter that it is unfair to cite research well after the book was published. It is no more unfair than the cherry-picking that Simon engages in.

Recycling, which features prominently in the second edition, would be nothing more than a brief historical footnote in a similar book written today. Here I confess my disinclination to look deeply into municipal solid waste policy in the 1990s, but Simon’s hyperbolic rhetoric on the subject raises my suspicion. For example,

Not only does this law [recycling mandates] require individuals and firms to do what they would not do voluntarily, with fines for offenders, but it invites some of the practices of a totalitarian society wherein people are invited to meddle in their neighbors' lives. The Washington Post, one of the three national and international newspapers of the U. S., recommends that apartment dwellers first "Try peer pressure" and then "Complain to authorities" if the landlord does not recycle according to law. And there is provision "to report scofflaws to the city's [Washington, DC] `trash police', a team of 10 inspectors hired to search through trash and identify culprits".

I’ve seen enough similar-sounding histrionic language around new housing construction, COVID vaccine mandates, firearm waiting periods, etc. to instinctively react with an eye roll.

Global warming (the term “climate change” was not as commonly used then) is discussed intermittently but not nearly to the extent that it would be in a similar book ten or more years later. Simon is unsure whether CO₂ causes the atmosphere to warm and doubtful that this is a major problem for humanity, but the issue is not a major focus of this book.

Climate change skepticism or denial, depending on how you feel about it, would go on to be a major commitment of free market environmentalism in the 2000s and a major flashpoint of environmental politics. Jerry Taylor was a climate skeptic who worked for the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Cato Institute, who then changed his views and founded the Niskanen Center in 2015. The following observation is from a profile of Taylor.

Climate denial is mostly a psychological argument in the face of overwhelming facts and scientific consensus. It is a reaction to left-leaning environmental activists, who many on the right believe are anti-industry, anti-fossil fuel, and anti-consumerist. Deniers believe that the climate change movement exists to attack the free market instead of to mitigate global warming. …

Unfortunately, many left-leaning environmental activists are exactly these things. But it doesn’t absolve libertarians of the responsibility to present a fact-based view of the subject. Simon also expresses the possibility that a history of fearmongering from the environmental movement will produce a backlash, though he seems to regard this as entirely the fault of environmentalists, without responsibility from the backlashers.

As far as I can tell, today free market environmentalism has largely made its peace with climate science, while rightfully rejecting the more alarmist interpretations of climate change. Today, rejection of climate science is more likely to come from factions with no commitment to free markets or economic growth.

In contrast to all this, there are indeed many areas where the environmental movement has exaggerated or outright fabricated risk. Nuclear power is one obvious area that Simon identifies that the perceived risk is not even close to commensurate with the benefits. Genetically modified organisms is another area, though one that became a salient issue well after the book. Legacy environmental organizations invested much effort convincing the public that GMOs are dangerous, contradicting overwhelming scientific evidence.

On Population

Simon devotes the second half of the book to population, where he forcefully rejects population control and highlights the long-term benefits of population growth. Here he invokes the pattern of environmental challenges used elsewhere. In the short term, a rising population imposes costs to society. Children are a net drain on societal resources until they turn 20 or so, and a rising population means, in the short term, more traffic congestion, more pressure on facilities such as hospitals, and more environmental impact. But these problems motivate solutions: more roads and hospitals, pollution reduction technology and policies, etc., and so on each of these metrics, society in the long-term is better off than it would have been without population growth.

Last post, I discussed some studies about the effect of population on the economy, and I later posted a more thorough discussion on the Scaling site. Reflecting postwar anxieties about overpopulation, studies from the 1950s to the 1970s tended to show a negative economic impact of population growth. However, they suffered from methodological limitations. For example, Stockwell (1962) finds a negative correlation between population growth and per-capita economic growth in 37 countries between 1952 and 1958. However, it is widely understood from demographic transition theory—a topic that I plan to discuss in greater detail soon—that low incomes tend to cause higher birth rates, and not vice versa.

In the 1980s, more positive views of population became to emerge in academia and better research methodologies emerged, and most studies since then have found a neutral or positive effect of population on long-term growth. Simon wrote late enough to observe this shift.

Toward the end of the book, Simon goes into a discussion of values, an especially welcome discussion and necessary for someone who is going against what was still the majority opinion of decision-makers. The loss of salience of population control, which was already under way in the 1990s, has continued for three obvious reasons. First, world population growth is slowing and most countries now have subreplacement birth rates or probably soon will. Second, alarmist predictions in works such as The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth have clearly been wrong. Third, population control is now associated with horrific human rights abuses.

