Ronald Bailey on Latest Worldwatch Doom and Gloom
Writing for Reason magazine, Ronald Bailey recently took the Worldwatch Institute to task for the latest installment of its annual Vital Signs report. As Bailey notes, the main problem with Worldwatch is that it rather than provide a balanced account of legitimate environmental concerns as well as progress, Worldwatch consistently accentuates the negative.
Bailey writes,
But Worldwatch’s future looks so dark because it has omitted so much that is promising about the present. Even Worldwatch admits that the world’s economy continues to expand, rising in 1999 dollars from $6.4 trillion in 1950 to $43.2 trillion in 2000. Global per capita income (which is, to be sure, not evenly distributed) rose from $2,502 in 1950 to $7,102 in 2000. Yet, despite 192 pages of diagnosis, the report leaves out what many people would consider to be the most vital sign of all: longer human life. Global average life expectancy rose from around 46 years in 1950 to 66 years today and is expected to rise to 73 years by 2025, according to the World Health Organization.
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Conspicuously absent from Vital Signs is any discussion of air pollution trends in the developed world. Since 1976 in the United States, ambient levels of sulfur dioxide are down 65 percent; nitrogen oxides, down 37 percent; ozone, down 27 percent; carbon monoxide, down67 percent, and particulates, down 26 percent. Keep in mind that air pollution fell while U.S. population grew from 218 million in 1976 to 281 million in 2000, and that the economy grew in real 1996 dollars from $4.3 trillion in 1976 to over $10 trillion today. Wealthier, it turns out, is cleaner.
Nor does Vital Signs note that, in both the United States and Europe, forest area is expanding. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s Committee on Forestry, forests are expanding at a rate of 750, 000 acres per year in Europe and nearly 1 million acres per year in the United States. Forest area in the U.S. has increased by more than 10 million acres since 1987. Prosperity and ecological health are clearly not antithetical.
Even when championing its pet projects like alternative energy, Worldwatch can get its facts straight. According to Bailey, Worldwatch claims that in 2000 nuclear energy “inches up” while solar energy “soars.” As Bailey notes, the reality is that in 2000 alone 2 gigawatts worth of nuclear energy were added worldwide while a mere 87 megawatts of solar power came online. For every one megawatt of solar energy, roughly 22 megawatts of nuclear power were added. That’s hardly merely inching up unless, as Worldwatch is almost certainly doing, you only consider percentage increases.
The truly distressing vital sign is that these annual reports still are taken seriously by so many policy makers and academics.
Source:
Misdiagnosing Earth: The Worldwatch Institute’s gloomy Vital Signs 2001 can’t bear good news. Ronald Bailey, Reason, May 30, 2001.
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