The World in Data
In the realm of existential threats, humanity has introspected on its fragility and the potential for self-destruction. The Doomsday Clock, set up in 1947 by scientists who worked on the first atomic bomb, serves as a symbolic warning. Its hands represent how close humanity is to annihilation — midnight — due to nuclear war and other global threats. Today, the clock also considers existential risks beyond nuclear war, including climate change.
Human Extinction could occur due to natural causes like asteroids crashing into the earth or volcanoes erupting or through situations created by human activity. When birth rates fall below replacement levels, there is a slow extinction.
The Transhumanist Declaration, issued in 1998, aims to broaden human potential by defeating ageing and liberating our intelligence to soar and escape our confinement on Earth. While this may sound ironic amidst a global pandemic, it reflects humanity’s pursuit of longevity and transformation.
The concept of the end of history, suggested in 1989 by the historian, Francis Fukuyama, claims that liberal democracy as a political, economic, or social system could constitute the ultimate form of human governance. It posits an ultimate endpoint in sociocultural evolution.
In this climate of prevailing doom, it is refreshing to hear a voice of hope. That is what is offered by Hannah Ritchie, in her recent book, Not the End of the World, she declares her optimism about climate change and proves it by numbers.
Our World in Data, the Oxford University website, is one of the many blessings that the internet brings to us. The editor is Hannah Ritchie, a senior researcher at the University of Oxford in the Oxford Martin School. Her work focuses on sustainability, climate change, energy, food and agriculture, biodiversity, air pollution, deforestation, and public health (1).
The result of an international survey of the attitudes of 10,000 young people to climate change where more than half said they think humanity is doomed indicates the global pessimism on climate change. The perception of today’s young people is that they are the last generation.
Sustainability means “having a low environmental impact to protect future generations.” Our ancestors did have a low environmental impact because they did not have a high quality of life.
She mentions fondly her exposure to Hans Rosling, the Swedish scientist who made data come alive. She realised that her understanding of the world was wrong and that what she ought to do was to look at the long-term trends. She is a lead researcher at the groundbreaking Our World in Data, a web service run by Oxford University.
Parameters representing the quality of human life have improved substantially over the years. “Child mortality is now down to four per cent. Less than ten per cent of people live in extreme poverty.” Literacy and education have improved. The environment has borne the cost of all these advances. The most formidable cost is that of global warming due to the increasing accumulation of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere deposited by the burning of wood and fossil hydrocarbon fuels.
A story which says that things are turning around is emerging. The per-capita CO2 emissions in the UK in the last few decades have halved. That’s despite the fact there is a more extravagant lifestyle. The share of cumulative emissions of the UK, after peaking in 1800 has come down to 5 per cent of its peak levels. The US cumulative emissions peaked in 1950 and have come down close to 20 % of their peak value. These data have been corrected for the fact that goods supplied to these countries are being manufactured in developing countries.
In many countries where emissions have gone up, the GDP has shown steady growth. Cumulative Carbon Dioxide emissions appear to be tapering off and per capita emissions reached their peak a decade ago.
In many countries, renewables are replacing coal. Solar energy cost has plummeted substantially (99.8 %) after reaching a peak in 1970. “In many countries in the world, solar and wind power are the least expensive.”
Ever since 2017, the global sales of petrol and diesel cars have been falling. They are being replaced by electric cars.
Newspapers regularly report about the loss of forests resulting from agriculture and mining: Amazon forest disappearing is a regular warning. Global deforestation reached its peak decades ago and is now receding. There is a regular reforestation effort in many countries. Reclaiming and growing their old forests is happening.
An important reason for this is the increase in agricultural productivity yielding increased crop yields. Technology in the form of fertilizers, crop cycling and agricultural tools has been the reason for this. For all of our agricultural history, crop yields were low and stagnant. Her data for US Corn yields shows that the yields have grown from two tonnes to 12 tonnes: by a factor of six. Thus the land need is diminishing. The area of land dedicated to corn in the US has been static for over a century.
There was a time when the environment always had to pay for human progress. Our energy needs were met by burning fossil fuels. Growing more food meant clearing out forests to expand farmland. Advancements in technology allow us to decouple human progress and its negative environmental impact. Now if we need to provide a comfortable life to everybody without increasing our Carbon impact, it is possible. This is also true at a global scale when we want to feed the entire world.
For this to happen, low-carbon technologies need to become the default. Making them cheap and affordable is a way to do this. Solar and wind are already much less expensive than coal, electric vehicles are on the way to becoming cheaper than gasoline, and synthetic protein sources are slowly becoming cheaper than meat. Making these technologies superior to the existing ones is another way to do this.
Environmental messaging is often built on minimalism, shortages and sacrifice; which is an uninspiring vision. We need to change this. The future we are dreaming of building has to be found more attractive. For this, we need to project sustainability as an opportunity. It is indeed giving us a chance to provide clean, abundant energy for everyone, from cities or the countryside. It is connecting rural communities for the very first time. It’s about not being slaves to the fossil fuel markets or geopolitical events. It’s about clean air and the health advantages deriving from that. Air pollution has declined in US cities from 2005 to 2021.
Sustainability can also be affirmed if we redesign the way we live through a total redesign of our cities and our communities. We must recreate more bike and pedestrian-friendly cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Sustainability allows us to reframe the way we do things. Finally, we need to think of how to present our climate data to inspire, to show what the problems are, also what the solutions are, and we need to show real signs of progress from countries, individuals, and companies.
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