As the original Star Wars saga comes to its end with The Rise of Skywalker, I’m reminded of the subtitle of the first film: Episode IV--A New Hope. As the storyline evolved, the series enveloped many ideas contemporary with each film’s release, and “hope” rode an oscilloscope’s crests and troughs. Incorporating popular culture is probably natural: We want to see what we believe to be our own perspectives reflected from big screens. So, political or social problems and trends du jour that occupied the minds of “Mainstream Culture” worked their way into plots and dialogue. Of course, even in the absence of such plots and verbiage, audiences carried their own interpretations into theaters, making the point that in this galaxy, confirmation bias is universal.
In the December 22, 2019, Spectator, USA, posting entitled “We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously,” the author, Matt Ridley, could well have subtitled his work “A New Hope.” Ridley recounts, for example, the bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich that “a basket of five metals…would cost less in 1990 than in 1980,” a bet the former won, and then Ridley writes, “To this day none of those metals has significantly risen in price or fallen in volume of reserves, let alone run out...[in general, a prediction of doom by Ehrlich]. After recounting the strides we’ve made toward “getting more from less,” Ridley predicts: “By the end of [this decade], we will see less poverty, less child mortality, less land devoted to agriculture…There will be more tigers, whales, forests, and nature reserves. Britons will be richer, and each of us will use fewer resources.” Ridley concludes that even if political futures are uncertain, “the environmental and technological trends are pretty clear—and pointing in the right direction.”* In short, “a new hope.”
Ridley, in forecasting a brighter future than doomsayers broadcast through sundry mouthpieces, writes that over the first 17 years of this century, “The quantity of all resources consumed per person in Britain (domestic extraction of biomass, metals, minerals and fossil fuels, plus imports minus exports) fell by a third…from 13.7 tons to 9.4 tons. That’s a faster decline than the increase in the number of people, so it means fewer resources consumed overall.” That’s a hopeful sign, isn’t it? Do you have LED Christmas tree lights? A phone that replaces in one piece of technology a camera, radio, torch (flashlight), compass, map, calendar, watch, newspaper, and, representing games, a pack of cards? In short, “a new hope.”
Of interest to me was Ehrlich-like predictions I heard when I was a child growing up in Pennsylvania’s coal country. One of my teachers told our seventh-grade class that we would, in fact, start running out of coal, oil, and natural gas by the 1970s and be out of those resources by the 2000s. Ridley points to the modern-day version of that teacher in people like renowned environmentalist Sir David Attenborough, who said, “Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist.” Ridley then says, “But what if economic growth means using less stuff, not more?”
Now, there’s no denying that there’s always environmental destruction. A recent report on Brazil’s rainforest, which I documented in a previous blog, gives evidence that humans are still ravaging the planet in many ways. The oceans are filling up with plastic and becoming, if the science is correct, more acidic, and the atmosphere is gaining carbon. An eventual set of bigger problems? Of course. But in spite of the constant warring and exploiting, Ridley’s point is worth considering. You just lived through arguably one of the best decades in the last 300,000 years. And don’t believe the doom saying hype. You don’t have, as little Time-Magazine-Person-of-the-Year Greta Thunberg declares, just nine years left—though, yes, individually, each of us can kick the proverbial bucket at any time.
Worried about tropical diseases in Oslo because of global warming? Or, are you worried that the next solar minimum is upon us as NASA predicts, throwing us into a cold spell to compete with the Little Ice Age?** How about this, instead? Try looking at the enhancements to living that the 2010s gave the world. Try considering that we might just be, in spite of all the prophets of doom, still headed in hope toward an even better future.
Maybe that’s not enough of a Happy New Year for you. But could it be enough for a Happy New Decade to begin in 2021? Wouldn’t it be comforting to note that Janus a year from now will face a past of the “best decade in human history” and a potential future of an even better decade?
*To read Ridley’s essay, go to https://spectator.us/just-best-decade-human-history-seriously/ Accessed December 23, 2019.
**Dobler, Sacha. The next Grand Solar Minimum has (very likely) begun: NASA predicts lowest solar cycle in 200 years. Abrupt Earth Changes, 23 Dec 2019. Online at https://abruptearthchanges.com/2019/06/14/the-next-grand-solar-minimum-has-very-likely-begun-nasa-predicts-lowest-solar-cycle-in-200-years/ Accessed December 23, 2019. The peak of Solar Cycle 24 appears, in NASA’s prediction for 2025, to approximate that of Solar Cycle 5, the so-called Dalton Minimum of 1817—not quite as low as the Maunder Minimum of the Little Ice Age (1600-1750). So, while we pump carbon into the atmosphere, we might for some time to come actually be offsetting a plunge in global temperatures caused by diminished solar activity.
