How environmentalists lost the plot

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: If man were to faithfully follow the teachings of Ms. Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth. CBS reports, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson. [00:00:24] Jerusalem Dempsis: Hi, I'm Jerusalem Dempsis. [00:00:26] Matthew Glacius: I'm Matthew Glacius. [00:00:27] Jerusalem Dempsis: Welcome to The Argument. This week, Matt and I read Silent Spring, a book that launched the modern environmental movement, and I liked it way more than I thought I was going to. [00:00:36] Matthew Glacius: Because you hate nature, animals, trees? [00:00:38] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah, I absolutely hate nature. I mean, in general, I, as someone who's written a lot about housing and the need to build more housing and care a lot about transit, I'm an urbanist. I've been very frustrated by a lot of parts of the modern environmental movement that have been anti-modernity, anti-science in some respects, and I was expecting a lot more of that from Rachel Carson's book because of the movement she spawned. [00:01:01] Matthew Glacius: But I got to say, I mean, you flip this book open, or in my case, read it digitally. The very first page, though, is like, picture a cutesy old-time farm, and like, the chickens are clucking, and like, soon it's doom. You know, and it has this very, like, you know, like, the industrial era of Mordor is like, you know, just spoiling the Shire. And I was like, all right, like, this is exactly what aggravates me about these people. And it's in there. And then, but most of the book is actually pretty boring. It's like a lot of very, I don't want to say tedious, it's a lot of very specific information about specific instances in which insecticide was sprayed in some community, and then there was some negative consequences of spraying the insecticide. There's a little bit of herbicide spraying, a lot of insecticide spraying, and it's, given its reputation, it's just kind of narrower than I thought it was going to be. [00:02:03] Jerusalem Dempsis: I mean, the book, as Matt says, like, you know, it opens up with a sort of, like, fable about this, like, idyllic town, and that chapter sort of ends, and this is also the way that her famous New Yorker piece also starts off, which is what actually really, I think most people probably read. I don't think people really read this book because of how dense it is. But, like, the entire book is really, like, a scientist's, like, piece-by-piece case study of, like, what she is witnessing. And she's a scientist, so that makes sense. But the way that people talk about Silent Spring now, I mean, even, like, again, this cover, the classic that launched the environmental movement, I mean, I really expected it to be sort of this diatribe against modernity and, like, these really far-out-there claims, but in reality, it just seems, like, largely correct, a bunch of, like, statements that follow each other that are all difficult to really go with. [00:02:55] Matthew Glacius: So, I guess to pull this out, right, she, the story she tells, which I mean, I think is historically correct, is that there was a lot of development in the chemical industry associated with the world wars. And then after the wars, there was a push to find civilian uses for these kinds of chemicals. And one of the main things that they discovered was that certain neurotoxic agents that were, you know, related to things that were used in chemical warfare in World War I could be used in sort of attenuated forms or lower doses to kill insects because insects are small compared to mammals. They have, they, like, absorb material from the environment through their skin, things like that. So, you can spray crops with these various different things. DDT is sort of the headline chemical. And you can kill a lot of bugs this way. And the point of the book, I guess, is that these small doses of insecticide damage birds, mammals, and humans downstream in ways that are not being accounted for correctly by the industry, the farmers, and government officials. [00:04:07] Jerusalem Dempsis: And I think the context here is just that there actually really wasn't widespread awareness that there was potential damage, like, side effects of widespread spray. Like, right now, I'm kind of like, I went into this book sort of like, well, yeah, of course, duh. Like, there might be, like, some knock-on effects of spraying shit into the environment. But, like, my awareness of that is largely downstream of, like, work by Carson to, like, point out that this was the case. And there's a lot of, like, just denialism both from the chemical industry but also, you know, regulators that there was, like, any potential risk whatsoever to wildlife and humans, et cetera. I think one thing, because we're being, like, pretty complimentary at this point, that I'll point out is that the book often, like, quickly slides between various types of harm. In ways that I find, like, very persuasive but somewhat, like, deceptive from, like, a more critical point of view. Sometimes she's talking about, like, oh, like, this is hurting birds. Sometimes she's like, oh, wow, like, doesn't it, like, look ugly? Isn't there, like, an aesthetic loss because now the beautiful trees and, like, the verdant grasses are, like, gone? And then sometimes it's like, well, also maybe it causes cancer. And also maybe it doesn't work because, you know, the insects are becoming adaptive and they're now becoming resistant to the spraying that we're doing. And, you know, it's fine to, like, make all of these specific individual claims. But I think at its core, a lot of people are mostly concerned about the impact to human, like, life and well-being. And most of the evidence really isn't strongest there. Like, the evidence is mostly really strong in the it's hurting the ecosystem. This could eventually have knock-on effects to hurt humans. But, like, largely, you know, seems like it hurts some birds. The best evidence that it hurts humans seems to be in, like, very specific cases where there are accidents when workers are using the chemicals improperly. Or, you know, or they are just, like, there's, like, an accident happens while they're working. But I think it's, like, you know, Carson herself dies, like, shortly after this book is published of breast cancer. And I think that, you know, that had, like, a really, really big impact itself on people's understanding of this. Like, there's no, obviously, it's very difficult to link where someone got cancer from. Like, was it a result of the chemical environment she was in? And, like, we don't know. Like, that's not true. But, you know, that is something that many people do believe now. And I think that, like, that link to, like, this is really hurting humans is, like, both, like, the least well-supported by the evidence but the most persuasive element of the whole book. Well, I mean, that's what I want to say. [00:06:29] Matthew Glacius: One thing about this book is that it doesn't have a lot of really clear policy prescriptions, you know. And she leans at the end a lot on the argument that the spraying literally doesn't work, that insects are developing resistance. And so one thing, when I was a young blogger in the mid-aughts, there was a lot of discourse that was being put forward by the Competitive Enterprise Institute and some other sort of conservative organizations. And they wanted to make people understand that Rachel Carson and her stigmatization of DDT was responsible for the deaths of millions of people by malaria in the third world. So I was familiar with that discourse at that time, and it is both true that human deaths due to malaria is, in my opinion, a much bigger problem than eggshell thinning among bald eagles, which was the sort of signature critique of DDT. But actually, DDT resistance among mosquitoes became a huge problem by 1970. And the main reason DDT was sprayed out, large-scale DDT spraying, was phased out wasn't actually to save the bald eagles. It was because it wasn't working anymore. And so both, I think there's an unfair attack on Carson that was mounted about this, but also that Carson herself is not being very clear about what she's saying at times. [00:07:57] Jerusalem Dempsis: I don't know if that's true. Like, I mean, I think that there are two claims, policy-relevant claims that she's making. One is that there are more targeted mechanisms one could use, right? She talks over and over again about how you don't have to do this, like, like, they were literally just, like, spraying large-scale over towns. Like, there's this one anecdote that she tells, which I didn't personally look into the veracity of. Our fact-tracker will let me know if it's wrong. But, like, literally, there are these low-flying aircraft that they're just dropping all across, like, various parts of this town without, like, telling anyone. So people, like, kind of freak out. They're like, why are these planes, like, really low or whatever. And so it's like, that sort of thing, like, it's not, like, targeted at all. And, like, then she points to evidence that there's ways to, like, target the spraying on specific crops that you're trying to actually – or specific weeds or herbs that you're trying to actually kill or the places where you really don't want insects because it's going to hurt agriculture or whatever it is. The second policy-relevant claim she makes is that it's – and I find this one actually really revealing – is that you could actually introduce other natural elements into the ecosystem. So, for instance, like, bugs that would eat the insects or moths that would eat the insects or whatever. I find this super interesting because the larger claim that she has, right, is that, like, the ecological claim she's making is that there's, like, some sort of, like, natural equilibrium. That a biosystem will, like, eventually reach if you just, like, let it be the way it's supposed to be. I'm doing air quotes for our auditory listeners. [00:09:25] Matthew Glacius: Yeah, but that's what I mean, though. I feel like a lot of the book is this kind of Mott and