THE ENVIRONMENT

Evangelical environmentalists and social engineers have made headlines for years predicting that we will run out of resources and destroy the world. These predictions have been mostly wrong. But it is important they keep up their alarmist pressure. That is healthy. I shall explain why being wrong is right later.

Cyprian in 250 wrote, “The world is getting old. The rainfall and sun’s warmth are both diminishing and metals are nearly exhausted.” “The world is in a rush and is getting closer to its end,” claimed Archbishop Wulfstan in 1014.

Malthus predicted population would outstrip food production. Dead wrong. In the U.S., food production in 50 years rose over 700%. Production in developing countries has tripled in less than 50 years. It’s true the world’s population has doubled in 45 years but it will even out and fall as freedoms and prosperity grow. Even now, if everyone in the world was put into groups of 4 and given a quarter acre, they would fill just over half the Australian State of Queensland.

Remember the Club of Rome predicted in 1972 that gold would be exhausted in 1981, tin by 1987, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993? Science Digest predicted an ice age in the 1970’s.

Economist Stanley Jevons predicted in 1800 that Great Britain would lose her superpower status because Britain would run out of coal. Bill Gates famously failed to grasp the importance of the Internet, and the fertile imagination of Alexander Graham Bell thought the phonograph he invented would largely be used to record wills.

I thought in the 1970’s after reading Orwell’s “1984” that Big Brother Government and the great Corporations would use the power of technology to control their people. I was wrong. The people are watching Big Brother.

The Internet, faxes, cell phones tell the world what’s happening. We learnt about Tiennamen Square from faxes and telephones. Journalists from Peru to the U.S. have caught corrupt politicians on camera. The cleansing air of information forces change and exposes bad business people and bad politicians. All this is healthy and, more important, we learn from mistakes.

The SARS scare was covered up for a while but that doesn’t work anymore. Now that SARS seems to have receded, the world has learnt a valuable lesson. The World Health Organization did its job and will be better prepared next time. So will Governments and the public.

Why did I say earlier it’s good that alarmist groups grab headlines with extreme predictions? Because they, by their actions, force politicians, the media, business and the public to pay attention. These predictions might come true if nothing is done.

Fifty years ago the pollution in the Great Lakes on the border of the U.S. and Canada was so polluted the water caught fire. People died of pollution. The public demanded results. Politicians who don’t listen and don’t find answers are quickly unemployed. The political market, given information, works. The Thames and the Great Lakes are now cleaner than they have been for 100 years. London doesn’t suffer from the killer smog it did just 30 years ago.

New Delhi and Beijing are polluted. They are as bad as London was a generation ago.

Simon Kuznet won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1971 for his work on developing an economic model showing that as incomes rose, people demanded better environmental and social outcomes. Poor countries, according to Kuznet’s curve, go through a process of creating growth at the cost of the environment, but once income hits a higher level, they seek other outcomes. Taiwan and South Korea are good examples.

Poverty is the biggest threat to the environment. Once true prices are put into real costs, the business world responds. Conservation is just another word for efficiency. The U.S. uses less steel than it did 20 years ago.

Activists worldwide, thanks to the Internet, mobilise against Governments and companies who ignore human rights and damage the environment. Corporate responsibility is a growth industry. Businesses don’t want to face angry protesters or furious shareholders at annual general meetings. They value their reputations. So we owe a duty of care and respect even to the false prophets.

It was the activists who lead the campaign to stop slavery, advance civil rights in the U.S., save the whales, protect the forests and isolate apartheid in South Africa and human rights abuse in Burma.

However, I wish some of the NGO’s, which now number 30,000, were as democratic and transparent as some of the organisations they criticise, like the WTO.

I have been a member of all the great causes, Greenpeace and Amnesty International. But come to think about it, I’ve never been invited to a meeting or been asked my opinions. Only asked for donations.

Perhaps we need an NGO to watch the NGO’s? They are big business. WWF has a budget many times greater than that of the WTO. Yet the world would be a poorer place without them.