With all the gloom and doom being pushed today, the title of this book is one of certain optimism. WUWT reader may recognize the author, Indur M. Goklany, a frequent WUWT contributor. I highly recommend his book, both for the positive outlook and for the factual discourse. – Anthony
Many people believe that globalization and its key components have made matters worse for humanity and the environment. Indur M. Goklany exposes this as a complete myth and challenges people to consider how much worse the world would be without them. Goklany confronts foes of globalization and demonstrates that economic growth, technological change and free trade helped to power a cycle of progress that in the last two centuries enabled unprecedented improvements in every objective measurement of human well-being.
His analysis is accompanied by an extensive range of charts, historical data, and statistics. The Improving State of the World represents an important contribution to the environment versus development debate and collects in one volume for the first time the long-term trends in a broad array of the most significant indicators of human and environmental well-being, and their dependence on economic development and technological change.
While noting that the record is more complicated on the environmental front, the author shows how innovation, increased affluence and key institutions have combined to address environmental degradation. The author notes that the early stages of development can indeed cause environmental problems, but additional development creates greater wealth allowing societies to create and afford cleaner technologies.
Development becomes the solution rather than the problem. He maintains that restricting globalization would therefore hamper further progress in improving human and environmental well-being, and surmounting future environmental or natural resource limits to growth. **Key points from the book** * The rates at which hunger and malnutrition have been decreasing in India since 1950 and in China since 1961 are striking. By 2002 China’s food supply had gone up 80%, and India’s increased by 50%.
Overall, these types of increases in the food supply have reduced chronic undernourishment in developing countries from 37 to 17%, despite an overall 83% growth in their populations. * Economic freedom has increased in 102 of the 113 countries for which data is available for both 1990 and 2000. * Disability in the older population of such developed countries as the U.S., Canada, France, are in decline. In the U.S. for example, the disability rate dropped 1.3 % each year between 1982 and 1994 for persons aged 65 and over. * Between 1970 and the early 2000s, the global illiteracy rated dropped from 46 to 18 percent. * Much of the improvements in the United States for the air and water quality indicators preceded the enactment of stringent national environmental laws as the Clean Air Act of 1970, Clean Water Act of 1972, and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. * Between 1897-1902 and 1992-1994, the U.S. retail prices of flour, bacon and potatoes relative to per capita income, dropped by 92, 85, and 82 percent respectively. And, the real global price of food commodities has declined 75% since 1950.
From the Back Cover
“This optimistic view of the impact of economic growth and technological change on human welfare is an antidote to the prophecies of an imminent age of gloom and doom.”
-Robert W. Fogel, Nobel Laureate in Economics
“Provocative, illuminating, sharp, and fact filled. Do you think that economic growth is a problem for the environment? Goklany will make you think again. Whether or not you’re convinced by his arguments, you’ll learn a ton from them.”
-Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago, author of Laws of Fear
“Goklany does an excellent job of refuting the global pessimists by documenting the dramatic improvements experienced in recent times by humankind, not only in the developed world, but worldwide. Goklany addresses a vast array of issues from the improving state of humanity’s life expectancy to his examination of the promise and peril of bioengineered crops. The vast breadth of Goklany’s inquiry is impressive, as is his exhaustive documentation.”
– Roger A. Sedjo, Resources for the Future
“A remarkable compendium of information at odds with the present fashionable pessimism, Goklany’s The Improving State of the World, published by the Cato Institute, reveals that, contrary to popular belief, it is the poorest who are enjoying the most dramatic rise in living standards. Refuting a central premise of the modern green movement, it also demonstrates that as countries become richer, they also become cleaner, healthier and more environmentally conscious. the full review
“In a book to be published next month entitled The Improving State of the World, Indur Goklany, of the Cato Institute, argues that the world’s state is, well, improving. He produces figures to demonstrate that chronic undernourishment has gone down in the past 50 years, we are living longer, we are healthier, the basic necessities of life are cheaper, literacy has gone up and so has educational attainment, economic freedom has increased and a larger proportion of mankind than ever enjoys political freedom. the full article
“Goklany’s essential message in his book, The Improving State of the World, is that the world over, more people are already, or are fast becoming, more blessed than they’ve ever been by a considerable margin. article
“What Goklany concludes is that massive progress has been made in so many areas as a result of the positive impact of economic growth, technological progress and more liberal trade. It’s clear that never have more people had access to education, health care, food, clean water and an improving environment.”
