A Roadmap for the Planet
From the 18th through the mid-19th century, whale oil provided light to much of the Western world. At its peak, whaling employed 70,000 people and was the United States’ fifth-largest industry. The U. S. stood as the world’s foremost whale slayer. Producing millions of gallons of oil each year, the industry was widely seen as unquestionable. Without whale oil, so the thinking from the advocates even went, the world would slide backward toward darkness.
By today’s standard, of course, killing whales is considered savage. Two hundred years ago there was no environmental movement to speak of. But one wonders if the whalers, finding that each year they needed to go farther to kill massive sea mammals, ever asked themselves: what will happen when we run out of whales’
Such questions today constitute the base of the ever-louder logic of sustainability.
Climate activists and campaigning environmentalists argue that the industrialized countries of the world have made sizable withdrawals on nature’s fixed allowance, and unless we change our ways, and soon, we are doomed to an abrupt end. Take the recent proclamation from the United Nations, Environment Program, which argued that governments should dramatically cut back on the use of resources. The mantra (咒语)has become commonplace, our current way of living is selfish and unsustainable. We are wrecking the world. We are polluting the water and the air. We are killing plants and animals, and leaving a devastated planet for future generations.
In other words, humanity is doomed.
It is a compelling story, no doubt. It is also fundamentally wrong, and the consequences are severe. Tragically, exaggerated environmental worries—and the willingness of so many to believe them—could ultimately pr us from finding smarter ways to actually help our planet and ensure the health of the environment for future generations.
Because, our fears notwithstanding, we actually get smarter. Although Westerners were once reliant on whale oil for lighting, we never actually ran out of whales. Why High demand and rising prices for whale oil spurred a search for and investment in the 19th-century version of alternative energy. First, kerosene (煤油) from petroleum replaced whale oil. We didn’t run out of kerosene, either: electricity supplanted it because it was a superior way to light our planet.
For generations, we have consistently underestimated our capacity for innovation. There was a time when we worried that all of London would be covered with horse manure because of the increasing use of horse-drawn carriages. Thanks to the invention of the car, London has 7 million inhabitants today. Manure disaster averted.
In fact, would-be catastrophes have regularly been pushed aside throughout human history, and so often became of innovation and technological development. We never just continue to do the same old thing. We innovate and avoid the anticipated problems.
Think of the whales, and then think of the debate over cutting emissions today. Instead of single-mindedly trying to force people to do without carbon-emitting fuels, we must recognize that we won’t make any real progress in cutting CO₂ emissions until we can create affordable, efficient alternatives. We are far from that point today., much- hyped technologies such as wind and solar energy remain very expensive and inefficient compared with cheap fossil fuels. Globally, wind provides just 0.3 percent of our energy, and solar a minuscule 0.1 percent. Current technology is so inefficient that, to take just one example, if we were serious about wind power, we would have to blanket most countries with wind turbines to generate enough energy for everybody, and we would still have the massive problem of storage. We don’t know what to do when the wind doesn’t blow.
the necessary breakthroughs will require mass improvements across many technologies. The sustainable response to global warming, then, is one that sees us get much more serious about investment into alternative-energy research and development. This has a much greater likelihood of leaving future generations at least the same opportunities as we have today.
Because what, exactly, is sustainability Four years ago, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development report "Our Common Future", chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, provided the most- quoted definition. Sustainable development "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". The measure of success, then, is whether or not we give future generations the same opportunities that we have had.
As humans have become richer and more educated, we have been able to enjoy more leisure time. In most developed countries, yearly working hours have fallen drastically since the end of the 19th century: today we work only about half as much as we did then. Over the last 30 years or so, total free time for men and women has increased, thanks to reductions in workload and housework.
We have consistently achieved these remarkable developments by focusing on technological innovation and investment designed to create a richer future. And while major challenges remain, the future appears to hold great promise, too. By the end of the century, the U. N. estimates we will live to be 85 on average, and virtually everyone will read, write, and have access to food, water, and sanitation. That’s not too shabby.
Rather than celebrating this amazing progress, many find it distasteful. Instead of acknowledging and learning from it, we bathe ourselves in guilt, fretting about our supposed unsustainable lives. Certainly many argue that while the past may have improved, surely it doesn’t matter for the future, because we are destroying the environment!
But not so fast. In recent decades, air quality in wealthy countries has vastly improved. In virtually every developed country, the air is more breathable and the water is more drinkable than they were in 1970. London, renowned for centuries for its infamous smog and severe pollution, today has the cleanest air that it has had since the Middle Ages.
ually, with increased affluence, developed countries gradually were better able to afford a cleaner environment. That is happening already today in some of the richest developing countries: air-pollution levels in Mexico City have been dropping precisely because of better technology and more wealth. Though air pollution is by far the most menacing for humans, water quality has similarly been getting better. Forests, too, are regrowing in rich countries, though still being lost in poor places where slash-and-burn is preferable to starvation.
We know from experience that more prosperous countries are more able to respond to the challenges that climate change will pose. They are much more resilient to natural disasters while more able to invest in measures such as greener cities and flood protection. Yet instead of first sure that everybody is better off and more resilient, our response to global warming has been to try to cut back carbon emissions too soon. In reality, this means reining in growth and do with less than we could have otherwise.
We forget too easily that innovation and ingenuity have solved most major problems in the past. Living sustainably means learning the lessons from history. And chief among those is that the best legacy we can leave our descendants is to ensure that they are prosperous enough to respond flexibly to the unknown challenges ahead.
A Roadmap for the PlanetWhy didn’t the whales die out although Westerners once largely relied on whale oil for lighting