That is the bummer, it’s all going to cost carbon and it’s all going to happen regardless if we ban people owning a second house. As long as the population keeps increasing, the demand for more new houses will naturally increase regardless of what we do to curb demand for second houses.
So I see it as a necessary evil. One in which I am of the opinion that that if we are going to screw with the environment and increase our footprint on nature then lets make it worth it.
For example, lets demolish more woodland but instead of single family housing, lets build a 30 story condominium with the first 2 levels being a shopping center, the next 3 being rentable office space, 20 levels for condominiums, and the last 5 being for entertainment, restaurants, and leisure. Hell create sub basement levels for parking. Is the construction bigger than building a house in the woods? sure. But in the long run by building vertically the overall footprint is much less than building a sub division, strip mall, individual restaurants, and a business zone.
I would much rather devote efforts into making that a reality than policing people from getting a second house. Hell, really try to market it to that demographic just so that we can combat the NIMBY attitude people have to vertical urban development and we will probably have more net good to the climate compared to anything else we do in urban development.
Isn’t pesticides just bee assassination on a mass scale? Thus, I argue, we cannot not yet rule that out.