Crossing the Ecological Rubicon

We may be lucky enough, those of us dwelling in los Estados Unidos de América, to survive the remaining 41 months of George Bush's feckless administration. It is possible that the many enemies Bush has created and encouraged will not, during that time, get their hands on a working nuclear weapon and obliterate an American city. It is possible that the US dollar will, against all odds, still be worth half a euro or 50 yen. It is possible that the deflation of the housing bubble and $150-a-barrel oil will not precipitate runaway inflation or rocketing unemployment in the US. It is even possible that American troops will not still be dying and killing in Iraq.

It's not likely that we can dodge all those bullets between now and January 2009; and even if are lucky, the probability in succeeding years for disastrous outcomes in each of those areas will be much increased by that time, due to the heedless, rapacious governance of the Bush oligarchy. But let's be optimistic. Maybe the adults in Europe and east Asia will take care of the human race, hunt down terrorists and cushion currency adjustments and conserve energy and … well, there is only so much they can do to protect the world against the mad flailings of a giant, suicidal teenager. Furthermore, they will want to protect themselves first, naturally, insofar as possible.

But wait, I was trying to be optimistic. So, in three and a half years, let's say, we're no worse off. A little fear here, a little belt-tightening there, but essentially it's all okay.

The editors of Scientific American have news for you: it's not all okay. On the other hand, they say, there is hope. This is a crucial moment in the history of humankind, unlike any other; and they have published a special September 2005 issue to mark that fact: "Crossroads for Planet Earth." We can make the right choices about demographics, poverty, biodiversity, energy, and a host of other social and environmental issues, and our grandchildren will be healthier and happier than we. Or we can make the wrong choices, and humankind will descend into increasing poverty, sickness, and war.

The special issue is available online to digital subscribers, and if you're a print subscriber you probably just received your copy. But if you don't subscribe, rush out now and buy a copy at a newsstand or bookstore near you. You'll be happy you did.

The introductory essay, "The Climax of Humanity" by George Musser, lays out the context for the eight detailed roadmaps that follow. Musser writes:

Three great transitions set in motion by the Industrial Revolution are reaching their culmination. After several centuries of faster-than-exponential growth, the world's population is stabilizing. Judging from current trends, it will plateau at around nine billion people toward the middle of this century. Meanwhile extreme poverty is receding both as a percentage of population and in absolute numbers. If China and India continue to follow in the economic footsteps of Japan and South Korea, by 2050 the average Chinese will be as rich as the average Swiss is today; the average Indian, as rich as today's Israeli. As humanity grows in size and wealth, however, it increasingly presses against the limits of the planet. Already we pump out carbon dioxide three times as fast as the oceans and land can absorb it; midcentury is when climatologists think global warming will really begin to bite. At the rate things are going, the world's forests and fisheries will be exhausted even sooner.

These three concurrent, intertwined transitions — demographic, economic, environmental — are what historians of the future will remember when they look back on our age. They are transforming everything from geopolitics to the structure of families. And they pose problems on a scale that humans have little experience with. As Harvard University biologist E. O. Wilson puts it, we are about to pass through "the bottleneck," a period of maximum stress on natural resources and human ingenuity.

There is hope that human ingenuity can make the difference, but the writers of the eight specific articles that follow are not Jetson-style futurists. They include Joel Cohen, Jeffrey Sachs, Amory Lovins, and Barry Bloom, and they understand—in a way that few scientists did 50 years ago—that technology alone can create as many problems as it solves, and that endless development and economic growth are impossible in a limited biosphere.

And yet they are truly, and with reason, optimistic. Think of the problems that were thought intractable a few decades ago but that now seem on their way to amelioration, if not solution. The population bomb, we thought, was going to keep exploding until there were 20, 30, 50 billion humans on the planet, far more than it could sustain; now that outcome appears much less likely. Poverty, too, seemed to be on the rise around the world; while wealth inequality does remain dangerously prevalent, extreme poverty is slowly waning.

The optimism is based on an action plan for the 21st century, eight daunting but possible steps that the writers prescribe for humanity:

1. Understand the changes.
2. Achieve Millennium Development Goals.
3. Preserve crucial habitats.
4. Wean off fossil fuels.
5. Provide cheap irrigation to poor farmers.
6. Beef up health systems.
7. Brace for slower growth.
8. Prioritize more rationally.

Each step is enormous. Each requires political and social cooperation of a kind and extent previously unknown to humanity. But each is possible, conceivable, doable. If we can manage to survive the Dark Age of Bush, a better world is possible.