In the December 22, 2019, Spectator, USA, posting entitled “We’ve just had the best decade in human history. Seriously,” the author, Matt Ridley, could well have subtitled his work “A New Hope.” Ridley recounts, for example, the bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich that “a basket of five metals…would cost less in 1990 than in 1980,” a bet the former won, and then Ridley writes, “To this day none of those metals has significantly risen in price or fallen in volume of reserves, let alone run out...[in general, a prediction of doom by Ehrlich]. After recounting the strides we’ve made toward “getting more from less,” Ridley predicts: “By the end of [this decade], we will see less poverty, less child mortality, less land devoted to agriculture…There will be more tigers, whales, forests, and nature reserves. Britons will be richer, and each of us will use fewer resources.” Ridley concludes that even if political futures are uncertain, “the environmental and technological trends are pretty clear—and pointing in the right direction.”* In short, “a new hope.”
Ridley, in forecasting a brighter future than doomsayers broadcast through sundry mouthpieces, writes that over the first 17 years of this century, “The quantity of all resources consumed per person in Britain (domestic extraction of biomass, metals, minerals and fossil fuels, plus imports minus exports) fell by a third…from 13.7 tons to 9.4 tons. That’s a faster decline than the increase in the number of people, so it means fewer resources consumed overall.” That’s a hopeful sign, isn’t it? Do you have LED Christmas tree lights? A phone that replaces in one piece of technology a camera, radio, torch (flashlight), compass, map, calendar, watch, newspaper, and, representing games, a pack of cards? In short, “a new hope.”
Of interest to me was Ehrlich-like predictions I heard when I was a child growing up in Pennsylvania’s coal country. One of my teachers told our seventh-grade class that we would, in fact, start running out of coal, oil, and natural gas by the 1970s and be out of those resources by the 2000s. Ridley points to the modern-day version of that teacher in people like renowned environmentalist Sir David Attenborough, who said, “Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist.” Ridley then says, “But what if economic growth means using less stuff, not more?”
Now, there’s no denying that there’s always environmental destruction. A recent report on Brazil’s rainforest, which I documented in a previous blog, gives evidence that humans are still ravaging the planet in many ways. The oceans are filling up with plastic and becoming, if the science is correct, more acidic, and the atmosphere is gaining carbon. An eventual set of bigger problems? Of course. But in spite of the constant warring and exploiting, Ridley’s point is worth considering. You just lived through arguably one of the best decades in the last 300,000 years. And don’t believe the doom saying hype. You don’t have, as little Time-Magazine-Person-of-the-Year Greta Thunberg declares, just nine years left—though, yes, individually, each of us can kick the proverbial bucket at any time.
Worried about tropical diseases in Oslo because of global warming? Or, are you worried that the next solar minimum is upon us as NASA predicts, throwing us into a cold spell to compete with the Little Ice Age?** How about this, instead? Try looking at the enhancements to living that the 2010s gave the world. Try considering that we might just be, in spite of all the prophets of doom, still headed in hope toward an even better future.
Maybe that’s not enough of a Happy New Year for you. But could it be enough for a Happy New Decade to begin in 2021? Wouldn’t it be comforting to note that Janus a year from now will face a past of the “best decade in human history” and a potential future of an even better decade?
*To read Ridley’s essay, go to https://spectator.us/just-best-decade-human-history-seriously/ Accessed December 23, 2019.
**Dobler, Sacha. The next Grand Solar Minimum has (very likely) begun: NASA predicts lowest solar cycle in 200 years. Abrupt Earth Changes, 23 Dec 2019. Online at https://abruptearthchanges.com/2019/06/14/the-next-grand-solar-minimum-has-very-likely-begun-nasa-predicts-lowest-solar-cycle-in-200-years/ Accessed December 23, 2019. The peak of Solar Cycle 24 appears, in NASA’s prediction for 2025, to approximate that of Solar Cycle 5, the so-called Dalton Minimum of 1817—not quite as low as the Maunder Minimum of the Little Ice Age (1600-1750). So, while we pump carbon into the atmosphere, we might for some time to come actually be offsetting a plunge in global temperatures caused by diminished solar activity.
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