How we Saved/Lost the Planet

Tremendous National Geographic edition for April.  One half told the optimist's guide to life on Earth in 2070 (How we Saved the World) and the other half reflected the pessimist's guide to life on Earth in 2070 (How we Lost the Wold).  Each detailed the successes and failures of the next 50 years, along with the same for the past 50 years since the first Earth Day in 1970, all adding up to a planet that will be user friendly or quite hostile to human life, depending on one's perspective.

I read the optimist's guide first, which in retrospect was a poor choice.  It might have been more helpful to be left with a positive viewpoint rather than negative, especially in light of the current pandemic. 

The overriding sense of optimism which was portrayed, was heavy on the fact that many of the dire predictions of the 1970's did not come true.  The boom in farmland productivity forestalled the fear that our growing world population would result in mass starvation.  In fact, there is less food insecurity on the planet than in 1970, as well as an increase in the average time in a classroom, a higher percentage of people with access to clean water, a higher proportion of people with access to electricity, an increase in the overall live expectancy, and a decline in the maternal mortality rate. 

In addition to few of the cataclysmic predictions coming true, there has been a dramatic increase in the conversion to cleaner energy sources.  Renewable sources of energy has surpassed coal in America and is about on par with nuclear, trailing only natural gas, with the expectation that by 2050, clean energy production will equal even that booming industry.

But the biggest reason to be confident is that the generation that is agitating for even more attention to be paid to climate change, is the youngest generation today.  Worldwide movements inspired and often led by people in their teens and 20's, are not only educating the rest of us about the science of climate change, but will soon be the generation in power.  I wrote a story about 6 1/2 years ago called The Next Greatest Generation.  While it didn't address climate change specifically, it did detail the achievements
of (perhaps) the next greatest generation (born since the year 2000), a generation which addressed the problems of humanity as adults, unlike the generation in charge today.

https://wurdsfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-next-greatest-generation.html

On the flip side, how we might lose the planet is not hard to fathom.  We see evidence of it today as the forces of nationalism (America First, for instance), trump the power of cooperation that will be required to defeat any challenge, whether it be COVID-19 or climate change. Without the achievements of a next greatest generation, humanity will be assailed with higher daily as well as record temperatures, an exponential increase in energy use to cool us which might outstrip the gains we make in using greener sources of energy, rising water anxiety as coastal cities begin to face the result of their insatiable plans  for development on ground that is both too close to the oceans and had previously been a buffer to protect the land from rising sea levels, less potable water as our aquifers are less able to recharge themselves due to over use or ground water pollution from fossil fuel extractions, and far more severe weather occurrences which will produce longer and hotter fire seasons, stronger and more frequent hurricanes and tornadoes.  And, of course, the poor will more be more likely to suffer the consequences of our actions resulting in the retraction of the gains made to reduce poverty since 1970, plus the addition of an even higher percentage of people living in poverty due to the ravages of the changing climate.

Yikes!

In any event, whether you tend to be positive or negative about the next 50 years, or most likely, waver between the two as information is gained, opportunities lost, I would recommend procuring a copy of the April edition of Nat Geo.  There is a lot to learn from both perspectives.