-Michael Campbell, Vancouver Sun
GM says: Do you realize the absurdity of that statement?
And do you, sirrah, realize you are blowing off a very very well done presentation of the actual physics you so frequently wave about without knowing why?
I can only surmise you did not read two key parts of that posting (for which I thank Poptech, as it is very well done):
(Peter Huber, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT)
Mech E. folks study thermodynamics rather a lot. More than just about anyone else on the planet and with great depth. Ph.D and MIT say he’s most likely one of the very best at it.
In this entropic universe we occupy, the production of one unit of high-grade energy always requires more than one unit of low-grade energy at the outset. There are no exceptions. Put another way, Eroei–a sophomoric form of thermodynamic accounting–is always negative and always irrelevant.
The three laws of thermodynamics assure this. As a ‘sophomoric’ paraphrase you ought to be able to grasp:
1) You can’t win.
2) You can’t break even.
3) You can’t quit the game.
Any energy generation system will have a net increase in entropy and so a net “loss” of some of the energy “invested”. As Dr. Huber points out, the balance is always to the negative side. Energy runs down hill and you can’t stop it, all you can do is put more in than you take out in exchange for moving some of it up hill to a more desired form.
This is where the saying that in order to think that infinite economic growth is possible you have to be either a madman or an economist.
Ah, back to your hatred of Economists, I see. Still not learned that Malthus IS an economist and that your preferred mind-set IS classical economics. Just amazing.
From U.C. Berkeley: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/malthus.html
(I hope you will accept them as something of an authority… being from the left leaning fringe and embracing the thesis of our demise at the hands of an angry Gaia…)
From the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus
So can you at least admit that the Malthusian Doctrine which you so passionately embrace IS economics? That it is largely Economists who promulgated the idea, explored it, and presented it to the world? Perhaps even going so far as to recognize that Malthus is required in Economics education? (I’ve still got my Econ texts and can quote to you chapter and page the readings…)
If you can not accept that what you are advocating is a position straight out of Classical Economics, that is, The Malthusian Doctrine, then I can see no hope of rational discourse.
What exactly governs what happens in the world we live in? Physics or economics?
“Yes.”
Your question is of the form: “Did you walk to school or bring your lunch?”. It is not an ‘exclusive or’ it is an ‘inclusive or’.
And physics tells us that all energy production runs down hill. We can but divert part of the flow (from higher energy in, to lower energy out than was in the original form) to serve our needs. We can pump some entropy backwards, but only by making MORE entropy net. While economics tells us which sources to use first for this diversion effort. And if it is to burn more natural gas than ends up in electricity and “waste” half in the process, well, that’s just fine
Is the economy a subsystem of the natural world or is it the other way around?
MU! (The question is ill formed.)
Economics describes part of the natural world and how we operate in it.
E.M.Smith says:
September 30, 2010 at 8:57 am
Energy runs down hill and you can’t stop it
Except for LIFE: Nature’s trick to overcome entropy.
But that’s only one way of the emission wave: To the outside. Alchemists (the one who dealt with psychological alchemy) directed their efforts to within.
People might also like his book “The Precautionary Principle”
GM has been likened on these pages to Sheldon Cooper, the self-assured-but-clueless genius on “The Big Bang Theory”. Personally, I see him more as the character Matthew Harrison Brady from the film “Inherit the Wind”: dogmatic, scientifically (and economically) illiterate, thumping his infallible bible (“The Limits to Growth”, with EROEI as his god), and of course utterly indifferent to facts.
And when our version of Henry Drummond (E M Smith) shows up, the “movie” really gets good!
Pass the popcorn, please.
