State of the World

[drplokta]

So, disregarding the dodgy anecdotal evidence, how are the developing countries and the world's poor actually doing from globalisation? Karl Schroeder (an excellent SF author whose novels Ventus and Permanence you should all read) has posted some figures from the UN. And the answer is, they're doing very well indeed.

From 1982 to 2002:

• World infant mortality per 1000 live births dropped from 86.7 to 52.4
  
• Calories of food per capita in poor countries went from 2382 to 2740
  
• Percentage of households with access to safe water supplies went from 60.7% to 80.9% -- more households now have safe water than the total number of households in 1982, I should imagine
  
• Literacy rate in poor and middle income countries went from 64.7% to 78%
  
• World life expectancy went from 56.8 years to 63.8 years, despite the impact of AIDS

Apparently, the world is not going to hell in a handbasket, but rather in the other direction.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

You're 100% right. Over the last 20 years, we've made some amazing progress on the planet. There's certainly a lot left to do, but we've done an amazing amount. I worry about shorter-term U.S. trends more than long-term global trends.

B

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't want to come over all pompous and tell you that your priorities are wrong, but I rather think that long-term global trends such as anthropogenic climate change, resource depletion, water shortages, desertification and deforestation, reduction in biodiversity, etc. etc. etc., will ultimately make short-term US trends (not to mention short-term trends in the UK and elsewhere) look pretty damn footling indeed.

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

On the plus side, there are far more peole that think about long term (and even short term) trends than in the past. I wonder if there were many people worried about the long terms effects of pollution during the first upswing of the Industrial Revolution, or even in the medieval tanneries in London? I remember being impressed with the foresightedness of Thoreau when I read Walden Pond in high school, but even Silent Spring seemed fairly unsettling when it appeared in the 1960's. I visited Cheddar Gorge last Christmas and was surprised by the museum exhibit on Roman mining in that area, which suggested that 1) this is not the first time in history that pollution, poor drinking water and deforestation have been a problem, and 2) 2,000 years will do a lot of good for the natural landscape.

[drplokta]

It is true that global warming is a problem, although it shows every sign of being a manageable one (I've seen estimates like costs of $300 billion per year bandied around -- but in the context of a total world GDP of maybe $30 trillion, that's like losing around four months of economic growth -- once only, not four months out of every year, so in January 2100 with global warming we'll be economically where we would have been in September 2099 without global warming.).

Deforestation is showing every sign of improving -- it's slowing down in developing countries, and has already been reversed in the developed world where the forests have been growing for decades.

Water shortage, desertification and resource depletion are essentially all about energy shortage -- with plenty of energy, you can make all the water you want, and substitute for most resources. Fortunately, nuclear fission can provide all the energy we need for some centuries to come, once it overcomes its PR problems, since uranium is one resource that isn't in particularly short supply.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

There's an interesting article in New Scientist this week with regard to rain forests. It appears that prior to 150 years ago, Ascension Island was pretty well bare. (Being an extremely long way from anywhere, this is unsurprising.)

Then some plants were introduced.

There is now a full scale rain forest on the mountain, rather against all the theories that say rain forests have to evolve over hundreds of millennia.

The result implies that rain forests can be reinstated (given the political will).

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

given the political will

Precisely. But political will requires politicians to think long-term, and very few of them do. I see not the slightest political will to -- for example -- stop turning the Amazonian forests into cattle pasture.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure this is entirely the case...

The soil nutrients on Ascension will not have been used much. In a rain forest most of the nutrients are in the forest, not the soil. Chop down the trees and cart them away for wood, and you have an impoverished soil which can't regrow.

What Ascension shows is that rain forests can fill land that is ready for them, but land in clearcut rain forest won't be ready.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

What soil nutrients? This was bare mountain side that became rain forest.

That's part of the point - the lack of nutrients isn't the barrier they thought it was.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Can you point me to a proper reference for this?

