Everything old is new again. That means Malthusianism was bound to return as society becomes more subjugated to the vapid arguments and hypocrisy of the modern environmentalist movement.

The Economist put out a new article today explaining how production and distribution of meat in places like Africa is leading to much better outcomes for human beings via with healthier, longer lifespans.

Of course, because modern leftist thought on the environment, and specifically global warming, relies on the nonsensical idea that humanity no longer has any ability to innovate to changing conditions, they present this objectively great news as a dichotomy of sorts. Sure, poor people are living happier, healthier, longer lives, but that’s “bad news” for the environment.

More poor people are eating meat around the world. That means they will live longer, healthier lives, but it is bad news for the environmenthttps://t.co/CFpeTTFjC5 pic.twitter.com/W3NGBDxjPd

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) August 20, 2019

You see, more meat means more carbon emissions, which means we are all going to die in a fiery ball of death. The fact that poorer people in third world countries may actually get a chance at a real standard of living can’t be seen as unequivocally good news.

Who gives writers at The Economist the moral right to dictate who’s actions are and aren’t destroying the environment? Perhaps the writer of this article should lead by example? I somehow doubt they are. You’ll notice that those who shout the loudest about carbon emissions often emit the most. Take the “Royal Family,” which spends a lot of their time lecturing the little people on the evils of global warming and the need to cut back on emissions. That doesn’t apply to them though, as they recently took two private flights that emitted more emissions than the average British citizen does in an entire year of living.

Past that, the assumptions made in the article are ridiculous and ignore everything we know about human ingenuity. For decades Malthus and others spread the idea that population growth would outstrip a linear food supply. That theory turned out to be abject garbage. In reality, humans innovate and we are currently feeding more people, better than we were when the population was half of what it is now.

Putting aside the arguments of whether meat production is really going to cause global warming or the seas to rise, etc. even if those things were true, there’s no reason to believe we can figure out ways to not only survive, by thrive in such conditions. If the cost of “saving the planet” is dooming billions of the world’s poor to disease and shorter lifespans, that’s a cost that’s too high to pay.

Instead of pretending we can somehow control the climate via coercion of human behavior, which is unrealistic even if you believe in worst case scenarios, we should be putting our efforts into coming up with new technologies that continue to better the human experience for everyone. Fretting about poor people getting to eat more meat isn’t helping anyone. It also happens to be morally bankrupt.

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