Bailey, right, where I always forget which one is the Mott and which one is the Bailey. I don't know either. But I think the Mott is that the pesticide industry is out of control, right, that there are health risks associated with pesticides, and the regulators are not taking those risks seriously at all. And she absolutely convinced me of that. Like, we need to think more clearly about what is happening and why and for what benefit and at what cost. But then there's this Bailey, which is that, you know, there's a natural balance in the ecosystem, there's the old ways, and that, you know, these chemical disruptors are toying with it. You know, it reminds me of, like, you know, the implicit politics of Frankenstein, right, that, like, we've messed with forces that are beyond our control, and there's going to be hell to pay for this, right? And notably, right, the cover of the book, if you hold it up, right, it's not, like, a sick person. It's a bird, right? And a question that, you know, if I could resurrect her or would have for you or for anybody is, like, insofar as there is a balance between producing food for the rapidly growing human population of the second half of the 20th century and birds, like, shouldn't we side with the people? [00:10:52] Jerusalem Dempsis: I agree that, I mean, this is, again, why I expected not to like this book, because I sort of assumed that it was going to come much more, like, much harder on this question and be like, obviously, I don't care about humans as much as I care about, like, general wildlife. She doesn't, I mean, just to, like, stick to the text, she doesn't say any of that. Like, there's, like, implications, and I think that you raising Frankenstein is really interesting, because, like, in the intro, I don't know if you, did you read the Linda Lear intro? [00:11:17] Matthew Glacius: I know, I have a different edition. [00:11:19] Jerusalem Dempsis: Okay, so she writes about her biography that she had read widely in the English Romantic tradition and had articulated a personal sense of mission, her, quote, vision splendid. And so, like, the English Romantic tradition, like, and I've, like, gotten, like, weirdly into this recently, like, reading about their, like, bunch of romantic books. But, like, the racism is a reaction to the Enlightenment movement, and, like, not to make everything about this, but in many ways, all debates are sort of, like, between, like, romantic sensibilities and Enlightenment sensibilities, if you're, like, super reductive about it. And so, like, what you're witnessing here is, like, the post, like, the World War moment was this, like, real veneration of science, of scientific progress, our ability to, like, I mean, even the atom bomb is, like, kind of, like, the moment where we're, like, oh, shit, like, have we gone too far here? And, like, she's obviously coming at the tail end of this, and so much of her book is a romantic backlash to this moment, this to modernity in general. And she does this in, like, various ways, right? Like, it's not just this question here where she is really kind of against, like, progress, but throughout the book, she really articulates a frustration with hubris of man's ability to dominate nature, right? Like, that's how she actually ends the book, is that she specifically says, the, quote, control of nature is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. Like, it's, like, to me, as someone who, like, finds myself more on, like, obviously the Enlightenment side of these debates, like, I find her affect to be, like, wrong and, like, not properly progress-oriented or human-focused or centered. But I do think that, like, in the moment, this was probably, like, a correct counterbalance to, like, a culture of science that had gotten way ahead of its ability to care for the, you know, negative externalities of progress. [00:13:19] Matthew Glacius: Well, what's interesting, so she dies in 1964. The book comes at, what, 62? CBS does a huge hour-long documentary based on this in 1963 at a time when Big Three, you know, like, a third of Americans would actually watch an hour-long documentary. And she dies. She dies really fast. So we don't, we don't know, like, what she would have said about things that happen later in life. And, you know, a question that we can have is, you know, do things that we think happen later in time represent an inappropriate reading of these ideas? Or are the ideas, like, present within the text all along? Yeah. It does seem to me that the, like, she absolutely convinces me that there is too much insecticide spraying and that, in particular, that DDT, is actually not a good way to kill mosquitoes. Yeah. And clearly, right, in the cost-benefit calculus, if the point of broad DDT spraying is to prevent disease-bearing mosquitoes, but it doesn't work, like, then there's no good reason to do it. But it seems to me, like, that it's a correct reading of, you know, we're not doing book club on the population bomb, but that the line between those books is quite clear and quite direct. I mean, she's not, like, really going out of her way to say, I just have a narrow technical critique of these pesticides. She does keep coming back to the idea of the, like, harmonic balance of nature that is being disturbed and distended here. And it's the moments where she breaks that frame that are fascinating. Like, she has this thing about New World screwworms that I found to be, like, out of step with the rest of the book. This is some kind of bug. It lays larvae in wounds on the external, you know, on the skin of cattle and livestock, things like this. It's apparently, like, a really agonizing death, one of the most, like, horrible ways to go, and also was costly to farmers and ranchers. So originally, they wanted to spray against the New World screwworm, but they decided actually not to do this because there aren't that many New World screwworms. It's just not that thick on the ground. It wasn't a good way to do it. So people came up with this other idea, which was we could irradiate male screwworms raised in captivity, and then that will sterilize them. And then you'll just drop huge quantities of sterilized male screwworms on the area. They will impregnate the female screwworms, and then they will lay, like, dud eggs. And the whole thing will wipe out. She says they did this in Florida, and it worked. They extended it to Georgia, and it works. And she says, like, maybe this could be a promising model that we could expand, but it would be really hard because it might be reinfected from Texas. Now, in the real world, we know they not only took this. They took this as far west as Texas. They took this down into Mexico. They took it all the way across Central America. And there is, like, every—I don't know if it's once a year or once a month or something, but, like, there's a U.S. government-funded effort ongoing in Panama to, like, bomb the world with irradiated male New World screwworms and prevent the parasite from crossing back into Central America. So this is, like, an incredible triumph of science and modernity, right? And if that was the main theme of the book, I would say, like, this is the greatest book I've ever read. And every environmentalist needs to go back to the original text and be, like, this is a book about not being idiots and not being, like, slaves to the interest group politics of the chemistry industry and, like, looking capaciously at what can we do with science and reason to solve these problems. But that—like, that—that schoolwork thing is in the book, but it's not what the book is about. [00:17:26] Jerusalem Dempsis: I actually—I actually find I have a very different reading than you. I mean, first of all, it's good—it's important to note that Rachel Corson is a scientist. So she is—she has a master's degree. She's a biologist because—and we'll get into this later because that's the—that's the lady science. They let the women do biology. They didn't like them in chemistry or physics or anything like that. She's a scientist. She works in the federal government. She's, like, kind of doing—like, she's the head of all of the Department of Interiors, like, editorial products, etc. And she's writing, editing, and she's coming across all of these findings that, like, there are these knock-on effects or there are in, like, specific places all across the country or all across the world, places where DDT or other insecticides or herbicides are causing problems. And while I agree there's, like, the, like—throughout her book, there's, like, this kind of, like, romantic sensibility that exists there, she does repeatedly go out of her way to say there are techniques that you can use to address this that are not getting rid of DDT. She, like, never actually says we should not use insecticides, we should not use herbicides. And, like, she suggests even bringing different kinds of, like, moths or whatever into the ecosystems, just like you said. And so my reading of it is, like, actually, I do find this a very persuasive way for environmentalists to go back to. Like, I actually think that, like, if environmentalists today, instead of just, like, you know, like, trying to get a lot of, like, really out there attention by, I don't know, stopping traffic or spraying paint on, you know, priceless artifacts in museums, or instead, like, doing really, really careful analysis of ways that, like, damage to the environment was creating harm for things that we care about, life, health, aesthetics, whatever it is. Like, I find that, like, really, really persuasive. And one thing to note is part of the reason why Carson is so influential is because the reaction to her was so unhinged. Like, I think that, like, this is a very much, like, one of the first, like, Streisand moments of, like, the modern era. Yes. Where, like, the chemical industry, they find, when they're in this book, they're, like, going to sue her publisher for a libel. They're going after her. They're saying all this crazy stuff about her. The CBS hour-long special they do, it's kind of like a documentary. They interview her. They also interview this, like, you know, industry kind of scientist. I mean, he's, like, he's, like, a