Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet
Hannah Ritchie 2024
“I often feel embarrassed to admit that I'm an optimist. I imagine it knocks me down a peg or two in people's estimations. But the world desperately needs more optimism. The problem is that people mistake optimism for 'blind optimism', the unfounded faith that things will just get better. Blind optimism really is dumb. And dangerous. If we sit back and do nothing, things will not turn out fine. That's not the kind of optimism I'm talking about. Optimism is seeing challenges as opportunities to make progress; it's having the confidence that there are things we can do to make a difference." Hannah Ritchie
How bad are things really? We've been hearing stories of environmental doomsday for decades, and it seems like very little has changed. Climate change is just the latest in a series of eco-disasters that looms over the future, and it has produced an unhealthy mix of denial and pessimism. Everything from "nothing to worry about? to "what's the point- we're doomed anyway?" Scientists have identified a number of worrying trends, from global warming to plastic in the oceans to biodiversity loss, and it all seems to be overwhelming.
Humanity cannot afford to give up. There will be no end of the world for another eight billion years when the sun explodes, so we'd better get busy and figure out how best to deal with these problems before they get too big and unwieldy. Some humans will still be alive in 2100. How we treat the earth now will determine the quality of their lives in the 22nd century.
These questions are at the heart of an interesting new book, Not the end of the world by Hannah Ritchie. Ritchie is a senior researcher at the University of Oxford, writer, and researcher for Our World in Data, a fascinating global database encompassing a wide variety of planetary issues.
When it comes to hope or despair, Ritchie is on the side of hope. She was inspired by Hans Rosling, the Swedish scientist who has challenged assumptions about how bad things are by showing how much they have improved- especially in the third world. Hers is not a blind optimism- she remains tethered to scientific methods and data, and somehow she still sees a path to sustainability and progress.
Sustainability is defined as having two components- providing adequate resources for the present while not degrading the environment for future generations. Currently, humanity is doing a lousy job on both fronts. Things could definitely be better and fairer today, while few of us seem to care about a legacy for the future. Ritchie goes into seven major problem areas and does a good job at summarizing where we are and how to get where we want to go. They are:
Air Pollution- too much burning in 20th century led to bad air in cities. An estimated 7 million people die every year from air pollution. Things are slowly getting better,even in China, but more needs to be done.
Deforestation. One third of forests are gone due to humans, and more are disappearing, especially in the Amazon. The best ways to minimize this involve improved crop yields and less land for cattle and palm oil.
Food shortages. Crop yields have skyrocketed since the introductions of fertilizers and better crops. There is enough food produced to feed the entire world easily, but much is wasted and much is used for feeding livestock and making biofuels.
Biodiversity. The living planet index is the most recognized measure of biodiversity, and it has dropped 69% since 1970. Species have disappeared and/or been threatened with extinction. Humans and their livestock now represent 96% of all mammal biomass. There has been progress in bringing back whales and elephants, but more needs to be done to set aside animal refuges.
Ocean Plastics. Plastic debris has been accumulating in our oceans for decades, with the worst of it coming from Asian countries. These eventually break down to microplastics, which are now found everywhere. More needs to be done to clean up spots like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and new technologies are emerging that will hopefully do that.
Overfishing. Some believe that there's a danger that our taste for seafood is unsustainable and that the oceans will be empty in a few decades. The reality is a mixed bag- some areas are depleting while others are recovering. Also, farmed fish is becoming much more common, which puts less pressure on wild-caught fish from trawlers and nets. The Monteray Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch is a great resource to find sustainable fish to eat.
Climate change is the wild card that can make all of these much worse. The large amounts of carbon pollution in our atmosphere is making things hotter everywhere. While we are currently 1.5°C above historical norms, we are currently headed towards 2.5-2.9°C at current rates. This will lead to unknown changes in weather extremes, food production, and living conditions worldwide. Global CO2 emissions may have already peaked, but much needs to be done to get down to carbon net zero, which is the goal.
This book is surprisingly not full of gloom and doom. All of these substantial problems are solvable according to the author. Ritchie is a glass half-full optimist, and she presents her points well. There's much to admire in the progress of the last fifty years- longer life expectancy, cleaner water, lower child and maternal mortality rates, less hunger, and improvements in education- mostly in what used to be called third-world countries. Here in the USA we still have it pretty good, but bad decisions of the past are starting to catch up with us and other industrialized nations, so we tend to be more glass half-empty people.
Climate optimism is a danger, however, if it prevents meaningful action. There are tough, systematic changes that need to be enacted, and with fossil fuel companies spreading disinformation, it will be tough to get the support necessary to do them. The book glosses over the political and economic forces that shroud the science of the environment. Somewhere there has to be a balance between urgency and optimism. Too much urgency and we act rashly and recklessly. Too much optimism and we don't act much at all. Somehow mankind has to figure this out.
My favorite parts of the book are where the author challenges popular ideas about environmentalism. Recycling and efficient light bulbs are nice, but make little dent in the problems. Organic foods are healthier for some, but unsustainable if you expect the whole planet to live that way. Natural disasters may be worse with climate change, but improved forecasting has made them much less deadly.
The solutions to making the world more sustainable cannot be found at the individual level- they must be systemic. Food distribution needs to be less wasteful and less focused on meat, especially beef. Farming needs to maximize yields to prevent further deforestation. We have to stop burning stuff in our cars and homes, and find ways to put a price on carbon and incentives to capture it to fight back against climate change. Every tenth of a degree matters in the future.
This book covers a lot of ground and shows that so many of our environmental problems today are interconnected. You can't solve one without looking at the others. Mankind has never lived sustainably in the past, with bad results when we outgrew our resources. The challenge of the 21st century is to become more sustainable, both for those in the present and for those in the future. Food for thought.
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