In an op-ed in the NYT, Bjorn Lomborg slices and dices through the fog of “sustainability” and says that development is better for us in the long run.
Why does the developed world worry so much about sustainability? Because we constantly hear a litany of how the environment is in poor shape. Natural resources are running out. Population is growing, leaving less and less to eat. Species are becoming extinct in vast numbers. Forests are disappearing. The planet’s air and water are getting ever more polluted. Human activity is, in short, defiling the earth and as it does so, humanity may end up killing itself.
There is, however, one problem: this litany is not supported by the evidence. Energy and other natural resources have become more abundant, not less so. More food is now produced per capita than at any time in the world’s history. Fewer people are starving. Species are, it is true, becoming extinct. But only about 0.7 percent of them are expected to disappear in the next 50 years, not the 20 percent to 50 percent that some have predicted. Most forms of environmental pollution look as though they have either been exaggerated or are transient associated with the early phases of industrialization. They are best cured not by restricting economic growth but by accelerating it….
The United States has a unique opportunity in Johannesburg to call attention to development. Many Europeans chastised the the Bush administration for not caring enough about sustainability, especially in its rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. They are probably correct that the United States decision was made on the basis of economic self-interest rather than out of some principled belief in world development. But in Johannesburg the administration can recast its decision as an attempt to focus on the most important and fundamental issues on the global agenda: clean drinking water, better sanitation and health care and the fight against poverty.
Such move would regain for the United States the moral high ground. When United States rejected the Kyoto treaty last year, Europeans talked endlessly about how it was left to them to “save the world.” But if the United States is willing to commit the resources to ensure development, it could emerge as the savior.
I read Lomborg’s book. Moreover, I understood it. And he’s right. Specious and unsupportable handwringing over the environment needs to stop, and we need to put the stop to it and MOVE ON. The “brown cloud” in SE Asia wouldn’t be there if people there had an advanced (preferably nuclear-powered) civilization. And it’s interesting to note that there ain’t no brown cloud over the US.
First thing we need to do is kill all the lawyers bring back nuclear power.