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For many environmentalists,
the world seems to be getting worse. They have developed a hit-list of our
main fears: that natural resources are running out; that the population is
ever growing, leaving less and less to eat; that species are becoming
extinct in vast numbers, and that the planet's air and water are becoming
ever more polluted.
But a quick look at the facts
shows a different picture. First, energy and other natural resources have
become more abundant, not less so, since the book The Limits to Growth' was
published in 1972 by a group of scientists. Second, more food is now
produced per head of the world's population than at any time in history.
Fewer people are starving. Third, although species are .indeed becoming
extinct, only about 0.7% of them are expected to disappear in the next 50
years, not 25-50%, as has so often been predicted. And finally, most forms
of environmental pollution either appear to have been exaggerated, or are
transient - associated with the early phases of industrialisation and
therefore best cured not by restricting economic growth, but by
accelerating it. One form of pollution - the release of greenhouse gases
that causes global warming - does appear to be a phenomenon that is going
to extend well into our future, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a
devastating problem. A bigger problem may well turn out to be an
inappropriate response to it.
Yet opinion polls suggest that
many people nurture the belief that environmental standards are declining
and four factors seem to cause this disjunction between perception and
reality.
One is the lopsidedness built
into scientific research. Scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many
problems. That may be wise policy, but it will also create an impression
that many more potential problems exist than is the case.
Secondly, environmental groups
need to be noticed by the mass media. They also need to keep the money
rolling in. Understandably, perhaps, they sometimes overstate their
arguments. In 1997, for example, the World Wide Fund for Nature issued a
press release entitled: 'Two thirds of the world's forests lost forever'.
The truth turns out to be nearer 20%.
Though these groups are run
overwhelmingly by selfless folk, they nevertheless share many of the
characteristics of other lobby groups. That would matter less if people
applied the same degree of scepticism to environmental lobbying as they do
to lobby groups In other fields. A trade organisation arguing for, say,
weaker pollution controls is instantly seen as self-interested. Yet a green
organisation opposing such a weakening is seen as altruistic, even if an
impartial view of the controls in question might suggest they are doing
more harm than good.
A third source of confusion is
the attitude of the media. People are clearly more curious about bad news
than good. Newspapers and broadcasters are there to provide what the public
wants. That, however, can lead to significant distortions of perception. An
example was America's encounter with El Nino in 1997 and 1998. This
climatic phenomenon was accused of wrecking tourism, causing allergies,
melting the ski-slopes and causing 22 deaths. However, according to an
article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the damage
it did was estimated at US$4 billion but the benefits amounted to some
US$19 billion. These came from higher winter temperatures (which saved an
estimated 850 lives, reduced heating costs and diminished spring floods
caused by meltwaters).
The fourth factor is poor
individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of
stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to
dispose of waste. Yet, even if America's trash output continues to rise as
it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by
2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will
still take up only one-12.000th of the area of the entire United States.
So what of global warming? As
we know, carbon dioxide emissions are causing the planet to warm. The best
estimates are that the temperatures will rise by 2-3°C in this century,
causing considerable problems, at a total cost of US$5,000 billion.
Despite the intuition that
something drastic needs to be done about such a costly problem, economic
analyses clearly show it will be far more expensive to cut carbon dioxide
emissions radically than to pay the costs of adaptation to the increased
temperatures. A model by one of the main authors of the United Nations
Climate Change Panel shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1
degrees in 2100 would only be diminished to an increase of 1.9 degrees. Or
to put ft another way, the temperature increase that the planet would have
experienced in 2094 would be postponed to 2100.
So this does not prevent
global warming, but merely buys the world six years. Yet the cost of
reducing carbon dioxide emissions, for the United States alone, will be
higher than the cost of solving the world's single, most pressing health
problem: providing universal access to clean drinking water and sanitation.
Such measures would avoid 2 million deaths every year, and prevent half a
billion people from becoming seriously ill.
It is crucial that we look at
the facts if we want to make the best possible decisions for the future. It
may be costly to be overly optimistic - but more costly still to be too
pessimistic.
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