Fewer, Richer, Greener

Preface

How I Came to Write This Book¹

Thirteen years ago, I read Ben Wattenberg’s book, Fewer, his elegy for the population explosion. Showing that the explosion was effectively finished in the developed world and quickly coming to an end in the rest of the world, Wattenberg wrote in funereal tones, lamenting the end of an age of youth, exuberance, and innovation.

I thought it was the best news I had ever heard.

(And I’m not one of those antipeople people. Some such folks exist. More about that later.)

For decades we had heard that the population explosion would impoverish and perhaps kill us all. Now that it’s almost finished, it’s time to reexamine our outlook: we will have fewer people than we were expecting, we will become richer, and the planet will become greener.

This betterment will take place not just in the advanced industrial societies, where self-perpetuating economic growth has been taking place for more than two centuries, but in China, India, and the rest of the developing world. It is the first decent break that three-quarters of the world’s population has ever gotten. I don’t want it to stop.

Yet many people are afraid. We have been told, consistently and repeatedly by people who seem to be well informed, that the world is running out of resources; that the economy used to be kinder and more humane; that the costs of advanced technology are greater than the benefits.

These concerns, although mostly misplaced, should not be dismissed as the foolish thinking ...