Editor’s note: This commentary is by James S. Andrews, a herpetologist/wildlife biologist who serves as chair of the Reptile and Amphibian Scientific Advisory Group to the Vermont Endangered Species Committee, is coordinator for the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas Project and serves as a research and teaching associate with Vermont Family Forests in Bristol. He also teaches field herpetology and field ornithology at the University of Vermont, is a founding member of the Salisbury Conservation Commission, and is organizer of the Middlebury Christmas Bird Count. In addition, he works with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to help minimize the impacts of transportation infrastructure and traffic on wildlife.
[R]ecent statements by Gov. Phil Scott about his desire to attract more people to Vermont in an effort to spur our economy are disappointing. We should realize by now that an economic model that relies on continued growth of populations and their resulting increase in the use of natural resources is unsustainable. People will continue to migrate to Vermont from other states and to the U.S. from other countries. That’s fine. We will have to adjust to that. However, we should not be inviting people here or spending money to get them here based on an outdated and unsustainable economic model. We should embrace and celebrate the population stabilization that is happening.
Most developed nations have seen a decline in their birth rates. It has to happen in order for our planet to survive, and it is better that it happens sooner rather than later. World population stabilization is necessary for the long-term availability of clean water, clean air, adequate food, adequate forest resources, quality outdoor recreational opportunities, shrinking our carbon footprint and minimizing impermeable surfaces in addition to maintaining wildlife populations and the healthy working ecosystems they and we depend on. World population stabilization does not require drastic action such as legally limiting family size. It is happening here, and it is attainable elsewhere simply through education and the shifting of basic necessary resources to those areas of the planet that most need them. But we do need to recognize it as good and necessary.
I have often heard the argument that increasing the population of a town will increase the tax base and lower property taxes. I had my doubts that this was true. I once asked a staff person at our Addison County Regional Planning Commission to plot the property tax rate for Addison County towns against the populations of those towns. Tax rates were not lower for towns with more people. In fact, they were slightly higher. The reason for this is that as towns grow, there are more public costs required for the additional people. These costs include more road expenses, more sewage and water lines, more power lines, more health needs, more fires, more policing, more pollution, more teachers and more town officials, to list just a few examples. All of these services require additional funds. It is true that there is more overall money being raised and spent by towns with more people and certain types of businesses can lower taxes. But more people does not mean lower property taxes and the additional monies raised will only partially offset the additional costs of having more people.
This type of growth comes at the expense of our planet’s resources, our quality of life, the health of our life-supporting ecosystems and our children. It also works against or cancels completely any gains we might hope to make with lowering our carbon footprint, controlling pollution, meeting health needs, controlling habitat loss and fragmentation, meeting our energy needs and maintaining the healthy ecosystems that support all life.
Vermont has an opportunity here to show the world how to maintain a healthy economy with a stable population. It will take some creative adjusting of traditional economic models at a variety of levels, but it must be done, and we have been presented with a wonderful and needed opportunity here that we should welcome. Affordable housing, good working conditions and livable wages are certainly worthy goals for the people already here and those who will decide to migrate here, but working toward these goals should not be the result of an outdated and unsustainable perpetual growth model. Let’s show the world that we understand what sustainability is and how to make the needed adjustments while maintaining a healthy economy that does not require perpetual growth in our population or our use of resources. Our primary goal should be leaving a healthy planet for our grandkids. Continual population growth and increasing natural resource use will not allow us to meet that goal.
