evidence: In recent years, many climate advocates have emphasized human population itself—as opposed to related factors such as consumption and technology—as the driving force behind environmental destruction. This is, at bottom, a very old idea that can be traced back to the 18th-century cleric Thomas Malthus. It is also analytically unsound and morally objectionable. Critics of overpopulation down through the ages have had a nasty habit of treating people less as individuals with value and agency than as sentient locusts. [...] When the problem is defined as too many carbon emissions, the solutions will be optimized to reduce emissions. When the problem is defined as too little education and bodily autonomy, solutions such as schooling and birth control make intuitive sense. When the problem is defined as too many people, the "solutions" will surely once again go far beyond the gentle, humane approaches that the neo-Malthusians emphasize. As The Atlantic’s Jerusalem Demsas put it, "Enough with the innuendo: If overpopulation is the hill you want to die on, then you’ve got to defend the implications."