It is sad to see these tired analogies injected repeatedly into these discussions. GM will cry innocence but they are far to common for that. I am sure GM believes all skeptics of AGW alarm and Peak Oil doomsday scenarios are religious believers in creationism. I am sorry to disappoint him by informing him I support evolution theory.
Lets try a proper analogy, it is like listing the credentials of a Nobel Prize winning economist when you are trying the argument that he is an authority on economics.
Crazy, I know.
To be read alongside Mark Steyn’s cheerful doom and gloom bestseller, “America Alone”. Ironically perhaps, I believe the fundamental thesis of both books are correct: The world is getting better, as measured by quality of life, environmental and developmental standards. And also, the world is getting worse by political and demographic standards, to the point that the West is in danger of selling its own birthright to those who would love nothing better than to raze it to its foundations. And if the west falls, so may all the liberties and core values that have helped us make these gains on the other side of things. Even as we observe an end to the “big wars” on a global scale we are watching the emergence of another kind of global war that would engulf us if we do not respond with conviction and with wisdom.
Incidentally, how about a review of Ezra Levant’s new book, “Ethical Oil”, a defense of the Alberta Oilsands on the basis of ethics?
Incidentally, how about a review of Ezra Levant’s new book, “Ethical Oil”, a defense of the Alberta Oilsands on the basis of ethics? Consideration of the environment, human rights, economic, and terrorism considerations all place the Oilsands above the natural alternatives.
I read the synopsis. While I firmly support getting oil from Alberta’s Oil Sands, I disagree with the premise that we can use it to replace oil from Mexico, the Middle East and Russia. It can merely supplement it as nothing on the planet (yet discovered) can replace the Ghawar field, let alone the oil reserves of the rest of those countries.
Anyone preaching energy independence just has not looked at the numbers.
Goklany’s book is over three years old; it was published in January 2007. There might be some details that are no longer true, but I’m confident almost all of the book is still right on. The rest of this note is a copy of my review at amazon.com; I’ve not reread the book, but I think the review is still accurate.
The title is “The Improving State of the World” and Goklany shows the state of the world is improving. By nearly every measure of human wellbeing, we are better off than we used to be. Life expectancy is increasing. Starvation and malnourishment is decreasing. The air is cleaner. The water is cleaner. Child labor is less prevalent. Literacy is increasing. Personal income is increasing. There are many more. The good news applies to the world as a whole, the developed world, and the developing world. But this is not just cheering for the status quo. He identifies the exceptions to the general trends, and does it for each of the measures of wellbeing. Most of the exceptions are in Africa south of the Sahara, and in the former soviet empire.
The subtitle is “Why we’re living longer, healthier, more comfortable lives on a cleaner planet”. The reason is technology, economic growth, human capital, education, the rule of law, and private property, all linked together in many interconnected “virtuous cycles.” For example, economic growth means more money to buy technology such as fertilizer and tractors which means more food and less hunger, and time for education so more children can make even better technology and sell it for less to more well fed, less sick, longer lived people who can use their energy for economic growth. With better infrastructure, less food rots before it is eaten, so less land is needed for farms so there is more room for biodiversity. With economic security, families tend to be smaller. Each improvement makes improvements in other areas more likely.
The book was published by Cato Institute, the well known conservative think tank. Liberals should consider the message, rather than the messenger. You don’t get up before dawn and look west just because Hitler said the sun rises in the east.
It is easy to evaluate the arguments and check the claims in the 420 pages of text. There are 85 pages of notes. Most of the links in the virtuous cycles are fully explained by statistics. There are a few places were Goklany resorts to qualitative explanations, but these are clearly stated to be not quantitative. The statistical data is used more fairly than in any other work I can recall. Almost all the time series analysis uses all the data available; the few exceptions are explained and justified. He uses data from advocates of positions opposite what he will conclude. For example, he accepts the data from IPCC and uses it in his analysis that shows adaptation to changing climate is better than intervention to try to prevent the change. He uses consistent rules for fitting trend lines. Sometimes, there are different statistics that seem to be about the same reality. He sometimes explains why one source might be undercounting or overcounting. He often will do the analysis with both sets of data.
