Alarmist views miss mark

I recently took part in a week-long series of seminars on sustainable development. Held in several European capitals, it was organised by Edmonds Management, which is based in Switzerland.

I'm hopeful that the case I put will have offended some of the doomsday merchants who make a living out of predicting doom unless they get their way.

But this is an old song. In 250AD, St Cyprian of Carthage proclaimed: "The world has grown old. The rainfall and sun's warmth are both diminishing, the metals are nearly exhausted."

In 1014AD, Archbishop Wulfstan declared: "The world is in a rush and getting to its end."

Bad news is good news for newspapers, talkback hosts and some politicians. It sells newspapers, inflates ratings, buys votes and makes for stimulating dinner-party conversation. This alarmist world view is pervasive and taken as gospel by many who believe that the world is in steady and inevitable decline.

The only problem with the alarmist world view is that it is wrong on nearly every count. In the 1800s, economist Stanley Jevons predicted that Britain would be destroyed as a superpower because it would run out of coal. Thomas Malthus thought rising populations would lead to mass famines, and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring predicted in 1962 that artificial chemicals would wipe us out within 20 years. Science Digest predicted a new Ice Age in the 1970s. Yet within a few years, equally reputable scientists were suggesting we were more likely to end up in a global sauna.

In 1980, acid rain was going to kill all the forests in North America and Europe. It didn't happen. Remember the Club of Rome predicting, in The Limits To Growth, that gold would be exhausted by 1981, tin by 1987, petroleum by 1992 and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993?

In the 1920s, most US farms didn't have electricity. The pollution level of the River Thames contributed to the cholera epidemics between 1831 and 1866 that killed more than 35,000 people. In 1861, it carried the typhoid disease believed to have killed Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert.

In 1950, large stretches of the river were devoid of oxygen because of pollution, rendering it almost dead. Now people fish and swim in the river. Pollution counts are hugely down in developed economies.

It may not be fashionable to say this but life is getting better and it's partly because of the alarmists. Free societies respond to crises; public opinion shifts politicians; answers are found.

It is not a historic anomaly that the worst environmental and social outcomes are from closed economies of the far left and the far right. Without an active civil society pushing for better outcomes, creating public opinion to which politicians and bureaucrats must respond, the worst happens.

Democracy is a necessity for development, as well as a principle and a human right.

Let's look at some key indicators. In 50 years, life expectancy has gone up by 20 years and infant mortality has halved. The average person in the OECD born today will live to 100 years. This is portrayed as a pension and health-care crisis. But it's good news.

In the 10 years from 1990, the percentage of people with access to good sanitation rose from 78per cent to 84per cent in urban areas, and from 29per cent to 36per cent in rural communities. This is real progress.

The world's population has doubled since 1961, but we now produce more food per capita. Food production in the developing world has tripled in that time. Super-wheat and super-rice have saved millions of lives. The man who invented the crops received the Nobel prize for peace. (Nowadays, some people would want to destroy his laboratory.)

The percentage of people suffering from starvation in the developing world has fallen from 45per cent in 1949, to 35per cent in 1970, to 18per cent in 1997 and the UN expects that the figure to have fallen to 12per cent by 2010. Living standards are also improving worldwide. The UN reports more progress in alleviating poverty in the developing world in the past 50 years than in the previous 500.

It's true a child dies of poor sanitation every second and more than 2billion people don't have access to a private toilet. But the situation is undeniably better and can improve, given sane economic and political conditions.