A few weeks ago, just before ABC aired its apocalyptic two-hour special, Earth 2100, I issued some grief to ABC News for its refusal to post on the show’s website my Population Solution video alongside other solution videos submitted by the public. It seems one can advocate organic farming as a solution to the potentially catastrophic scenarios envisioned, but one cannot advocate voluntarily limiting family size.
Still, I felt we should reserve final judgment until seeing the special. Now that it's aired, I offer some praise and some criticism.
Earth 2100 aired in the U.S. on June 2, but my travel schedule didn’t allow me to view it until this week. Better late than never, I offer my review...
First of all, I commend the network for offering a disturbing view of how this century will play out, should humankind continue to deny the need to make major changes in our pattern of consumption and emission. It is extremely rare to find mainstream media eschewing the Pollyanna approach and dwelling for more than a few seconds on the frightening warnings and predictions of scientists and futurists. Earth 2100 provided a candid assessment of a likely future, and a bleak one at that.
Conventional wisdom says the public does not want to be depressed by these so-called "doomsday scenarios." Very bright people are frequently labeled doomsayers and dismissed because we just can’t handle bad news. Perhaps the producers recognized the doom these experts warn about is a very real and credible threat, so the audience needed to see and hear it. Bravo for that. Producer Michael Bicks stated, in fact, on the ABC News website, "there is widespread agreement among the 50-plus experts we spoke to...that if we do not change course in the near future, the collapse of our civilization is a real possibility."
This is astonishing news from a major media outlet. Not to diminish that huge achievement, I must still take the network to task for a serious omission. While the network advertised the special as looking at the catastrophe that could result from the "perfect storm of population growth, resource depletion and climate change," the program did not completely live up to this promise, skirting entirely the issue of population growth as a significant contributor to the problems, and ignoring population stability or decline as a potential solution.
About the only time population was mentioned was in occasional on-screen graphics showing population declining once catastrophe set in. No doubt this decline was envisioned as massive deaths from epidemics, starvation, lack of fresh water, etc. The audience was free to interpret this decline as a negative. Certainly massive premature deaths would be tragic, but population decline - preferably through voluntary reduction of birth rate, and preferably before disaster sets in - will positively contribute to the survival prospects and quality of life of humankind. But there was no mention of this.
In the final act of the special, an alternate scenario was envisioned. This was an optimistic portrayal of an Earth where humankind recognized relatively early on what was happening, took it seriously, and got very busy investing in technologies that would allow us to go about business as usual, just in a cleaner manner. Wind turbines, solar collectors, etc. You know the drill. A Van Jones sound bite summed it up nicely: "We can’t drill and burn our way out of our problems, but we can invent and invest our way out." I was half-amused, half-incensed by a scene in this rosy scenario that showed a trainload of cargo containers cruising through an array of wind turbines. This seemed to say: we can keep on consuming if we just use more efficient technologies like rail for transportation and wind for power.
The coming global fresh water crisis was solved (or dismissed) in this enchanted scenario with one simple line: "Water would be recycled, and there would be enough to support the U.S. Southwest." That was it, water shortage solved just like that! And we all lived happily ever after.
I’m sure this appealed to the masses who have not yet come to understand that a perpetually growing population or economy, no matter how clean and green, will eventually deplete our resources and destroy our home (it will just happen a little more slowly if it’s clean and green). Again, Van Jones had a nice bit to exemplify the rosy picture: "You can beat global warming and the economic downturn with the same dollar bill if you invest it in green jobs, green energy, green technology."
The casual reader of this blog or viewer of Earth 2100 might well be shocked by how bleak the doomsday scenario is, and may buy the Pollyanna idea that changing our light bulbs, riding the train, and using renewable energy are all we need to forestall such a future. Those who’ve studied sustainability, steady state or ecological economics, and/or overshoot will appreciate that what is far-fetched in Earth 2100 is not the doomsday scenario, but rather the rosy alternate world where we’ve avoided catastrophe without truly addressing overconsumption and overpopulation and getting unhooked from our growth addiction.
Again, let me congratulate the producers and ABC News for what I consider a huge leap for mainstream media – being much straighter with the audience about the dire consequences of making few changes. I recommend you view it. But I remain sad the program did not live up to the promise in ABC’s "perfect storm" description that listed population growth alongside resource depletion and climate change. The program avoided the emotional/religious/political hot potato of overpopulation, which is what I suspected they would do when they refused to accept my Population Solution video.
Dave Gardner is producing the documentary, Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity, which examines the addictions and myths we must leave behind in order to become a sustainable civilization. Join the global network of fans and supporters at www.growthbusters.com