One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger

The basic notion of this book is appallingly conceited. The last thing that anywhere on Earth needs is MOAR PEOPLE! And worrying about whether America is \”winning\”, or can stay \”on top forever\”, is not only an infantile urge, it also blindly ignores the real challenges facing not just Americans but citizens of every country in the world. This opinion has nothing to do with immigration policy and everything to do with the moral bankruptcy of suggesting that we need to go big or lose whatever bizarre planetary reality show competition he thinks is occurring. We\’re all facing an existential crisis, no doubt, but it\’s got nothing to do with \”not enough Americans\”. Get that jingoist garbage out of here so we can actually try to make progress with the real problems: unprecedented loss of biodiversity, deforestation, irreversible resource depletion, and being hopelessly addicted to a globalized fossil fuel economy and an inherently unsustainable and corrupt market run by and for financiers, which exploits human labor and is rapidly grinding the planet into oblivion. Oh, also, American culture already produces one of the most disproportionately environmentally destructive societies in the world (the per capita ecological footprint in the US is shameful – we\’re \”winners\” on that graph). So literally the worst thing for all humans, collectively, is for more of them to be American and subscribing to the great consumerist, entitled, selfish, pathological nightmare of a culture that we keep pretending is The Best, while the world crumbles. No, sorry sir, we do *not* need more of any of that, which is exactly what you\’re endorsing, because a grow-to-win agenda will absolutely amplify every one of the existing mechanisms and phenomena that both got the world into the mess that it\’s in and is accelerating it unabated.

I deeply regret buy this book. Amazon, shame! I found this book one of the most irresponsible pieces of literature POSSIBLE in an era when, while declaring a climate emergency last fall, 11,700 of the world\’s climate scientists stated, without qualification, that we CANNOT SOLVE CLIMATE WITHOUT ADDRESSING POPULATION. That particularly applies in the 3 \”carbon giant nations,\” China, THE UNITED STATES and India, in that order. Of note, also the world\’s THREE MOST POPULATED NATIONS I should think that Amazon should, morally, since it\’s T.V. ads PROFESS CONCERN ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE, put a disclaimer on this book! While Big 6 media have done a brilliant job of FALSELY portraying that the U.S. isn\’t growing, census data dispute that with consistent INCREASES OF 28 MILLION TO 30 MILLION A DECADE. (Boot up the U.S. Census Bureau\’s \’population clock\’ and watch it for a few minutes.) While this author seems unaware, we\’re already the world\’s 3rd most populated nation and have, at 16.5 metric tons per capita, the highest CARBON FOOTPRINT of any of the three \”carbon giant\” nations. India is WAY behind at only 1.8 metric tons per capita, and China comes in at a \”mere,\” by comparison to us, 6.8 metric tons per capita. Do the math! Over 330 million of us already, times that ghastly 16.5 metric tons. That means were a near-China equivalent on our environmental hit, carbon wise, to the planet. The author also deftly ignores that the Rockefeller Commission long ago warned the more of us there are the MORE IMPOVERISHED WE WOULD BECOME, as they urged we never \”risk\” become 300 million Americans. Yet, here we are at a ghastly 330 million Americans–many with no guaranteed water supply in future years–and even that isn\’t good enough for this guy. Why does he assert that one billion of us will make us any \”richer\” than India or any other \”Third World\” nation? Disney\’s First Law? (Or, wishing will make it so.) He also deftly ignores that Clinton\’s Council on Sustainable Development–that is if we care a hoot about the environment and this author seems not to even know it exists–warned that WE CANNOT HAVE GROWTH AND SUSTAINABILITY. They also warned that we must never allow immigration to continue to fuel our exploding population. Yet, we did just that, moving ever-deeper into being a global environmental problem even as, we in 2006 passed 300 million and are already at 330 million! But just ask the author who seems to say, \”Why worry? To be rich and powerful, the only POSSIBLE road is OVERPOPULATION! This diatribe–I regret the money spent on it!–is not only ill-informed, but it is irresponsible to ours and the planet\’s environmental future. Perhaps rather than believe the author, readers would do well to read the statement of 57 or the world\’s scientific academies some years back warning that we MUST strive to stabilize population \”in our children\’s lifetimes.\” Instead of that, this author thinks it would be great for our children to live in the same overcrowded, often squalid conditions of ALL THE OTHER OVERPOPULATED NATIONS. Shame!

While the book as something for everyone to hate, it provides a compelling thesis for why America should strive to remain the richest nation in the world and how to go about doing it. It is a policy-focused book and therefore does not strive to provide solutions for how to break the political gridlock but hopefully, the vision it lays out will help focus the nation on a common goal that will result in progress on the political front just like past audacious goals have.

Thoughtful and persuasive case for a seemingly absurd premise. Well worth the read to sharpen your wits regardless of where you stand on the various issues contained within.

Matthew Yglesias\’ facile solutions to America\’s problems are breathtakingly wrong headed. Not only are gross population numbers not a motivator for prosperity, but with the dangers of over-population already presenting a clear and present danger to the future of the planet, they represent a dangerous case of willful ignorance. His view of climate change is both naive and uninformed with an infantile view that positive thinking will solve every problem. Yglesias also myopically sees climate change only as a problem of emissions, ignoring the environmental impact of human population growth, let alone disease transmission as we are now seeing. He is as wrong on this as he was about the Iraq war and clearly no one who\’s opinions should be given even passing consideration.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member