Some of Goklany’s arguments clearly follow Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. People do not care about the environment when they are hungry. People do not care about quality of life next year when they are concerned about surviving this year. Economic growth allows people to care about the environment. Technical advances allow them to do something about it.
The tone is level and matter of fact. This is not a hate book, but some will hate some of the conclusions. He presents the arguments for other conclusions fairly. Those that reach other conclusions are not portrayed as evil or stupid, or even as paid shills of some vast conspiracy.
The book is optimistic about our future, with the emphasis on what is good for people. He does not praise or deplore large families, but notes the strong trend towards smaller families as wealth increases. Wealth brings health and less infant mortality, so an increase in population, but increased family size happens only for a while.
The conclusions Goklany reaches will seem correct to more conservatives than Liberals. The book will not appeal to the extremes of either political wing, but it could be a big help to most of us in the middle that wonder what we can do to help humanity.
This is not an entertaining read. There is a lot of information to absorb. There are many steps in some of the virtuous cycles. Some of the vicious cycles Goklany debunks have to be examined in detail to show they are wrong. You do not have to read it straight through to benefit from this book. The next time you are invited on a crusade or bandwagon, pause and check it out. Use the detailed index and find out all sides of the issue. You might find enough information to satisfy yourself in just a few pages. But most things influence most other things and you might want to dig
deeper. You might find you have read half the book by the time you cover all the issues that are related to the topic that was your starting point.
This is an important and excellent book. I highly recommend it.
@ur momisugly Chuck Bradley:
You can only read that kind of nonsense and believe if you are completely ecologically (and generally scientifically) illiterate.
Setting side the many objections to the factual accuracy of the claims in that kind of books (sure, there is less pollution in the West, but that’s only because all the manufacturing and associated pollution has been exported to the developing countries where we don’t see it, which doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen; that sort of thing), the basic premise that you can somehow judge the state of humanity by the superficial appearance of prosperity at the present is total madness.
I can sell my house and all my other property, add it to the money I have in the bank and blow it on living like a king for a short period of time. It will look as if I am doing very well to anyone who doesn’t know that I am blowing all my capital while doing it, but the reality will be that what I’ll be doing is still extremely stupid and shortsighted and I will be much much worse when that capital is gone than I was before that.
This is exactly what humanity is doing right now
GM says:
“You can only read that kind of nonsense and believe if you are completely ecologically (and generally scientifically) illiterate.” That is pure projection by a true scientific illiterate.
Next, GM says:
“…there is less pollution in the West, but that’s only because all the manufacturing and associated pollution has been exported to the developing countries where we don’t see it…” & blah, blah, etc.
Wrong. Absolutely, mindlessly wrong. For one of a myriad of examples, all U.S. manufactured cars are much cleaner and more pollution-free today than cars of even twenty years ago. Emissions now consist almost entirely of equally harmless CO2 and H2O. Future automobiles will be cleaner yet. So much for GM’s false claim that all the manufacturing has been exported. Rather, companies like Toyota, Honda, etc. have built manufacturing plants in the U.S.
Finally, GM had better start worrying about what Obama has done to his taxes, starting in 2011 – only three months away. For a short list showing how the country has been screwed over by this clueless president and his hated Congress, see here: BOHICA
The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.
~Ecc. 10-2
Poptech says:
September 30, 2010 at 5:05 am
Nuclear:
… Uranium resources sufficient to meet projected nuclear energy requirements long into the future (Nuclear Energy Agency)
Nuclear only provides about 6-7% of the world’s energy needs. And the quoted article says there is “at least a century” worth of uranium left at present rates. So if energy needs don’t increase, then there is enough proven reserves uranium to power the world as a whole for at least 6-7 years.
Some how i am not comforted.
Wikipedia suggests that world reserves are around 5,000,000 tons and annual production is around 50,000 tons. That does indeed sound like 100 years worth at current rates. Sure, some more might be found. Some more might become economically worth mining at higher prices. Sure, breeder reactors could improve the efficiency. Perhaps there is 50 times more energy available! That would be 5000 years at current rates (with some wishful thinking) or a couple hundred years for a totally fission-based energy supply.