real scientist. He's not just, like, a paid show, but he's, like, in a lab coat. He's, like, obviously, like, you know, he's just, like, this man. He's, like, a Ph.D., et cetera. Like, she wasn't a Ph.D. And, like, she comes off, like, I didn't, I couldn't find the whole thing online. I watched, like, parts and clips of it. But she's, like, really, really chill. She's just, like, you know, like, here is the science that I found. [00:20:06] Matthew Glacius: Barry Weiss, if you're out there, put this back on CBS. [00:20:09] Jerusalem Dempsis: But it's just, like, to me, I'm, like, watching it, like, and she just seems so credible immediately. This guy seems, like, a little bit angry. Like, I don't know if this is true contemporaneously, but the way that it's read from, like, more modern people who are obviously more biased in Carson's direction is that he was just, like, he was, like, this man, like, yelling about how she was going to destroy all human progress. And, like, to me, like, if we're talking about, you know, enlightenment sensibilities, like, she has way more of, like, an enlightenment rational sensibility than he does throughout the entire thing. [00:20:35] Matthew Glacius: Okay, so environmentalists. [00:20:37] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah. [00:20:38] Matthew Glacius: In general. [00:20:38] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah. [00:20:39] Matthew Glacius: Like, what's your beef? What's the problem? Because you sort of referenced this. You referenced, like, throwing paint and other stuff like that. But not just on a tactical level. [00:20:49] Jerusalem Dempsis: So, like, I came up through environmental, like, climate movement stuff. Like, my first, one of my early internships was at the Climate Action Campaign when I was still in college. I lived in, I was in D.C. for the summer, and I, you know, worked on the Climate Action Campaign, which was the big, you know, table of all the big environmental groups that was trying to help pass the Clean Power Plan, which was Barack Obama's signature climate regulation to regulate existing point source pollution and, you know, like, coal on existing coal plants and power plants. And, you know, like, I was, like, like, many people of my generation were, like, very, very concerned about climate change. I see it as, like, an existential threat for humans. I see it as a concern for health and for, you know, ecosystems, but also just, like, for people to be able to live, like, lives that they want to and for human progress. And so, you know, that's where I come out of. And then, you know, over the course of, you know, the past, like, you know, decade and a half, realizing how few groups in the environmental movement are actually, like, just focused on doing, like, cost-benefit analysis of various policies to figure out how can we actually reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that is being emitted and instead are, like, doing, like, doing kind of really unproductive things, whether they're focusing, I mean, you talk about all the time, like, you know, straw bans or whatever, but also, like, focusing on, like, non-environmental or non-climate change aspects of environmentalism, which is, like, to me, like, very anti-progress. So, obviously, I come out of housing and, like, to me, one of the biggest things that you can do to reduce emissions in the Western world, at least, is that you live in more dense areas. So, you build a lot more housing in center cities, you build great transportation networks, and then you find, over and over again, these green groups are the ones who are the problem in actually developing in a, quote-unquote, green way. And, I mean, I wrote this piece in The Atlantic years back about, like, this kind of, like, tension with environmentalism around, like, well, real environmentalists would be really pro a lot of the scientific progress, a lot of this kind of modern building, and, instead, they find themselves on the side of, like, this conservative views of the way that the world should look, and they're very anti-change and anti-progress. And so, that's my beef with modern environmentalism, but, like, I'm, like, still, like, pro we should take on climate change. Like, that's good. [00:23:07] Matthew Glacius: Yeah. I guess I never really, back when I was more progressive, I was more of a, like, a labor guy, and I'm older than you. So, this always used to be a fight that, like, the big factional fight inside the Democratic Party used to be, you know, there was a famous thing from the Pacific Northwest in the 80s and 90s, where environmentalists found a spotted owl, which was allegedly, like, different from other owls and more special than these other owls. And the spotted owl's habitat was in these woodlands that were being used for logging. And so, the Endangered Species Act was invoked to restrict logging in these forests. A lot of people lost their jobs. There was a lot of, you know, concern from working-class people in Oregon about this. And part of what made the whole thing annoying to me is that the spotted owl, it wasn't, like, the unintended consequence of protecting the spotted owl was to shut down the logging industry. The spotted owl was a pretext for shutting down the logging industry, right? And there's a famous case of the snail darter, which is some kind of fish. And this was invoked to prevent a dam from being constructed that was going to provide, you know, like, emission-free electricity to lots and lots of people. And, again, there was a New York Times story about this recently. But, like, there is no such species. Like, they cooked it up in order to have a litigation hook to stop the dam. [00:24:42] Jerusalem Dempsis: Well, to be fair, it's like, what is a species is not, like, a thing that is naturally occurring in the world. [00:24:48] Matthew Glacius: To me, though, this has always been the essence of the environmental movement, is seeking pretexts to do things that are bad for humans in order to preserve nature. And so it's almost like, now, sometimes they hit on something. The spotted owl, I think, is real. The snail darter is fake. [00:25:13] Jerusalem Dempsis: There is a fish. That's a real fish. Sure, but the thing that happened here is that the Endangered Species Act, like, if you can count something as being endangered, so, like, you basically, like, if you're trying to figure out whether an animal is, like, a new kind of species or just, like, the same fish, but it has different stripes. Like, there are humans that come in very different shapes and sizes, but they're all human beings. [00:25:36] Matthew Glacius: But so, like, I could kill a million deer, right? And that's fine, because there's 10 million deer. It's not fine. No, no, no, but legally speaking, right? But if it turns out that it's, like, a special kind of deer, right? Yes, where there's only 200 left. The purple-toe deer. Yeah. Right, then I can't even kill six of them. Yes. Because they're endangered. So there's this quest, though, for litigation hooks, like this snail darter. Yeah. Because you can stop the dam, because they're just against dams, right? [00:26:04] Jerusalem Dempsis: But I think there's, like, this core thing, right, about, like, what is the environmental movement actually about is at the heart of what we're talking about here. So I think that there are many, many people within the environmental movement, many leaders, who are, like, actually specifically concerned about climate change or wildlife preservation or, you know, just natural beauty. And then there's, like, you know, hunters and anglers that just, like, want to preserve their, like, wildlife for their, you know, sports purposes. [00:26:31] Matthew Glacius: Can I – I was just in a conversation about hunters and anglers yesterday. Yeah. And I was pretending to know what an angler is. Does that just mean you fish? [00:26:38] Jerusalem Dempsis: I thought so. [00:26:39] Matthew Glacius: Okay. [00:26:39] Jerusalem Dempsis: That's what I thought it was. So now I'm scared. [00:26:41] Matthew Glacius: Oh, so you're also faking it. [00:26:42] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah, a person who fishes with a rod and line for pleasure. That's what I thought it was. Great. [00:26:45] Matthew Glacius: Okay. [00:26:45] Jerusalem Dempsis: I – yeah. [00:26:47] Matthew Glacius: That's to, like, distinguish you from, like, the bad fishermen who, like, the commercial trawlers with the nets? [00:26:51] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yes, with, like, the big nets, yeah. Something that's definitely true, right, is that, like, the environmental movement as a large-scale mass movement was really fueled by a lot of suburbanites who were anti-growth. