March 26, 2021
Prosperity frees people to protect the environment.
True Environmentalists Should Prioritize Economic Prosperity
By Alexander C. R. Hammond | @AlexanderHammo
The COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying lockdowns reduced global CO2 emissions by 7 percent last year. Some environmentalists, such as the University College London professor Mariana Mazzucato, have thus wondered about the feasibility of future “climate lockdowns … to tackle a climate emergency.†Yet even if we ignore the negative consequences of the lockdowns on broader health outcomes and human psychology, Mazzucato appears to fail to account for the well-known correlation between economic prosperity and environmental quality.
Lockdowns have contributed to around 100 million people, most of them living in the developing world, sliding back into extreme poverty. While they may have lowered the CO2 emissions in the short term, by increasing absolute poverty, the lockdowns may cause massive environmental destruction in the long term. Simply put, people can afford to care about the environment only when they have enough income to cover their basic needs. If their survival depends on killing an endangered animal or cutting down a rare tree, then so be it.
https://www.humanprogress.org/true-environmentalists-should-prioritize-economic-prosperity/