Why do these numbers not jive with “land based Uranium is good for about 10,000 years” or “we have unlimited nuclear power” or “We have way too much nat gas and nuclear fuel”? even with some wishful thinking I see to come out way below these estimates. Am i missing something obvious? Is the rest of the internet way off-base on uranium resources?
Tim F,
As E.M. pointed out you have two significant future possibilities with Nuclear Power,
How long will the world’s uranium supplies last? (Scientific American)
1. Extraction of uranium from seawater would make available 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium—a 60,000-year supply at present rates.
2. Breeder reactors could match today’s nuclear output for 30,000 years using only the NEA-estimated supplies.
Combine the two and you have effectively unlimited Nuclear Power.
Some other notes: “Using more enrichment work could reduce the uranium needs of LWRs by as much as 30 percent per metric ton of LEU. And separating plutonium and uranium from spent LEU and using them to make fresh fuel could reduce requirements by another 30 percent. Taking both steps would cut the uranium requirements of an LWR in half.”
Lastly you need to factor in the ability to convert the vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons to fuel.
GM it looks like you are repeating economic myths,
Making More with Less: U.S. Manufacturing Efficiency (The Enterprise Blog)
Manufacturing jobs are down not output.
As he explained to you, “present rates” means 6-7% of total energy use. That immediately lowers your estimate by a factor of at least 10. Another factor of at least 10 comes from the fact that energy use isn’t going to increase exponentially for as long as economic and population growth continue, and even without the latter, it will still continue increasing due to economic growth (of course, we will have collapsed long before we get to that point, but I am just pointing out the absurdity of that kind of thinking). So your 60,000 years quickly become just a few hundred. There’s also the “small” matter of flows vs resources. How much seawater can you realistically filter in a year? And there is also the other “small” matter of EROEI. You need vast amounts of negative entropy to get stuff dissolved at very low concentration out of seawater. Not only that, the more you extract it, the more negative entropy you are going to need to invest to get the same amount of stuff out, because as you get it out, the concentration gets even lower, and so on.
The small insignificant details of reality, you know.
They could. But they don’t exist. And they never will for there will be no civilization capable of building them, if this is even possible, which is not at all certain.
Again, only a completely deluded person can say that. Someone had done the back of the envelope calculation that if we were to climb through all the stages of the Kardashev scale at our present rate of 3% growth of energy consumption a year, we would have consumed THE WHOLE GALAXY in less than 5 million years. Curiously, someone else had claimed that we can continue growing for 7 billion years. That’s one heckuva discrepancy. Guess who was the economist…
How exactly is cutting uranium requirement for something that we only have a few decades of recoverable reserves at present rates of consumption in half going to solve a problem that’s an order of magnitude larger??
See, the problem with people like you is that the only thing that gets past your information filter is “more resources, more efficiency”. But the actual numbers never seem to matter, neither do the other inconvenient details of operating in real life. The fact is that linear increases have no chance against exponential ones, and there is no getting around that. Framing one’s thinking in “more”/”less” terms doesn’t exactly help to appreciate that.
News flash – we already do that. At present, 1/3 of the uranium that’s burned comes from nuclear weapons decommissioned after the end of the Cold War. If it wasn’t for those, there would have already been a shortage of the stuff.
*energy use IS going to increase exponentially
(mod please delete previous post) [done ~ac]
A factor of 10 would be 6000 years, add in breeder reactors and you have effectively unlimited nuclear power.
This has been explained repeatedly above.
What are you talking about? Experimental reactors have already been built and commercial reactors are being constructed now,
India’s fast breeder reactor gets critical component
You do understand figurative language? The point is we have effectively unlimited nuclear power.
No one is seriously concerned with more than 100 years into the future, let alone thousands to millions.
Not a few decades but a few centuries,
“If the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) has accurately estimated the planet’s economically accessible uranium resources, reactors could run more than 200 years at current rates of consumption.”
Those efficiency steps could add another 100 years to LWR with current uranium supplies.
The actual numbers support my position. Unlike every position you have presented here, real life has proven you wrong.