JULY 3, 2013 12:00 AM
Inhospitable Earth
Environmentalist killjoys pretend that this is the
worst time in history to live on Earth.
By Jonah Goldberg
You just can’t out-gloom an environmentalist. The
Atlantic invited some luminaries to answer the question “How and when
will the world end?” Some contributions were funny. Others were simply
plausible — a volcanic eruption from underneath Yellowstone National Park is
frightfully overdue. But only an environmentalist like Bill McKibben could be a
killjoy about the apocalypse itself.
The environmental activist and writer declares the
question moot: “In a sense, the world as we knew it is already over. We have
heated the Earth, melted the Arctic and turned seawater 30 percent more acidic.
The only question left is how much more fossil fuel we’ll burn and hence how
unfamiliar and inhospitable we’ll make our home planet.”
It’s difficult to imagine a more absurd
overstatement. I’m not referring to the exaggerated claim that the Arctic has
“melted.” And the acidification of the oceans is a real concern (though there’s
reason to believe it’s not as bad as some say). But even Chicken Little
wouldn’t call it proof the world is already over.
What’s truly ludicrous is McKibben’s use of the word
“inhospitable.”
For something like 99 percent of human history, the
world was really inhospitable. Strangers everywhere were greeted with bloodshed
and attacked with cruelty. Dying from premature violence was more commonplace
than dying from heart disease or cancer is today. In his classic War
Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage,
Lawrence Keeley provides mountains of data documenting that modern humans live
on a mountain of murder. In prehistoric societies, up to half of the population
died from homicide, though 10 percent to 20 percent was closer to the norm.
In The
Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,
Steven Pinker shows that the world has become immeasurably more hospitable
since the Industrial Revolution. Even World War II was an improvement. If the
death toll had been equal to that of tribal societies, 2 billion lives would
have been lost instead of a “mere” 60 million to 100 million. In the United
States, violent crime is the lowest it’s been in nearly half a century.
Of course, McKibben is speaking of the physical
environment. But by any conceivable measure — save, arguably, outdoor
temperatures — the Earth is a vastly more hospitable place for humanity thanks
to the hard work of humanity. When the pilgrims came to North
America, it was often described as an inhospitable wilderness. Malaria,
smallpox, and yellow fever decimated immigrants (not to mention untold millions
of Native Americans). Backbreaking labor was the only means of subsistence for
millions of Americans for generations. Drudgery and toil — have you ever tried
to churn butter? — were necessary for even the simplest pleasures. And does
anyone dispute the improved lot of blacks and women?
Ironically, as global-warming fears have risen,
America and the Earth have gotten more, not less, hospitable. Since 1990, global
poverty has been cut in half, and since 1970, extreme poverty has dropped 80
percent.
Rich and poor alike are eating better, despite
global-population growth. According to UNICEF, more than 2 billion people
gained access to improved water sources between 1990 and 2010. In the
developing world, meat consumption has more than doubled since the 1990s (after
having doubled already since the 1960s). That’s because new technologies allow
us to grow more with less. From 1940 to 2010, U.S. corn production quintupled
while the land used for the crop shrank.
“Globally,” writes Matt Ridley, “the production of a
given crop requires 65 percent less land than it did in 1961.” And, he notes,
the acreage required for all crops is falling 2 percent a year.
Okay, things have gotten a wee bit warmer outside.
But economic growth and innovation have made the world vastly more hospitable.
We live longer, eat better, have more leisure time, and have fewer deadly
occupations. The environment in the developed world has gotten vastly cleaner,
healthier, and more enjoyable since the 1970s because rich countries can afford
to make things more hospitable. We can only hope poor countries get similarly
wealthy as quickly as possible.
Well, most of us can hope for such things. Others seem
to think such gains come at too high a price.
— Jonah Goldberg is the author of The
Tyranny of Clichés, now on sale in paperback. You can
write to him by e-mail at goldbergcolumn@gmail.com,
or via Twitter @JonahNRO. © 2013 Tribune Media Services, Inc
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