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of great books about this. Lily Geismers' Don't Blame Us is a really great book about this in the Boston context. But basically this idea that, yeah, like, there were these people who really cared about the environment and then they needed to find a mass movement of people. And the people who were attracted to this were often suburbanites who had moved themselves in very, quote-unquote, anti-environmental ways to, like, suburbs of major cities for the first time in the post-war era as these suburbs were being, like, literally created. And then were, like, frustrated that, like, there was more development happening because they wanted that green space. They wanted their lawns. They didn't want it to be endless suburbia. And, like, they wanted the last house to be built to be, like, their house, you know? But this happens all the time. [00:27:50] Matthew Glacius: I mean, people go to Maine because they like nature. Yeah. And then other people want to come to Maine because they also like nature. But the people who already got there are, like, no, I'm here. [00:27:59] Jerusalem Dempsis: And I like nature. [00:27:59] Matthew Glacius: I'm here to be near the forest. Like, I cut down trees for my house, but you can't cut down trees for your house because I'm trying to be close to the trees. [00:28:06] Jerusalem Dempsis: And this is, like, a core base of the environmental movement. And I don't think it, like, invalidates the fact that there are – I mean, this becomes politically relevant because if your base is not actually people who want to, like, live densely so as to prevent wildlife loss, but actually want to themselves have a, like, house in the suburbs but no one else to, you actually become much more an anti-growth movement than a pro-environment movement. But, again, like, I think it's really important that it doesn't mean it actually invalidates the existence of these other people. Like, for instance, me and you have been, like, doing this Yimby thing for a while. You've been doing it much longer than I have. And, like, if, like, the Yimby movement ends up, like, getting allies that, like, we ourselves are, like, yeah, you just have to have allies in a movement in order to win factional battles in politics. But then those allies end up being, like, much more powerful than the people who originally cared about housing. And those people are actually, I don't know, secretly, like, pro-housing but hate immigrants or whatever, right? Like, that's, like, not our fault. [00:29:08] Matthew Glacius: No, no, okay, but that's not what I'm saying. Like, I feel a recurring conversation that I have with Democratic Party members of Congress about permitting reform negotiations is that they want to get to yes on an energy permitting reform deal. And every once in a while you meet a member of Congress who has strong views on the merits of this kind of thing. But, like, the vast majority of them don't. And, like, they want to be for a bill that is an energy permitting reform bill. [00:29:38] Jerusalem Dempsis: To make it easier to permit renewable energy mostly, but also they're okay with maybe a little bit of fossil fuels. [00:29:43] Matthew Glacius: Understanding that there will be some kind of deal, that it will facilitate renewables and will also do something Republicans like. Yeah. But they want whatever the – they don't care what the content of the deal is. They want at least some name-brand environmental groups to say that the deal is good. Because they are not green fanatics who are like, I'll only do it if Greenpeace is for it. But they are not willing to buck the entirety of, like, EDF, NRDC, Sierra, et cetera. They need a split amongst the groups. But then they always tell me, you know, these groups are, like, they're way more reasonable than you think, Matt. Like, they've cast aside all this, you know, cobwebs of the 1970s and so on and so forth. And I just don't think that that is accurate. And, like, I don't mean to say that in a disparaging way, but I think that – What's the non-disparaging way to say you still have cobwebs? I don't know, because what I am trying to do in this is actually take seriously the claims of this movement and what its priorities are. Yeah. And it really is a movement, I think, that is about preserving nature from the encroachments of humanity. You know, she uses the term – this is outdated. She says man a lot, right? But man or humanity is an important concept, right? And this opposition between humanity and nature is an important part of her schema. And the way that it arises most specifically, I think, is not – this stuff around suburbia has, I think, an important technical aspect to it, right? And it's counterintuitive to people that your green lawn is, like, less eco-friendly than my rowhouse block or the apartment building that I grew up in. But it's really in the treatment of the third world, right? That climate change is real. This is real science. It is causing real harms to real human beings. Most of those harms are occurring in the tropics, both because it's hotter there already, so there's a bigger – like, a baseline issue, and also because the people who live in the tropics are much poorer. Yeah. So they have less air conditioning. They're more likely to be working outside, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. They can't build, like – But the environmental movement is a million light years away from being a movement whose center value is about benefiting the human beings who live in the tropics. They're not, like, mixed on, like, housing stuff in the suburbs of Minneapolis, like, conflict, elements of hypocrisy, elements of coalitional dynamic. But on this, like, core question of, like, economic development in the third world, I think, like, there isn't a split, right? Like, the view is that one of the worst things that has happened is that China and India have become less poor and that that has led to this acceleration of climate risk. And, like, they don't frame it that way because that makes them sound terrible. But, like, they never, ever, ever say climate change is, like, the downside of a good thing. It's instead – that's why there's all this apocalypticism. Like, they want us to believe that it's, like, net, net worse that China has become richer than Nigeria. And, like, that's not true. But that's what they think very authentically. [00:33:19] Jerusalem Dempsis: I mean, I am, like, half in agreement on what you're saying. And part of that is, like, you're reading this book, right? And this happens all the time with environmentalists. Well, they'll quote to you these studies about damages. They're, like, wow, there's going to be, like, $300 million in damages from wildfires. There's going to be, like, $1 billion damages in flood insurance claims this year or whatever. $3 trillion over the course of the next 10 – whatever. Like, these, like, massive, massive numbers. And I take that seriously. I'm, like, okay, let's do some cost-benefit analysis about stuff, right? Because if you are going to engage – and, like, Carson does this, too, in her book where she points out, like, all the economic harms that can accrue to farmers or whoever if you allow this DDT to, like, destroy their crops or if they become, like, single crop farmers or whatever. And it's so clear to me that, like, the point of all of that is then to do, like, cost-benefit analysis about various policy interventions. Like, okay, so there are all these costs that come from, you know, allowing a coal plant to exist. And then there are all these benefits that will accrue to the local community because – in, like, sub-Saharan Africa because they will now have energy. Yeah, electricity is good. Yeah, like, let's figure out, like, which one of these things is bigger or smaller. And, like, it is also true that when you – the big question then becomes, like, how are you discounting these things, right? Because, yes, in – right now, today, it might be the case that, like, that coal plant is definitely higher benefits than costs. But then, like, what about, like, the millions of people who are going to live in the future? And this is a big live debate under the Biden administration. They tried to make the social cost of greenhouse gases larger to change the formula such that it cared more about future people. And even, like, ourselves in the future. So, like, us, like, two years from now, like, I should care about that person somewhat more than we do in our current – in our pre-existing accounting. But, like, you're correct that, like, the modern environmental movement is not, like, a massive cost-benefit analysis movement. But I think that largely the reason for this is that they're a very local movement. And, like, climate change is a global problem. And, like, you have to care about this, like, how much someone emits in, like, Topeka, Kansas is, like, not really relevant if, like, 20 more people, therefore, are emitting in, like, Illinois. You know what I mean? Like, so it's just, like, you have to care about these things at a global scale. But the environmental movement itself, because of the nature of you're observing things happening around you and you're, like, that thing is bad, I want to stop it. And that's – the cause of that is, like, this other broader thing means that, like, they don't really mostly pay attention to what's happening outside of the country at all, except very small groups. And so I think that, like, what ends up happening is, like, I don't think there's actually a viewpoint of most environmental groups in the United States about development in China. There's, like, a small number of environmentalists who are involved in that sort of thing through, you know, the World Bank, where they're, like, well, we don't want to finance any fossil fuel industries. I just think that, like, it's a little bit unfair to say, like, these knock-on effects of this ideology have produced something really bad, which I agree with are bad, and then blame it on people who are, like, hey, I just like to see, like, snail darters. [00:36:21] Matthew Glacius: So I've heard this, you know, localism, globalism kind of characterization of the situation. I think David Roberts, who I used to work with at Vox, has often framed it this way in trying to sort of push environmentalism out of – he's, like, a big, like, green Yimby, you know, in part for this reason. I have doubts, though, because, I mean, one thing that I fight about all the time with people these days is natural gas, right? And part of the deal with natural gas is that it is somewhat lower emissions from a greenhouse gas standpoint than coal, you know, on a per-mogawatt basis. But on a – Magawatt? Megawatt. But on a particulate air pollution basis, it's dramatically cleaner, right? So in a theoretical world where you have people who are just, like, very, very concerned about localist environmental issues, you would just be really, really enthusiastic about natural gas. It's displacing coal plants. It's doing an incredible amount to clean up localized air pollution. And I could see myself – I could see a world where the environmental movement was, like, so gung-ho about natural gas that I'm like, hey, guys, like, you've got to think about the impact this is having on Bangladesh. But that's not at all their viewpoint about natural gas. Like, they – I feel like what actually goes on is a kind of argument in the alternative where when something – you know, when somebody says, well, we should build utility-scale solar power plant, then the local environmental harm