If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well?

6 Responses

1. This perspective depends on your view of "better". More people starve now then at any time in human history. More people are enslaved now (real slaves, not just wage slavery, also now at global levels) then at any time in human history (in excess of 20,000,000 real slaves are reported by human rights organizations, this is far more then at any other time in human history).

   Life expectancy has risen – in some areas, but not for all. Human populations levels have massively increased — but not without a terrifying price in terms of human oppression, disease outbreaks, servitude and environmental collapse.

   The notion alleged in the original article that "human well-being continues to improve" is patently false, based upon a very warped understanding of human existence and the quality of life (and what it now actually takes in terms of effort and labor to simply "exist").

   Various studies have been done by anthropologists and others that demonstrate that we work harder and receive less in terms of quality of life then at any other time in history.

   Increased population levels do not mean that we are "better off" at all. Nor does the increased life-span for some groups imply this either.

   "The authors, led by geographer Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne of McGill University, offer four hypotheses for this "environmentalist's paradox": humans are actually worse off than we think; the ability to grow food trumps all other ecosystem services as far as humans are concerned; technology has allowed us to transcend the environment; and the ill effects of environmental degradation lag its benefits, i.e. the worst is yet to come."

   Indeed it is, the worst is yet to come. Human civilization has collapsed many, many times before, we are no different. We have however, made this scenario and likelihood significantly worse then any other former human civilization, due to our global degradation and depletion of the world's environment and natural resources. Coupled with a gigantic overshoot in human population, there can only be one possible outcome.

   It's a very odd article, a feel-good "don't worry right now" with some weird contradictions, like this:

   "A prime example is cities—both a maw of human consumption and a way to minimize the human footprint on the planet."

   Cites are in no way a "way to minimize the human footprint", they are the exact OPPOSITE. Producing zero resources themselves, they are black holes in which energy and materials and raw resources are voraciously consumed at ever-increasing rates.

   Minimizing human-footprint would actually require the demolishing of cities and a return to localized living — which is the only sustainable method of living that exists — anywhere in the world. The city requires global / national and mega-regional inputs — a truly unsustainable existence, along with very high population levels and density.

   As I said, a weird article with outrageous assumptions that defy common sense. "First off, as far as anyone who has studied the issue can tell, despite vast differences, on the whole, humanity has never been better."

   This is yet another patently false statement. Humanity is significantly worse off now then at any other time in human history (despite our expansion and growth). Every human on the planet is now imperiled due to human-activity and the dire consequences this causes. Future humans are even worse off as we edge constantly closer to the precipice.

   The author is unread apparently, the Anthropocene is a era of human-caused disasters and suffering, one which can only be championed as "the best it's ever been" if you simply ignore our cause and effects at the expense of everything else.

   ~Survival Acres~

2. I'm unable to post my comments here (too large), so they can be found on my blog. ~Survival Acres~

3. I want to read the original BioScience paper before passing judgment, but in general I'd suggest that it's not a mystery: humans are mortgaging the future to drive current growth. I'd like to compare the Human Development Index curve with the Living Planet Index.

4. Affluent societies are living better by using non-renewable resources — as Jim's comment points out. It can easily be seen as a false cornucopia — non-sustainable.

   It comes down to a split between those who want humans to survive and thrive, and those who either want humans to go extinct — or they want humans to suffer a lot. Projections into the future reflect the group a person belongs in.

   Deniers of technology can be much worse than the cornucopians or cornutopians. If you don't understand that we are living in a transition period between primitive technologies and those more enabling and sustainable, you may fall back into a "woe is us" perpetual doomer collapse state.

   Peak oil collapse and climate catastrophe collapse are attractive mechanisms of collapse if you are subconsciously drawn to doom. Y2K served that purpose previously, as did the second coming of Christ. And so it goes with doom — it never ends.

   I expect advanced nations to shift from fossil fuels to nuclear energy, for electricity and process heat. For liquid fuels they will shift from petroleum liquid fuels to other liquid fuels converted from solid and gaseous carbonaceous materials — such as natural gas, coal, bitumens, kerogens, biomass, and perhaps methane clathrates.

   Microbial energy and power will provide liquid fuels for the intermediate term. In the long run — as corny old-time futurist as it sounds — small (desktop) fusion and perhaps fission power plants will drive most ships, locomotives, and large land vehicles — and eventually planes and rockets.

5. Hi Al,

   Thanks for the comment; cornucopians are always welcome at Desdemona.

   I think one of the weaknesses of the techno-optimist argument is the assumption that ecosystem services on which civilization depends, such as stable climate and predictable rainfall, can be replaced by technological solutions.

   Even in Al's envisioned energy-rich society, there will be no substitutes for the Amazon rainforest and ocean ecosystems.

   The scale on which technological solutions must operate is overwhelming. For example, to return Earth's radiative balance to Pleistocene/Holocene levels, we need to remove hundreds of gigatons from the atmosphere and oceans in the next few decades; there is no technology on the drawing board that can accomplish that.

6. And by "hundreds of gigatons," I mean "hundreds of gigatons of carbon."

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