COLUMN: Liberals need to have faith in progress

“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.” I know, it’s a cliché, but it is also the most appropriate title I could think of for the recently concluded World Summit on Sustainable Development. At such a meeting, world leaders get together, discussing two topics simultaneously. The first is how to improve living conditions for people around the world, and the second is how to do so without destroying the environment. There is little debate the first goal is very worthwhile. The problem arises when pursuing the second goal, because of conflicting scientific evidence as to what the “threats” to our environment are.

Getting back to our original theme, however, let’s first look at the good.

Agreements were made to improve sanitation services to 1 billion people and get clean water to 500 million people over the next 12 years. Such simple measures are some of the most important – relative to people’s health – and also some of the most easily achieved.

In addition, the summit was about development, and that includes economic development. As we aid developing countries, not only do they live better, but they also become better trading partners with us, allowing us to benefit along with them.

Finally, the summit does not state how these results are to be achieved, which allows for individual circumstances to dictate how we help these people. Achieving clean water in sub-Saharan Africa is not the same task as in the Amazon rain forest of Brazil.

All of these prove the good that can come when countries get together to discuss the problems that face us all.

Now, on to the bad.

Climate change discussions still dominated the public debate during this summit. Every scientific global warming model predicts warming on the Earth’s surface, which has occurred, along with warming in various levels of the atmosphere, which has not occurred.

Regardless of what environmental organizations continue to claim on TV and radio programs, there is no clear consensus in the scientific community on whether global warming is occurring, and especially not in relation to whether or not we are causing it. Continuing to make such unproved theories the focus is proof of the bad that can occur when extreme organizations, such as the environmentalist movement, gain too much control over the agenda.

Finally, the ugly.

This category is reserved for the Chicken Littles of the world, who never accepted that Malthus was wrong. Thomas Malthus was a philosopher who lived 200 years ago, best known for his erroneous prediction that mankind faced imminent starvation, due to overpopulation and depletion of natural resources. His predictions never came true, even though we consume much more today, 200 years later, than in his day. The reason is that we are able to adapt, developing new technologies. Malthus’ primary problem was his inability to anticipate that we would be able to progress.

We have our own modern-day Malthuses, who also refuse to accept that we can, and will, develop new technologies. Since the 1970s, the Club of Rome, a liberal organization, made up of individuals from various backgrounds, but united in their almost-religious devotion to environmentalism, has predicted widespread starvation, death and destruction caused by depletion of natural resources.

Time and time again, their predictions have failed, and time and time again, they simply issue another prediction as to when the world is going to end. Normally, I applaud perseverance, but when all the facts continue to prove you wrong, perhaps it ceases to be perseverance, and becomes willful refusal to accept reality. That willfulness, and the fear it attempts to engender in all of us, is extremely ugly.

In conclusion, individuals from around the world should get together to find solutions to various problems. When they identify important and solvable problems, allowing them to make real progress toward clean water and sanitary conditions for the world’s population, we should applaud.

However, when issues without scientific understanding, such as global warming, are allowed to pull resources away from more important efforts to improve the lives of people worldwide, they deserve only our derision.

Jeremy Kidd is a graduate student in environmental economics. Comments can be sent to him at jeremykidd@cc.usu.edu