of cutting down the trees is very, very salient. But if somebody says, like, well, we should build natural gas pipelines to sort of drive coal off the grid, then it's like, oh, no, guys, like, we've got to think about the climate change, right? And it's just that – because what's actually happening is that you have a movement that does not value, like, the energy at all. [00:38:22] Jerusalem Dempsis: But I think that what you're describing – and again, like, the thing that's interesting here is that you and I are, like, largely aligned about the environmental movement being, like, you know, oppositional to economic progress. But, like, I think the thing that you're describing here is largely that movements create heuristics, right? They're often not doing this very, like – it's very difficult to imagine a movement being very, very good at, like, dislineating between specific policy areas in a very granular way. Instead, they come up with things like, okay, in general, coal plants are bad. In general, fossil fuel is really, really bad. And, like, obviously, like, the Industrial Revolution happened and created modernity and, like, the possibility for billions of people to live on this planet and, you know, not die of, you know, being too hot in the summer. But at the same time, like, the fact that the environmental movement has these kind of overly simplistic heuristics around fossil fuels, it's still, like, largely correct. Like, you should be broadly for more – less carbon-intensive forms of energy. Like, that is just broadly true. Now, in the specifics, the fact that, like, then every single thing that could potentially use carbon emissions or byproducts is then vilified to the point of, like, kind of ridiculousness is bad. But I think that, like, if we're talking about the specific core of what environmentalism is, movements just themselves, especially ones that are this large, are just going to have these, like, disparate elements in them. And, like, I agree that, like, the base of the American environmental movement in particular is largely kind of, like, an anti-growth suburban who kind of just likes green stuff around them and, therefore, is, like, unconcerned about, like, the large-scale impacts on Bangladesh or whatever or China or what's going on in Nigeria. Like, yeah, like, that's true. That's true of all American politics. Like, there's not – there's just no care about, like – [00:40:13] Matthew Glacius: But this is why I keep bringing up the fact that – but then they do invoke climate change as this trump card as if they do care, right? But I think these are different people. I don't think they – well, okay. I guess I am going to give Rachel Carson her due, which is to say that even though I believe – I don't really think that people who I disagree with are being untrue to the values of this book because she does invoke these capital R romantic conversations. There is also within this text the seeds of, I think, like, a much better set of ideas. Like, her discussion of the screwworm is genuinely visionary. Like, she's saying this is a good idea and is a little skeptical that, like, we will ever bring it to the adequate scale. And, like, we did, right? And we ought to bring it to even bigger scale. And, like, she was right to champion this early on as well as being – I mean, she was just literally correct about insecticide resistance to DDT. She was right that, like, neurotoxins damage mammals and birds as well as insects. Like, this is all literally true. And the aspect of this book that is about finding better ways to address the insect problem is – I mean, it's both, like, has helped people with, like, insects and human health. But I also think it's, like, a very good way to think about these questions that if we have a concern that is valid but also there's downsides to the human activity, like, we should try to think of a better way to do it. Right, and that's eco-modernism in a way. And you could – they could try to claim her as a progenitor there too. [00:41:51] Jerusalem Dempsis: So one thing I did want to talk about, though, is about the – you know, we're in a book club now, Matt. This is our second book. Our first book, if folks didn't hear it, was Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which is largely a book written – what year did that come out? [00:42:06] Matthew Glacius: Same, 62, right? [00:42:07] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah, that's what – yeah, Mystique. 63. Okay. So it comes out, like, immediately after this, The Feminine Mystique is a book about, you know, how women basically need to go back into the workforce. They need to, like, go get degrees and jobs and that they need to return to the values and life trajectories of the women from, like, the 1930s. And what's interesting is, like, that book is literally just talking about Rachel Carson. Like, Rachel Carson in the 1920s goes to college. She gets a master's degree. She wants to get a PhD, but the Great Depression happens and she has to, like, make money for her family. So she ends up not doing that. But she's, like, a lifelong, like, worker and, like, public intellectual. She's writing in The New Yorker and, like, various other places. She's also, like – [00:42:49] Matthew Glacius: What's also cool is she's working for the fisheries service? Yeah, she's a department of interior. But, like, also just doing takes? [00:42:55] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's great. People don't do that now. [00:42:57] Matthew Glacius: We used to have a country. [00:42:58] Jerusalem Dempsis: And it's incredible because it's not just about her life that, like, Benny Friedman is literally saying, like, women in the post-war, like, you should be more like Rachel Carson. But the reaction to her is so gendered. It's, like, kind of wild. Like, it's the kind of thing that, like, you would not really expect now. But very much, like, she's talked about as this, like, kind of crazy woman who, like, I mean, she doesn't have kids or she doesn't get married. There's some suspicion that she was maybe a lesbian she had or she's attracted to women. She had, like, some, like, long-term, like, potentially romantic relationship with this woman she lived near for some time. [00:43:30] Matthew Glacius: Is that Boston marriage, as we used to say? [00:43:31] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah. And I did not know that term, but – [00:43:35] Matthew Glacius: Google it. [00:43:36] Speaker ?: I will. [00:43:37] Jerusalem Dempsis: I'll claw it later. But the reaction to her from the chemical industry is very much, this woman does not have a PhD. She has no standing to be having this conversation. She does this, like, lady science, obviously, biology. And at the same time, too, she's, like, there's all these things about how, like, maybe she's a communist sympathizer. Maybe – and she, like, hates modernity. And, like, they try to commission this book about how, like, you know, like, everyone in the world would die and be overrun by insects if she had her way. And what's so interesting and what this really, like, made me think of is, like, both you and I have written about this sort of, like, progressive omni-cause, right? This idea that if you are in favor of one progressive viewpoint around environmentalism, you also have to be in favor of really radical viewpoints or progressive viewpoints on race and gender and, you know, economic populism or whatever it is. And, like, all these kinds of groups sort of hold the line. And in many ways, I think we underrate how much is created by, I think, conservative backlash. So, like, what you are witnessing here in the reaction to her book is they are actually stitching together all of these things for her. Like, out of the reaction to her, the feminists really come out in her defense. And feminist environmentalism becomes much more of a thing, this idea that, like, I mean, A, breast cancer, which was largely understudied in many ways. You know, there's a lot of critiques that it was because scientists cared less about this illness that affected women. And that, and the cancer being linked to DDT, like, it really created this sense of, like, oh, like, this male establishment of scientists, like, hates women. They hate the environment. She herself is obviously talking in a very, like, concerned way about the way that men dominate, quote, unquote, the environment. Man, she says. But, like, also she's, she's gendering to herself. And it made me really just think about, like, how much, like, the reaction to specific progressive viewpoints really created this necessity for this coalition to develop. Because they're, like, calling her a communist for, like, saying, like, DDT has, like, some problems and we should look into them. And she is, like, cast as, like, okay, you must be a communist. You're a feminist. You didn't have children. You're, like, a spinster lady. You're, like, I mean, like, literally, like, just they are projecting all this onto her. Some of it might be true. I don't know. Not really clear. I don't think she was a communist. I think she was, like, actually notably, like, not a feminist or something. It was the 1930s, 60s. It's funny, actually. [00:45:56] Matthew Glacius: So it comes from, it was the former agriculture secretary, Ezra Benson, writes a letter to Eisenhower in which he says that she's unmarried, but she was pretty. And so he says, well, she's probably a communist. Yeah. This is a more innocent time. And I think the modern suspicion that she's probably a lesbian makes a little bit more sense of the biographical facts. I mean, yes, that is all true. You see something of that. [00:46:25] Jerusalem Dempsis: I also think, like, don't take the bait, right? Like, you know what I mean? The thing that, like, makes her so successful is that actually she was so specifically focused on this thing that was obviously true and was going to get and was very persuasive about it. And, like, she wasn't super bombastic. She got on CBS and was, like, like, we'll play a clip of it or whatever, but she's, like, very muted and just discussing the fact. [00:46:46] Speaker 1: Now, we know from experiments on animals that