ASIAN AFFAIRS

THE SKEPTICAL ENVIRONMENTALIST

by Bjorn Lømborg

What kind of state is the world really in? Optimists proclaim the end of history with the best of all possible worlds at hand, whereas pessimists see a world in decline and find doomsday lurking around the corner. Getting the state of the world right is important because it defines humanity’s problems and shows us where our actions are most needed. At the same time, it is also a scorecard for our civilization –have we done well with our abilities, and is this a world we want to leave to our children?

Of course, it is not possible to write a book which measures the entire state of the world. Instead, I wished to gauge the most important characteristics of our state of the world: the fundamentals. And these should be assessed not on myths but on the best available facts, to describe the real state of the world.

In fact, a “State of the World” has been published every year since 1984 by the Worldwatch Institute and its leader Lester Brown (1). In many ways, though, it is one of the best-researched and academically most ambitious environmental policy publications, and therefore it is also an essential participant in the discussion on the State of the World (2).

Not surprisingly, this publication reflects the images and messages that confront us each day on television, in the newspapers, in political statements and in conversations at work and at the kitchen table: we live in an ever deteriorating environment.

Even children are told, I quote from Oxford University Press’ Young Oxford Books : “Humans have upset that balance, stripping the land of its green cover, choking the air, and poisoning the seas" (3). The April 2001 Global Environment Supplement from New Scientist talks about the impending “catastrophe” and how we risk consigning “humanity to the dustbin of evolutionary history.”

This understanding of the environment is all pervasive. We are all familiar with the Litany (4):

- the environment is in poor shape here on Earth (5).

- Our resources are running out.

- The population is ever growing, leaving less and less to eat.

- The air and the water are becoming ever more polluted.

- The planet’s species are becoming extinct, we kill off more than 40,000 of them each year.

- The forests are disappearing, fish stocks are collapsing and the coral reefs are dying.

- We are defiling our Earth, the fertile topsoil is disappearing, we are paving over nature, destroying the wilderness, decimating the bio- sphere, and will end up killing ourselves in the process.

- The world’s ecosystem is breaking down.

- We are fast approaching the absolute limit of viability, and the limits of growth are becoming apparent (6).

We have heard it so often that yet another repetition is, well, almost reassuring. There is just one problem: it does not seem to be backed up by the available evidence.

Things are better but not necessarily good

There is a need to challenge our usual conception of the collapse of ecosystems, because this conception is simply not in keeping with reality. We are not running out of energy or natural resources (7). There will be more and more food per head of the world’s population (see Armatya Sen on that subject in this issue). Fewer and fewer people are starving. In 1900 we lived for an average of 30 years; today we live for 67. According to the UN we have reduced poverty more in the last 50 years than we did in the preceding 500, and it has been reduced in practically every country.

Global warming, though its size and future projections are rather unrealistically pessimistic, is almost certainly taking place, but the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction, and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future. Nor will we lose 25 –50 % of all species in our lifetime, in fact we are losing probably 0.7%. Acid rain does not kill the forests, and the air and water around us are becoming less and less polluted.

Mankind’s lot has actually improved in terms of practically every measurable indicator. But note carefully that this does not, however, mean that everything is good enough. It is vital to emphasize this distinction.

Many people believe they can prove me wrong by pointing out that 18% of all people in the developing world are still starving. The point is that ever fewer people in the world are starving. In 1970, 35% of all people in developing countries were starving. In 1996 the figure was 18% and the UN expects that the figure will have fallen to 12% by 2010 (8). This is remarkable progress: 237 million fewer people starving, but in 2010 there will still be 680 million people starving, which is obviously not good enough .

Maybe we can do even more to improve the food situation, but the basic approach is not wrong. We are actually saving lives and can look forward to fewer people starving in future.

Exaggeration and good management

The constant repetition of environmental exaggerations has serious consequences. It makes us scared and more likely to spend our resources and attention solving phantom problems while ignoring real and pressing (possibly non-environmental) issues. This is why it is important to know the real state of the world. We need to get the facts and the best possible information to make the best possible decisions.

However, pointing out that our most publicized fears are incorrect does not mean that we should make no effort towards improving the environment. The point here is to give us the best evidence to allow us to make the most informed decision as to where we need to place most of our efforts.

Having reviewed carefully the trends on environmental issues, what I discovered was that our problems are often getting smaller and not bigger, and that frequently the offered solutions are grossly inefficient.

What fundamentals?

If we are to understand the real state of the world, we need to focus on the fundamentals and we need to look at realities, not myths. Let us take a look at both of these requirements, starting with the fundamentals.

Legend has it that when someone remarked to Voltaire “life is hard”, he retorted, “compared to what?” (9). The choice of comparison is crucial in any decision-making process. It makes sense that comparison should be with how it was before. Otherwise, how can we gauge the extent of our progress? How can we say whether we are better or worse off now than previously? This means that we should focus on trends.

When the water supply and sanitation services were improved in cities throughout the developed world in the nineteenth century, health and life expectancy improved dramatically (10). Likewise, the broadening of education from the early nineteenth century till today’s universal school enrolment has brought literacy and democratic competence to the developed world (11).

These trends have been replicated in the developing world in the twentieth century. Whereas 75% of the young people in the developing world born around 1915 were illiterate, this is true for only 16% of today’s youth. And while only 30% of the people in the developing world had access to clean drinking water in 1970, today about 80% have.

These developments represent great strides forward in human welfare; they are huge improvements in the state of the world, because the trends have been upwards in life expectancy and literacy. Nevertheless, this does not mean that everything is good enough. There are still more than a billion people in the Third World who do not have access to clean drinking water.

