This is one of the suggestions made by Harvard’s Edward Glaeser in an column in yesterday’s Globe. The economics professor and director of the Kennedy School’s Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston brought up some provocative points on how to be good environmentalists, now that we’re faced with the huge issue of climate change. He called for a carbon tax, something that others have talked about before. But he also made some more controversial recommendations:

focus on wildlife conservation rather than paper recycling

Our paper recycling programs cost time and money and do little to protect first-growth woodlands and rain forests. The trees used by paper mills are a renewable resource. When people use more paper, suppliers plant more trees. If we want bigger commercial forests, then we should use more paper not less. Our policies should directly protect important wildlife habitats, not try to reduce our demand for paper.

focus on development in the inner city and suburbs, rather than on protecting green space

When we stop development in Boston’s inner-ring suburbs, we shift development to areas with fewer people that might oppose new development. The move from higher- to lower-density development ensures more driving and energy use. Protecting green space in the inner suburbs is a form of environmentalism, but it is an environmentalism that creates local benefits by imposing costs on the rest of the world, since it pushes development into the highway-crazy exurbs.