many of these chemicals accumulate in body tissues. We know that some are liver poisons. Others are nerve poisons. And for still others, we have evidence that they produce mutations and in various other ways are exceedingly dangerous materials. [00:47:12] Matthew Glacius: Part of the breakdown that happens in the late 60s, right, is the institutional landscape is very different at the time that she's writing, you know? And so you have, like, the whole government is just organized in somewhat different ways back then. And it would have been possible, in theory, for the institutions that existed circa 1962 to say, you know what? Like, a lot of information has come out over the past decade about the harms of insecticide spraying. And so we are going to pull back, right? We are going to – because you used to have, you know, these agriculture departments were essentially supervising, like, what you were allowed to do, like, farm-wise. And they could have incorporated this critique into their practice. And they largely didn't, right? As you're saying, there's this kind of massive resistance coming from the industry but also from the institutions that she was saying had been lax. And so what happens is the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act are coming together is that, like, a different institutional setup is created. Instead of just saying the existing government departments that were supposed to be supervising this are going to do a better job now, we create these new departments that have this new mandate to kind of, like, swoop in, right? Like, burst in, like, Kool-Aid Man style and say, like, you can't do that. And you also have mechanisms. There's a very brief discussion of this in the book. But I think it winds up being really significant where she's like, and who decided that we should be allowed to do this? And she phrases it as a rhetorical question rather than, like, literally saying, like, this one guy decided. And that was a bad decision. And you should defeat him at the next election. And then a different guy will make a different decision, right? She puts forward the idea that letting the elected officials and their appointees make these decisions is, like, per se bad. And that there should be some kind of community veto power and, like, joint governance over this kind of thing. And that's not, like, an idea that she elaborates on at great length or really thinks a lot about, but really was taken over, right? The sort of first-order legacy of this book is more restriction on chemical spraying. But the higher-order restriction is a greatly expanded litigation frontier, right? Just, like, much more willingness to say, I don't like the way the government officials came down on this, so I'm going to go to court. And I think that has been quite problematic for America, that we've become this vetoocracy in which everything – and including, like – and this environmentalists are often being annoyed with. That if you, like, want to put bike lanes on the street, now people can come sue you, and they'll say, oh, you, like, didn't do enough Clean Air Act studies about whether bicycles are clearer than cars. And you'll show up, and you'll be like, what the fuck are you talking – like, it's a bicycle. But they'll be like, oh, but if you make the road thinner, like, the cars might idle more, so that might be more – you know? And it's, like, how – you could study these things to death, and nobody is empowered to just be like, you know what? Like, I read the research. I listened to people. I made my decision. If you don't like it, like, beat me at the fucking election. Yeah. And, like, everyone's mad about this now. But it is – [00:50:42] Jerusalem Dempsis: No, I mean, I do think this is a place where I'm the most, like, opposed to the parts of the book where she – I mean, I couldn't find – there are specific quotes in there about where she says something like, you know, who decided for all of us that this happened, or she says, like, we were, like, never consulted. And it's, like, much more like a – and there's even an anecdote about, like, an individual, like, homeowner who was never, like, notified or whatever. And, like, there are certain things which I think are true. Like, I think if you're going to do, like, mass spraying of something that could harm, like, dogs, like, you should, like, tell everyone you're going to do that thing, keep their dogs inside for the day. Like, whatever. Like, these things are, like, true that come out of this period about, like, public notification processes or whatever. But, like, you and I have been, like, railing against, like, public comment for, like, so long. Because, like, people hear that and they're, like, oh, yeah, like, of course the people should get a chance to comment and be involved in the policy proceedings. And as, like, a principle, that's true. But then the question is, like, how do you operationalize that, right? Because, like, does that mean that, like, at any point when a congressperson is trying to, like, draft legislation that they're not allowed to do that without, like, inviting public comment into every single part of that process? Like, it would, like, literally make it impossible to do anything if we took that to, like, the most, like, extreme of the logic here, right? [00:51:52] Matthew Glacius: Well, also, like, I sincerely don't want to weigh in. I don't want to research, like, which kind of insecticide treatments are appropriate. And, like, you don't have the expertise. And develop an informed opinion and weigh in. Like, it's just crazy. Right. It's, like, I agree. Like, it seemed like they were making a bad call before. Yes. But I would like elected officials to have a bureaucracy that tries to evaluate this evidence and make a good decision. I don't want, like, me and my friends and my weirdo neighbors to just all be, like... [00:52:21] Jerusalem Dempsis: Consulted. [00:52:22] Matthew Glacius: ...weighing in on this, right? [00:52:23] Jerusalem Dempsis: But I think to me, too, this is, like, actually... This is a really important point because I think there are a lot of, like, people who are in kind of the YIMBY abundance camp who have really conceptualized the environmental movement as, like, oh, you know, it was a reaction to the big government era. And now we're having a necessary counterreaction. I'm like, no, like, we could have reacted to all of this appropriately by saying, okay, we need to, A, update the science. We need to, like, care. Like, elected officials need to, like, put more pressure on agencies to pressure test the claims by these chemists and to make sure that, like, if they are okaying certain kind of chemicals to be used for, like, normal spraying purposes, that those are not hurting the food supply or giving people cancer. And, like, you could do that without, like, restructuring all of democracy such that, like, random individual people or groups can block our ability to do, whether it's bike lanes, whether it's apartment buildings, whether it's transmission lines, whether it's solar panels that are happening. Like, I literally have visited sites of, like, proposed solar panels where I'm being told by environmentalist groups that, like, oh, we're concerned about, like, the knock-on effects of other people of building these solar panels. I, like, go to this place. It's, like, the middle of fucking... There's, like, no way it's affecting people. [00:53:30] Matthew Glacius: But also, I mean, to give the environmentalists their due, like, the other thing that will happen is, like, you've seen this in New England, which is that oil companies will use an environmental impact litigation to say you can't build this transmission line from Canada because there's no... You can't write a law that, like, says, come on, you're an oil company. Yeah. Like, this is obviously bad faith, right? Like, because... They're part of the public. Right, right. Well, you know, it's a system of law. So anybody who wants to, the evil chemical industry... [00:54:01] Jerusalem Dempsis: I mean, there was one where, like, a literal competitor, like, they're both renewable energy companies, and a literal competitor was, like, using the public input process to destroy their competitors' ability to cite their new energy project. And it's just, like, obviously, if your claim is that we need a public process by which, like, there's no way for, like, an agency to go, you're being ridiculous as a discretionary matter. I've heard you out. I don't agree. If you think I've done something horrible, gin up an election and someone will fire me. Like, you know, you could do that, but instead we've created a system which, and again, like, part of what's going on in this time period, right, is that you have the education of, like, way more college-educated people are lay people. Like, there's, like, more college-educated people in general. And so, like, they're looking around and they're like, oh, like, the person authorizing all of this is not more educated than me. Like, I'm a lawyer. I'm a scientist. I'm a doctor. I can, like, go now read the, like, you know, documents that are created or the scientific studies. I was just talking to someone in Montgomery County, Maryland, who was, like, incensed by the boundary reanalysis that they're doing over there. And she herself is an economist. So she's, like, looking at their studies and she's just, like, this is so badly done. This is terribly done. Whatever. And, like, before it was sort of, like, well, I can't really evaluate what the government's doing. Now I can. You find out that maybe you're smarter than them. Maybe they have made some mistakes. And that reduces your faith, right, in the governmental process, which I think is, like, a rational and reasonable way to react to it. But then what happens is, like, okay, well, sometimes your objection is not actually I think that you have not accurately assessed the benefits and costs and come to a conclusion that is, like, defensible. It is I don't want an apartment building near me, so I'm going to use my acumen and my, like, legal training to go up this process forever. And I think that, like, it becomes, like, very, very