=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #485
March 14, 1996
News and resources for environmental justice.
==========
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@rachel.clark.net
==========
Back Issues | Index | Official Gopher Archive
To subscribe, send E-mail to rachel-weekly-request@world.std.com
with the single word SUBSCRIBE in the message. It’s free.
===Previous Issue==========================================Next Issue===
THE STATE OF HUMANITY
The recent outpouring of hefty “feel good” books has not let up.
Last year the book world was buzzing about Gregg Easterbrook’s
700-page A MOMENT ON THE EARTH, which tried to make the case that
most of our environmental problems have already been solved.
Close analysis revealed that Easterbrook’s optimism was based on
errors, selective omissions, and deliberate misinformation. [1]
(See, for example, REHW #437.)
Now comes Julian Simon, a professor at University of Maryland
with an even rosier view of the human prospect.
Simon’s new book, THE STATE OF HUMANITY, concludes that, “We have
in our hands now–actually, in our libraries–the technology to
feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for
the next seven billion years. Most amazing is that most of this
specific body of knowledge was developed within just the past two
centuries or so, though it rests on basic knowledge that had
accumulated for millennia, of course.
“Indeed, the last necessary additions to this body of technology
–nuclear fission and space travel –occurred decades ago. Even
if no new knowledge were ever invented after those advances, we
would be able to go on increasing our population forever, while
improving our standard of living and our control over our
environment.”[2,pg.26]
As you can probably tell from this quotation, Simon is the Crazy
Eddie of “feel good,” and his latest book is nearly 700 pages of
optimism for the human prospect, including optimism for the
natural environment.
The book is divided into 58 chapters written by 67 authors,
crammed with charts, graphs and tables. It is an information
storehouse of prodigious proportions, particularly historical
information. When I began reading it, I thought, “What a
treasure! This is like finding a huge bag full of $100 bills!”
However, as I read deeper into the book, I began to discover that
much of the treasure is counterfeit, and many of the optimistic
conclusions are bogus. Worse, most readers may not be able to
distinguish what’s real from what’s fake.
Still the book has some value. It reminds us again and again of
the real progress that humans made between 1750 and 1950. Infant
mortality decreased dramatically, working conditions improved for
tens of millions of people, technology opened up vast
opportunities for travel, education and enjoyment of life for
huge numbers. Diet improved, life expectancy increased,
opportunity expanded. Democracy and freedom spread. These
things are true, and it is worthwhile reflecting on the real
progress humans have made.
However Simon is so determined to accentuate the positive that he
ignores almost completely the serious negative countercurrents
that give our own age its bitter-sweet tinge:
** We live in an age of perpetual wars, with anywhere from 20 to
30 major wars going on simultaneously around the globe. More
than 90% of the people killed in these wars are civilians, [3]
largely in developing nations supplied with modern weaponry by
the rich nations ($36 billion worth of armaments in 1992
alone [4]). At a cost of less than half their military
expenditures, developing countries could initiate basic health
services and clinical care that would save 10 million lives each
year. [4] For their part, the rich nations spend on armaments
each year an amount equivalent to the total income of the world’s
poorest 2 billion people. [4] In describing historical trends,
Simon hardly mentions the increase in wars, the buildup of
armaments, and the anti-life priorities, all clearly major
byproducts of modernity. Simon merely predicts (pg. 654) that
war will be less likely in the future as “land becomes less
important relative to other assets”–a prediction that seems
dubious at best because human population is growing and the
amount of available land is not.
** Humans now appropriate 25% of earth’s total net primary
production (NPP). [5] Net primary production is the amount of
energy captured in photosynthesis by primary producers
(blue-green plants that photosynthesize, thus turning carbon
dioxide and water into carbohydrates) minus the energy used in
their own growth and reproduction. NPP is thus the basic food
resource for everything on earth that is not capable of
photosynthesis. Humans are now thought to be using for their own
purposes 25% of global NPP and 40% of NPP on the land. If this
estimate is correct, it means that 2 more population doublings
(which will occur in about 80 years), will leave nothing for any
species besides humans–a prospect that must give pause to even
those with a totally human-centered world-view. Simon simply
ignores this trend. (Simon sees us migrating into outer space on
nuclear-powered rockets after we have filled this planet.
Interestingly, Gregg Easterbrook imagined the same “escape hatch”
for a humanity that can’t seem to prevent itself from fouling its
own nest.)
** In the developed world, human health is declining. On this
topic, Simon includes a surprising amount of bad news in an essay
titled “Trends in Health in the U.S. Population: 1957-1989,” by
Eileen M. Crimmins and Dominique G. Ingegneri:
In 1957, the U.S. government initiated the National Health
Interview Survey; each year some 100,000 non-institutionalized
individuals in 40,000 households are surveyed. Two measures of
health have been taken consistently since 1957: “limitation of
activity” and “restricted activity days.” Both are measures of
the prevalence of ill health.