I find it hard to believe that a full rain forest can grow ex nihilo. I also find it hard to believe that there was a 'bare' mountainside with no nutrients whatsoever. I suspect that at the very least there will be quite literally a shitload of guano, and since this is rich in nitrates, one of the key nutrients missing from established rain forest soil, this could explain a lot of the sudden growth.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

I've seen estimates like costs of $300 billion per year bandied around -- but in the context of a total world GDP of maybe $30 trillion, that's like losing around four months of economic growth -- once only

This is nonsense (of Lombergian proportions). Anthropogenic climate change will alter the global eco-system, causing major disruption to (most obviously) global agriculture. The suggestion that this will be a bearable once-off cost of a few hundred billions (where did this figure you quote come from?) is preposterous -- the wrenching reorganisation of human society that climate change will impose is more likely to result in continuing year-on-year reductions of trillions in global GDP (assuming by 2100 anyone is bothering to measure such abstractions).

nuclear fission can provide all the energy we need for some centuries to come, once it overcomes its PR problems

You think it will? Obviously. But in my view the potential terrorist threat now associated with nuclear waste and nuclear reprocessing (it doesn't matter whether the threat is "real" -- the government acts as thoguh it were, and would like us to as well) and the elimination of democratic freedoms that will be required to keep that threat at bay will doom it irrevocably.

[drplokta]

$300 billion per year as the cost of global warming (not a one-off cost of $300 billion) comes from the United Nations Environment Program: http://www.solcomhouse.com/Impact.htm

As far as nuclear fission goes, once people start freezing, starving and dying of thirst because of power shortages, a rather different view of the risks will be taken.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

The idea that without nuclear power we shall be "freezing in the dark" is very 1970s. And even if it were true, the fact that it takes 10-15 years to bring a new nuclear power station into operation means that there'd ba an awful lot of freezing and stumbling around in the dark before it could make any difference -- whereas one can knock up a small-scale wind turbine for personal use in a day or so. (See, for example, The Guardian supplement referenced by frandownsofa earlier.)

I'm now slightly confused about your costings for global warming. You initially said that they would be "once only", but now refer to an annual cost. That makes more sense....but, like most UN stuff, probably understates the position. Approaching the question from an economic perspective means that the ecological tends to be overlooked -- and it's ecology that really matters here. Complex species such as ourselves rely on a biodiverse world to support us; without that biodiversity, we disappear. All the technology in the world can't compensate for the potential loss of the soil bacteria on which our food crops depend.

[drplokta]

The cost is annual. But it's like a one-off hit to global economic growth, because if you have growth that is 1% lower in one year, then every subsequent year for ever after is that much lower than it would have been otherwise, even though all the subsequent years have normal growth.

[drplokta]

What is your evidence for the inability of technology in 2050 to cope with reduced biodiversity in soil bacteria? There is a long history, going back at least as far as Malthus, of inaccurate predictions of doom based on looking at future problems but solutions based current technology.

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

A long history going back as far as Malthus isn't quite as long as a geological record going back as far as the Permian extinction event, the signature of which can still be read in the rocks today.

But specifically, on soil bacteria (or biodiversity in general): the evidence for the potential effect of climate change has to be inferred, but is based on the fact that the majority of the world's organisms inhabit a very narrow temperature range, and have difficulty surviving outside the one to which they've adapated. An increase of 3-5 degrees in average temperature is thought to be sufficient to place an organism outside its normal range. Given that tropical soils are generally less fertile than temperate ones, it should be clear what drives the concern for the potential effect of climate change on temperate soils and their micro-organisms.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Add poverty, sanitation, starvation, life expentency, literacy, democracy, human rights. Those and all the ones you list above are doing way better over the decades. Yes, I know that the press paints them all as disasters, and there are local disasters all over the planet, but on the whole we're doing amazingly good.

We've got a long way to go, but I think we need to recognize what we've done.

B