difficult because right now, I mean, when you're reading this book, and I think anyone, I mean, most people are sort of just, like, yeah, of course she was just totally correct. And that ends up, like, validating this entire new system of, like, participatory democracy that actually made it difficult to become more environmentally conscious. [00:56:07] Matthew Glacius: There's a faux technical aspect to it, you know, so when, like, school boundaries get redrawn in the District of Columbia, it's done sort of on the basis of technical considerations. Like, they, that's, the official document will, like, give some technical reasons about population growth and commuting logistics and blah, blah, blah. But there's just certain schools that people want their kids to be assigned to and other schools that they don't want them to be assigned to. And if they don't get what they want, they complain. Yeah. And I always feel like it would be better to sort of admit that that's what is happening and that the elected officials literally cannot make everybody happy because not everybody can be assigned to the one middle school that everybody wants to be assigned to. And so they are making a decision and that they are, in fact, responsible for making the decision, that there's this bizarre school boundary gerrymandering to send people who live in Mount Pleasant to this one particular middle school west of Rock Creek Park. And it's just done that way because those people got access to that school a long time ago when the population was different and they don't want to give it up. And the city council is deferring to them out of status quo bias. And, like, there is no reason. But instead, you have to go through a lot of BS around some of this stuff because sometimes you just face tradeoffs, like, between the birds and the farmers. And sometimes there's a technical problem and the thing the farmers are trying to do won't work. But sometimes what the farmers want is just bad for the birds. Yeah. And what the Audubon Society wants is just bad for farmers. Yeah. And, like, that's why we have democracy. [00:57:50] Jerusalem Dempsis: I mean, there's, like, a lot of tradeoff denialism, I think, where, I mean, this is part of what I think when I was, you know, like, because, you know, when I was, like, really involved in environmental activism before I became a journalist, just, like, there's a lot of messaging to make it seem like there's actually, like, no harm being accrued to anyone else. So, like, this idea that, like, oh, renewables are cheaper, right? Which, like, very specific, like, metrics is, like, true. Like, it is, the cost of solar panel now is really low. But, like, when you take a look at the totality, like, okay, if you just, like, killed all fossil fuels and, like, what would happen? [00:58:28] Matthew Glacius: Making fossil fuels illegal is not cheaper than allowing them to continue to be used. [00:58:33] Jerusalem Dempsis: Exactly. But, like, again, like, the way that some of these things are, like, used is, like, okay, like, there's no tradeoffs. It can be cheaper. It'll be better for labor because there are all these jobs that will be created. And there are a lot of jobs created by electrification. A lot of those jobs are not, like, jobs that are easily unionized in the same way these, like, you know, coal plants or whatever could be. And they're also, like, often worse in some ways. They're more transient. Like, if you're, like, installing rooftop solar, like, it's not like a job where you go to the same place. If you're, like, going to different places and eventually, like, you tap out the market and then, like, you know what I mean? Like, there's not, like, a ton of, like, yeah, and they're also, like, not really high paying in the same way. And so it's just, like, that you'd want to sleep, but there's all these, like, messages about, like, oh, you know, definitely, like, you could just have, like, high paying, great green jobs. There's no attention between labor and environmentalism. There's even, like, this thing called the Blue-Green Alliance, which is an attempt to, like, really forge these connections across. And I think all of that stuff is good. And I think it's good to have, like, a positive vision. But I think that, like, it can get to the point where you are just doing tradeoff denialism and you can't actually just make tough calls and admit, like, oh, like, you're losing. But I think this is more important. And then we can have, like, an actual debate over whether that's true. [00:59:39] Matthew Glacius: Speaking of tradeoffs. [00:59:41] Jerusalem Dempsis: Time to talk about papers. [00:59:42] Matthew Glacius: Peer review. [00:59:43] Jerusalem Dempsis: Peer review. Okay, peer review. This is a segment of the podcast where Matt and I talk about a new white paper that's out there in the world. Okay, so this is a paper called Does Employment Slow Cognitive Decline? Evidence from Labor Market Shocks. Does it? Yes, it does. It does. [01:00:01] Matthew Glacius: I hate these question titles in the papers. [01:00:03] Jerusalem Dempsis: I love question title papers. You know, yeah, anyway. The authors are Noah Arman Kuchikinia, David Newmark, and Tim Bruckner. This just came out in NBER last month. I mean, a large finding here is that, like, when older people leave the workforce, they experience cognitive decline. The effect is concentrated among, like, men, 51 to 64. And, you know, one of the things that's, like, really difficult with stuff like this is people are, like, okay, is it the fact that people who leave the labor force are earlier are just, like, already experiencing cognitive decline? Or is it the, like, staying in the labor force actually makes you more cognitively, I don't know, sharper or whatever? And they overcome this by looking at, like, they look at commuting zones, which are the areas that people will commute in. [01:00:58] Matthew Glacius: And it's a zone. [01:01:01] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah. So basically, they're looking at, like, average effects across entire commuting zones so that, like, you know, the individual things that are going on with the person can, like, wash out. But, I mean, I think this is, like, really relevant to the paper in, like, I mean, I think people know. [01:01:12] Matthew Glacius: So the research design, right, is that sometimes your whole area suffers a negative economic shock. Yes. And older people are just more likely to take early retirement when the local labor market deteriorates. [01:01:26] Jerusalem Dempsis: So they look at places where there was that, like, negative shock and see, compare those to places where there wasn't. And then similarly old people, they can look at both of those areas and just go, well, what happened? [01:01:35] Matthew Glacius: So instead of comparing, like, a real estate broker who retires early to his coworker in the same office who didn't, because then you get the endogeneity problem, they're just saying, well, if there's a downturn and, in general, more people are retiring early, like, what happens to the cognitive acuity of people who've suffered this geographical labor market shock? [01:01:56] Jerusalem Dempsis: And it's not good. I mean, this, to me, is, like, relevant in this moment right now where we're all talking about what happens if, like, you know, there's no more work in the age of artificial general intelligence. And, I mean, there's, I think most people have experienced this in their own life. Like, oh, like, retirement early. It's not good for, like, old people in your lives. Like, sometimes they don't have things to do, like, et cetera. But at the same time, too, like, it's also, like, the thing people are aiming for. Like, there's this whole community online called, like, FIRE where they're all trying to retire super early. Like, how do I save enough money and, like, put in index funds so I can retire, like, 35 or, like, 40 or, like, 50 or whatever. And, like, I mean, like, I'm, like, of two minds about this. Like, work as desirable for, like, purpose and, like, giving your brain something to do is, like, good and true. But, like, at the same time, I do think we get to a very big, like, make work kind of attitude about things when we take it to its, like, logical extension. [01:02:50] Matthew Glacius: Well, so there's a couple debates that this is relevant to, right? One is this kind of, you know, AI, like, market displacement. The other is just straightforward entitlement type stuff, right? Because, I mean, a perennial tension in American politics is that we are spending more and more money on Social Security and Medicare. The population has become older. One of the most fiscally straightforward ways to address this is to raise the retirement age and get people to work longer. This is politically challenged. It's, like, one of the most unpopular things you can do because people have positive feelings about the elderly. So if you can marshal evidence that it's, like, actually low-key bad for people to be retiring earlier, that would, like, unwind this political knot, right? And help, you know, like, budget wonks solve a big problem that they have. And so I think that's one reason that there's, you know, interest. I've heard about this literature from a lot of people who are, like, professional deficit hawks. A question about this is, this is a clever research design, but are you now researching the wrong thing, right? Like, you talked about the early retirement people. And I think it's possible that there's, like, a systematic difference between someone who has deliberately structured their whole life around the idea of amassing savings, being frugal, planning for early retirement, and has presumably come up with something they want to do with their early retirement, and somebody who is bopping along and is, like, I'll try to work till I'm 67 when I can collect the full value of my Social Security benefits, but then you lose your job at 60, and you're, like, you know what? Like, I'm not going to master a new career, right, in my mid-60s. I'm just going to put in for early retirement and sort of peace out, right? And you can see why that, you