Still, Simon had a hard sell on why population growth should be embraced, and it hasn’t gotten any easier since. The main problem is that net economic benefits of a birth will not manifest until, as Simon summarizes the research, at least 30 years later. That is well beyond the window of political salience. Even immigration, which Simon enthusiastically supports, has immediate costs before long-term benefits. The idea that the unborn or foreigners might have moral weight, independently of the interests of the native and currently alive population, remains difficult to talk about.

Population Control and USAID

Simon clearly has an axe to grind, and not without good reason. He discusses at length the network of population control advocates within and without the US government. Since it has contemporary relevance, I will confine my comments to USAID.

The United States Agency for International Development was created in 1961, along with the Peace Corps, as part of President Kennedy’s soft power initiative to counter the global influence of the Soviet Union. USAID has done an enormous amount of good in the world, such as administering the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

But USAID is a villain in The Ultimate Resource because it has also administered population control programs. In 1974, the Nixon administration issued National Security Study Memorandum 200; you would not guess from the document’s dull title that its purpose was to infuse the US government’s foreign activities with the goal of population control. Not that this was brand new; foreign aid to India from the US and other countries, for instance, had already gone to forced sterilization. I won’t belabor the numerous atrocities that Simon documents USAID as having been involved with. The worst population controversy from USAID—its role in the forced sterilization of 200,000 mostly indigenous women in Peru—was still in the future.

As of this writing, the Trump administration is seeking to shut down USAID, pending legal issues. I have mixed feelings about this. USAID has done an enormous amount of good in the world, and I find the contempt that certain politicians have for the health of poor people around the world to be disgusting. However, even if the policy of population control is—maybe, hopefully—dropped, USAID’s legacy is deeply tainted by this history.

Conclusion

I found The Ultimate Resource to be an engaging read, though not without some eye-rolling moments. The book is old enough that its window into 1990s environmental politics is of historical interest, yet it offers a point of view that remains highly relevant.

Thirty years later, much has changed superficially, but not much has changed below the surface. With its signature issue of climate change seeming to be running into a dead end, the environmental movement is without a clear sense of direction. It continues to be weighed down with bad ideas such as degrowth, population control (now with colorful euphemisms such as “family planning”), and hostility to business and technology. Yet there continues to be a need for sound environmental policies. Free market environmentalism such as what Julian Simon promoted, though not without significant flaws, can help fill that need.

Quick Hits

I am well aware that the last few weeks have been eventful in the news, but I have not had as much time to devote to reading about the latest goings on. I’ll attempt brief comments on some major items.

June 1 brought Operation Spider’s Web, a major Ukrainian drone attack on Russian airbases that, according to BBC analysis, caused $7 billion of damage to the Russian strategic bomber fleet and has seriously degraded their ability to carry out long range attacks. The Institute for the Study of War reports that the attacks have at least temporarily constrained the Russian ability to launch drone strikes. Also, on June 12, ISW, citing Ukrainian officials, reported that Russia has sustained over a million casualties since the full-scale invasion in 2022, with the daily casualty rate increasing over time. I remain at a loss to identify the advantage of this war for the Russian people.

ISW is also providing extensive coverage of Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program, with the latest edition here as of this writing, though there is a good chance that there were will be additional updates by the time you read this. The Iranian government claims that 78 people have been killed, including senior military commanders but mostly civilians. This is likely to be only the opening of a campaign that will last for weeks. It is also interesting to note that, as ISW reported, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s first call to a foreign leader after the attack was to Vladimir Putin, demonstrating the closeness of that relationship.

The Economist reports on the theatrics of the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests. The deployment is completely unnecessary and obviously intended to inflame, rather than resolve, the situation and create images that will play well on FOX News. Last year, I wrote about the politics of immigration restriction in highly negative terms. One thing to keep in mind is that a nontrivial minority of Americans have deduced, from the cruelty of immigration restriction, that enforcement as a whole is an illegitimate activity. The Economist article assesses that the administration is banking on that some grandstanding will inflame national opinion against the protestors and the pro-immigration movement broadly, as happened after the Watts riots in 1965, but things may very well not turn out that way.

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV chose his regnal name in honor of Leo XIII, who reigned from 1878 to 1903. Leo XIII is one of my favorite popes for having transitioned the Catholic Church from a geopolitical power, following the 1870 loss of the Papal States under his predecessor, Pope Pius IX, to a moral authority. Perhaps Leo XIII’s best-known work, and the most immediate inspiration to Leo XIV, is Rerum Novarum (New Things), an 1891 encyclical that outlined moral principles related to labor, capital, and poverty at a time when world politics surrounding these issues were highly tumultuous. We may see astounding developments in artificial intelligence during the reign of Leo XIV which will similarly have foundational implications to the moral structure of the economy, and he seems to be acutely aware of this.