“Limitation of activity” is a measure of long-term disability,
disability that is due to chronic conditions and diseases and
usually has lasted at least 3 months. A person is limited in
activity when he or she has difficulty performing his or her
usual activity, or the activity that is normal for his or her age
group. (pg. 73)
“Restricted activity days” is designed to measure short-term
disability. The respondent is asked how many days during the
past two weeks he or she had to cut down on normal activity
because of health. Because restricted activity can be due to
either acute conditions, like colds and sore throats, or chronic
conditions, like heart disease, it is an indicator of the level
of both acute and chronic illness. (pg. 73)
Among the whole U.S. population during the period 1957 to 1989,
“activity limitation” has increased 43%. Between 1961 and 1989,
the number of “restricted activity days” increased 28%. These
measures indicate substantial increases in both chronic and acute
ill health among Americans during the last 30 years.
Crimmins and Ingegneri note that, “…other empirical work has
tended to confirm the idea that the health of the population has
deteriorated in the United States in recent years. Findings of
this nature have been reported in a large number of studies based
on National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data like those
presented here. These include studies of health change at all
ages, as well as studies concentrating on segments of the
population including children, the working-age population, and
parts of the older population. Examination of health or
disability change using other data, such as the decennial [every
10 year] census and the Current Population Survey, have reached
similar conclusions for the working age population.” (pg. 77)
Health deterioration has also been investigated in a variety of
other countries where mortality is low and continuing to decline.
Surveys have shown deteriorating health in Canada during the
1970s, Australia during the 1980s, Great Britain from the 1970s
through the mid-1980s, and Japan from the 1950s through the
1980s. (pg. 77)
Simon’s book offers only one hypothesis for this decline in
health throughout the developed world: more frail people are
being kept alive. This hypothesis is perhaps attractive to Simon
and his colleagues at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.,,
where economic Darwinism (“only the fittest survive”) is still a
popular idea. But alternative hypotheses are certainly possible:
the modern “junk food” diet that is so common among young people
may be partly responsible, combined with a lack of exercise. In
addition, chemical exposures, which are certainly occurring, seem
to be degrading the immune systems of humans, giving rise to
increased infections and autoimmune disorders such as asthma,
arthritis and diabetes. Simon ignores these factors. (See REHW #318, #374, #414, #417, for example.)
To maintain his ever-optimistic view, Simon relies upon the same
techniques Easterbrook employed: misinformation, specious
comparisons, and selective omissions.
Misinformation: For example, Simon says, “Fear is rampant about
rapid rates of species extinction. The fear has little or no
basis.” (pg. 15) But the evidence from the fossil record is that
extinctions are occurring today 10 to 100 times faster than
natural background (pre-human) rates of extinction, and in some
regions the rate is 1000 times background. (See REHW #441.)
There IS genuine cause for concern.
Selective omissions and specious comparisons: For example, Simon
says, “The Great Lakes are not dead; instead they offer better
sport fishing than ever.” (pg. 22) First, no one ever said the
Great Lakes were dead. Second, in some of the Lakes (Michigan
and Erie, for example) sport fishing is only able to thrive
because governments stock the Lakes with hatchery-bred fish each
year. Literally hundreds of studies have shown that fish, birds,
and mammals in the lakes have had their reproductive systems
damaged by chemical contamination. (See REHW #263, #264.)
Third, each year state and provincial governments in the U.S. and
Canada issue book-length catalogs listing coves and bays
throughout the Great Lakes where it is not safe to eat the fish.
Fourth, there is substantial evidence that humans who often eat
fish from the Great Lakes give birth to children who are stunted
physically and mentally. (See REHW #411.)
Yes, humans made important progress between 1750 and 1950. Is
the progress continuing? The record is clearly mixed. Good news
today is nearly always accompanied by real side-effects that are
genuinely bad. If we continue on our present path, does the
future look rosy? Simon thinks so, but, like Gregg Easterbrook
before him, to maintain this rose-colored view he is forced to
ignore or dismiss important trends, ask and answer irrelevant
(“straw man”) questions, and make specious comparisons. It is
probably very rewarding to write “feel good” books, but the way
these fellows do it is intellectually dishonest.
                                                                    
–Peter Montague
===============
[1] Gregg Easterbrook, A MOMENT ON THE EARTH (New York: Viking
Penguin, 1995)
Descriptor terms: overviews; global environmental problems;
human health; juliam simon; gregg easterbrook; war; population
growth; land use; loss of species; great lakes; endocrine
disrupters;