I've always been an optimist. Even while Lyndon Johnson was sending 50,000 more troops every few months, even as Ronald Reagan began dismantling the social safety net, even as Newt Gingrich pushed his Contract on America, even on the night that it became obvious Dubyanocchio would get a second term, I didn't lose all hope. No matter how easy it might be to sink into its waiting embrace, despair is debilitating. So I don't give up hope and I don't give up fighting, even though, I must concede, defeats have outnumbered victories for "my side" over the past 25 years.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is today releasing a 219-page report which says that future generations - our children, their children and their children - face broad-scale environmental crises that could jeopardize their survival. But the 1,360 scientists who put the study together remain, like me, hopeful.
According to Knight Ridder:
What makes this study ... different from other reports is that it's based on evidence that's generally agreed upon by the consensus of scientists, rather than facts of the "he-said, she-said" variety, said study executive director Walt Reid, an ecologist.
Anybody who has paid attention even cursorily to environmental matters over the past few years will not encounter any fresh shocks in the assessment. Its primary value is as a consensus of the hundreds of scientists who have agglomerated many environmental snapshots into the big eco-picture.
Prognostications of disaster - from Malthusian population scenarios to nuclear holocaust - have proved wrong in the past, so we can expect an outpouring of rightwankery labeling this latest report pessimistic buncombe. It was, after all, commissioned (primarily) by the United Nations, which is about as popular among rightists as Ann Coulter is at a mosque.
So, if you're one to venture into reactionary territory on the blogs or other media, count on reading rips of the Millennium Assessment smattered with epithetical references to Paul Ehrlich, Lester Brown, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Julia Butterfly Hill, David Suzuki and the Club of Rome.
What will be missed in all this chatter, I can just about guarantee, is that accompanying the report's gloomy assessment is a brighter possibility: if we take action the crises can be overcome.
Here's the bottom line as Millennium Assessment's scientists see it:
At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning. Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet's ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.
The provision of food, fresh water, energy, and materials to a growing population has
come at considerable cost to the complex systems of plants, animals, and biological
processes that make the planet habitable.
As human demands increase in coming decades, these systems will face even greater
pressures--and the risk of further weakening the natural infrastructure on which all
societies depend.
Protecting and improving our future well-being requires wiser and less destructive use
of natural assets. This in turn involves major changes in the way we make and
implement decisions.
We must learn to recognize the true value of nature--both in an economic sense and
in the richness it provides to our lives in ways much more difficult to put numbers on.
Above all, protection of these assets can no longer be seen as an optional extra, to be
considered once more pressing concerns such as wealth creation or national security
have been dealt with. ...
To take just a single example of what could be ahead, look at fisheries:
At least one quarter of marine fish stocks are overharvested.
* The quantity of fish caught by humans increased until the 1980s but is now
declining because of the shortage of stocks.
* In some sea areas, the total weight of fish available to be captured is less than a
hundredth of that caught before the onset of industrial fishing.
* Inland fisheries, especially important for providing high-quality diets for the poor,
have also declined due to overfishing, changes to habitats and withdrawal of
freshwater.
Never mind that the Food and Agriculture Organization noted just four years ago that 60 percent, not 25 percent, of the world's fisheries were being overharvested. The Millennium Assessment seems to bend over backward not to sound alarmist, even when that might be called for.
Still, for those like Dubyanocchio & Cronies, whose idea of good environmental policy is ensuring that the golf course isn't watered too close to their tee-time, the Millennium Assessment will be far too radical:
So future policies must aim to satisfy human needs while exacting a far smaller cost on natural systems. Without this radical change, they will eventually become incapable of meeting our demands.
An important part of this must be to correct the historic bias that has existed against
natural services when it comes to weighing the costs and benefits of particular
economic choices--whether for individuals, businesses, or governments.
In most societies, a large number of natural services are treated either as free or with
no reflection in their price of the real cost of using them. For instance, relatively few
consumers with piped water supply are charged according to how much they use.
Equally, the only "market value" of a forest is often in the price that can be obtained
for its wood, even though the standing forest may be worth much more for its
contribution to water control, climate regulation, and tourism. In a major study
reviewed in this assessment, the timber and fuel from Mediterranean forests were
found to account for less than a third of the total economic value of the whole natural
system.
This distortion is compounded by measures of economic wealth that fail to "count"
natural capital - a significant number of countries judged to be growing in wealth
according to conventional indicators actually became poorer in 2001 when loss of
natural resources was factored in.
Many environmentalists have been saying much the same for decades. Back in 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits of Growth, a book that has been lambasted ever since. And, indeed, some of its specific predictions missed the mark. But its overall evaluation has proved accurate. In 2004, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update was published.
As co-author Dennis Meadows pointed out:
It has been astonishing to me that many politicians and economists can continue to deny the evidence of limits that is announced with ever more frequency and urgency in the daily papers and the evening news. The world's use of materials and energy has grown past the levels that can be supported indefinitely. Pressures are mounting from the environment that will force a reduction. Rising oil prices, climate change, declining forests, falling ground water levels -- all of these are simply symptoms of the overshoot.
It is also a source of sadness for me to see so much energy invested in denial and almost none put into making the changes that would let humanity survive on this beautiful planet in good order more or less indefinitely. For our research clearly points out that feasible changes in cultural norms and goals would let us ease back down to sustainable levels, fulfill basic human needs, and structure an orderly society more or less indefinitely.
The Millennium Assessment's team concluded likewise:
The overriding conclusion of this assessment is that it lies within the power of human societies to ease the strains we are putting on the natural services of the planet, while continuing to use them to bring better living standards to all.
Achieving this, however, will require radical changes in the way nature is treated at
every level of decision-making. Resilience and abundance can no longer be confused
with indestructibility and infinite supply.
The warning signs are there for all of us to see. The future lies in our hands.
Plenty of time, say the critics. Nothing's gone wrong yet, say the politicians. Ignore the warnings, say the pundits.
We can do that. Especially those in my age bracket who wield the lion's share of the world's economic and political clout. We will all be dead before the most severe environmental catastrophes arrive, so what do we care? We can afford to do nothing and remain optimistic. The rest of you better get a move on.