know, could put you on a bad trajectory in life, because precisely because you're identifying people based on an external shock, it's, like, not what they wanted to do, right? Like, there was, if people had been saying, like, hey, Matt, like, we love your wisdom as, like, an old man pundit. Like, please, like, come on my podcast, like, tell the kids what they're doing wrong. Like, that would be awesome. Whereas if it's, like, I have no subscribers, nobody gives a shit about me, and I'm, like, well, I guess I'm retired now. Like, that's kind of a bummer. [01:05:12] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yeah, I mean, I think, obviously, there's, like, there's a selection issue in, like, the people on top. [01:05:16] Matthew Glacius: I mean, they fixed one selection issue, but they created a different. [01:05:20] Jerusalem Dempsis: Yes, but even in, like, from a policy perspective of, like, when you're trying to think about, there's some people for whom retiring is probably not going to create these probably harms. I mean, like, one thing, I mean, there's a paper recently that I saw that I was just looking for right now while you were talking about how playing with, or, like, grandparents taking care of their grandchildren staves off certain kinds of cognitive decline. Yeah, it's called Grandparents' Cognition and Caregiving for Grandchildren, published in Psychology and Aging in January of this year. [01:05:50] Matthew Glacius: That's right. Visit your kids. Visit your kids. Give them, babysit, give them a night out. [01:05:54] Jerusalem Dempsis: But, like, one thing they find is that it, like, so grandmothers experience much slower decline than grandfathers did when looking longitudinally over their lives if they play and interact and take care of their grandkids. And, like, they don't know this to be the case. The hypothesis is, like, the way that grandmothers versus grandfathers are interacting with their kids. Like, grandmothers might be, like, let me think about how I can help Timmy, like, practice with his, like, blocks and, like, think about, I don't know what children do, but, like, tummy time and, like, let's look at the, what is that black and white card that they show children? I don't know what that's for. Is that to make sure they're not, like, colorblind? I don't know what that is. You know what that? I have a lot of kids with, like, one, I'm friends with, like, one-year-olds, and they're all, like, showing them these, like, black and white cards. Like, you've never heard of this? [01:06:31] Matthew Glacius: I didn't do that. [01:06:32] Jerusalem Dempsis: Okay, well, maybe Jose is now. [01:06:32] Matthew Glacius: Maybe as a man, I'm just completely detached from the black and white card. [01:06:36] Jerusalem Dempsis: I remember tummy time. But, like, there's this question, like, right, because there are obviously a lot of women who, like, are way less in the workforce than men are, either because they left it entirely to stay at home with their kids or were part-time for part of their lives in order to, like, take care. Take care of their children or whatever, or take care of their elderly parents or do caregiving of whatever variety. And, you know, that is obviously, like, cognitively demanding work. And, like, there are ways in which, I mean, there's a concentration that this paper shows of the benefit to working in men way more so than they find in women. And that, to me, is, like, indicates something about, like, is, like, part of the problem here that we're not teaching or, like, men are not being given ways to, like, engage their cognitive faculties outside of their jobs? Sure. [01:07:23] Matthew Glacius: I mean, I think especially if you think about boomers, you have a more sharper gendered division of labor in which men are doing the preponderance of market work and women are doing a vast preponderance of home-based production. People don't retire from home-based production unless they are physically incapacitated. People continue to clean their houses, cook meals, and then... [01:07:49] Jerusalem Dempsis: Plan Thanksgiving, like, whatever. Yeah. [01:07:51] Matthew Glacius: And then whether you continue to do child care is a question of your relationship with your kids and your grandkids. But the option is, like, everybody would like grandma to come visit and babysit. I mean, more or less. Yeah. And so to the extent that women, particularly older women, are more skilled at and, like, emotionally and psychologically invested in that home-based production, they're insulated from the cognitive impacts of leaving market-based work. We don't... You know, so millennial men, such as myself, are more involved in parenting than our fathers and uncles and grandfathers had been. It will be interesting to see if that, you know, pans out in the future because then there is... There's also questions about identity, right? I mean, men's psychological identity tends to be more tied up in their work and their career, on average, than women, which is different from the pure time-use aspects of it. Also, people have many fewer grandchildren than they used to. I would assume. [01:08:50] Jerusalem Dempsis: I mean, I don't know if this is true. I mean, like, obviously, like, if you were to take, like, a 30-year-old man out, like, with AI, like, he can no longer work anymore because AI is, like, you know, taking over. I can't talk about Zoomers. [01:09:02] Matthew Glacius: I'm talking about boomers and millennials. I don't know what's going on. [01:09:04] Jerusalem Dempsis: 30-year-olds are not Zoomers. 30-year-olds are millennials still. What? Yeah. I'm 95. I just turned 31. I'm still a millennial. Jeez. That's a millennial, buddy. I'm, like, the youngest millennial. I call myself the last millennial. Oh, I'm the first. 81. Yeah, great. 81. We'll change the name of this podcast to be the first and last millennial. Okay. Just chat. The last great generation, millennials. But I think that there's, like, what was I even talking about? [01:09:32] Matthew Glacius: Young men and why they're such losers. That's not what I was saying. That's good. We've got that for a future podcast topic. [01:09:37] Jerusalem Dempsis: That's not what I was saying. I was saying. Good job. No, wait. Oh, yeah. So, if you're losing your job, but, like, in your 30s or something like that, that's a very different psychologically for your identity than, like, you know, you can retire early at, like, 64 or 60. What's retirement? 65 is retirement age, right? Retirement early at, like, 60 or whatever, right? And because, like, not working is not, like, quote, unquote, embarrassing when you're, like, old, right? Like, that's, like, expected or whatever. But I think the problem is often, like, people were just dying sooner before. And, like, now they're, like, people did used to die. Yeah. And so, like, retirement now is, like, instead of being, like, oh, you have, like, a couple years, you have 10 years, you have, like, 15 years. Now it's, like, you could have, like, 30 years where you have, like, no job. Like, you could be, like, like, you could spend 30 years of your life working formally after, like, being in college and then, like, 30 years after that, like, not working at all and having, like, nothing, quote, unquote, nothing to do. And I think there's just, like, this question of, like, as we get richer as a society, obviously the goal is people have to work less in order to afford to live. Like, that's, like, that's, like, a positive development of society. Like, we get weekends, we get, like, fewer work hours, we get to, like, dick around on our work hours, like, scrolling on Twitter or whatever rather than, like, actually, like, really locking in for eight hours a day or whatever. But, like, if we don't, like, replace that work time with something that people actually find meaningful, like, people are, you know, like, hanging out with their friends and family or making pottery or, like, reading the great books of history. Reading the classics. The classics of history. Like, I mean, that to me is what's concerning. And I do worry, like, right now I feel like so much of the conversation about, like, AI disempowerment is, like, obviously, oh, wait, we just got to get people into, like, make work jobs. Like, we need to, like, have job creation programs where we're, like, redoing the WPA and, like, I don't know, whatever it is. Like, I don't, people aren't very specific about the jobs they want to create for the government. And to me it's, like, okay. [01:11:24] Matthew Glacius: Insecticide spraying. Insecticide spraying. Get a low-flying plane. [01:11:27] Jerusalem Dempsis: We got to get them building dams again. Yeah, absolutely. That's what we got to do. Get those fish. But I just, I'm sort of, like, I don't know, like, there are ways for us to, like, construct meaning that are not, like, you need to be doing physical labor. And I just would like us to explore that. I enjoy not doing physical labor is my point. [01:11:43] Matthew Glacius: Interesting. Yeah. But you're a woman, so you're protected from this cognitive decline. This is my problem. [01:11:47] Jerusalem Dempsis: But I have a huge investment in my career, so maybe I'm not. [01:11:50] Matthew Glacius: Maybe. No, I don't know. I just think you, I don't know, you care about people or something. And you don't care about people? You already had it out there. No, I do. I do care. I think that to prevent cognitive decline in the post-work future, people are going to need to engage more with high-quality podcasts. [01:12:06] Jerusalem Dempsis: That's a great point. [01:12:07] Matthew Glacius: So I think if you like this show, you know, you should subscribe, you should like, you should tell your friends that they need to stave off cognitive decline. [01:12:16] Jerusalem Dempsis: By listening to the argument. Yes. [01:12:17] Matthew Glacius: You need, you know, you need savings. You want to escape the permanent underclass, but you also want to escape the cognitive underclass. Yes. By getting into some good shit where we're, like, talking about things that matter. [01:12:27] Jerusalem Dempsis: Awesome. All right. See you guys next week. Bye.