If we compare today's world to an ideal situation, it is obvious that there are still improvements to be made. Of course, when asked, we would probably all want the Third World to have better access to clean drinking water, but then again, we probably all want the Third World to have good schooling, better health care, more food security, etc. Likewise, in the developed world we also want better retirement homes for our elders, better kindergartens, higher local environmental investments, better infrastructures, etc.

The problem is that it all costs money. If we want to improve one thing, such as Third World access to clean drinking water, we need to take the resources from other areas where we would also like to make things better. We have to allocate resources and choose some projects over many others.

Fundamentals: the global trends

The Global Environmental Outlook Report 2000 tells us much about the plight of Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa has by far the greatest number of starving people, almost 33% were starving in 1996, although this was down from 38% in 1970 and is expected to fall even further to 30% in 2010 (12).

In the most staggering prediction of problems ahead, Global Environmental Outlook Report 2000 tells us that soil erosion is a pervasive problem, especially in Africa. Indeed, “in a continent where too many people are already malnourished, crop yields could be cut by half within 40 years if the degradation of cultivated lands were to continue at present" (13).

This would represent a tragedy of enormous proportions, causing massive starvation on the African continent. However, the background for this stunning prediction stems from a single, unpublished study from 1989, based on agricultural plot studies only in South Africa (14). And it is in stark opposition to the estimates of the major food production models from the UN (FAO) and IFPRI, expecting an annual 1.7% yield increase over the next 20 –25 years (15).

Although the growth in yield in the 1990s was small but positive, the absolute grain production increased more than 20% (16). In many ways this is reminiscent of one of the most cited European soil erosion estimates of 17 tons per hectare (17). This estimate turned out, through a string of articles, each slightly inaccurately referring to its predecessor, to stem from a single study of a 0.11 hectare sloping plot of Belgian farmland (18). Here again, sweeping statements are made with just a single example.

Unfortunately, such problematic argumentation arises because in today’s global environment, with massive amounts of information at our fingertips, an infinite number of stories can be told, good and bad ones.

We can only elucidate global problems with global figures. If we hear about Burundi losing 21% in its daily per capita caloric intake over the past ten years (19), this is shocking information and may seem to reaffirm our belief of food troubles in the developing world. But we might equally hear about Chad gaining 26%, perhaps changing our opinion the other way (20). Of course, the pessimist can then tell us about Iraq losing 28% and Cuba 19%, the optimist citing Ghana with an increase of 34% and Nigeria of 33%. With 120 more countries to go, the battle of intuition will be lost in the information overload (21).

On average, however, the developing countries have increased their food intake from 2,463 to 2,663 calories per person per day over the last ten years, an increase of 8% (22).

The point is that global figures summarize all the good stories as well as all the ugly ones, allowing us to evaluate how serious the overall situation is. Global figures will register the problems in Burundi but also the gains in Nigeria. Of course, a food bonanza in Nigeria does not alleviate food scarcity in Burundi, so when presenting averages we also have to be careful. However, if Burundi with 6.5 million people is going down whereas Nigeria with 108 million is going up, it really means 17 Nigerians eating better versus 1 Burundi eating worse – that all in all mankind is better fed.

The point here is that global figures can answer the question as to whether there have been more good stories to tell and fewer bad ones over the years or vice versa. This is why it is of a fundamental importance to present the most comprehensive figures in order to describe the development of the entire world or the relevant regions, and only global trends provide them.

Fundamentals: long-term trends, not short ones

In the environmental debate you often hear general discussion based on extremely short-term trends. This is dangerous, a lone swallow does not mean that summer has arrived. Food prices have fallen dramatically during the last centuries. However, Lester Brown said in early 1998 that he could detect the beginnings of a historic increase in the price of wheat. From 1994 to 1996 wheat got more expensive and we were heading for the abyss. Yet better data shows that he was plain wrong. Actually, the wheat price in 2000 was the cheapest ever.

Unfortunately, looking at short-term counter-trends was already firmly established in the first Worldwatch State of the World publication in 1984, where one could read (and believe) that: “… Future growth in international trade is unlikely to be rapid. According to the International Monetary Fund, the value of world exports peaked at $1,868 billion in 1980 and fell to roughly $1,650 billion in 1983, a decline of nearly 12%” (23).

Actually the 12% trade setback occurred mainly because of the second oil crisis, and it hit trade in goods but not services. However, Worldwatch Institute measured only goods and only presents figures that were not corrected for inflation. The alleged trade setback for inflation-adjusted trade in both goods and services was in fact almost nonexistent. Since 1983, international trade has more than doubled from $3.1 trillion to $7.5 trillion in 1997 (24).

Equally, Worldwatch was telling us how grain yields are no longer growing as fast or have perhaps even stopped completely, because we are increasingly closer to the physiological limits of the plants (25). Trying to discredit the World Bank grain predictions, the editor of Worldwatch pointed out that “from 1990 to 1993, the first three years in the Bank’s 20-year projection period, worldwide grain yields per hectare actually declined” (26). While the claim was technically true for the three-year period (the grain yield did decline from 2.51 t/ha to 2.49 t/ha), Worldwatch neglected and misrepresented the long-term growth, conveniently ignoring the fact that this decline did not take place in the more vulnerable developing countries, where yields have steadily grown. Actually, if grain yield declined marginally in the early 1990s, it was primarily due to the break-up of the Soviet Union, causing grain yields there to plummet. This was hardly an indication of physiological limits of the plants.

Isaac Asimov, worrying about more hurricanes from global warming, was also using or rather misusing some seemingly worrying statistics: “The twenty-three years from 1947 to 1969 averaged about 8.5 days of very violent Atlantic hurricanes, while in the period from 1970 to 1987 that dropped by three-quarters, to only 2.1 days per year ... and in 1988 –1989 rose again to 9.4 days a year” (27).

This seems threatening. The hurricane rate is now seemingly higher than ever. But notice the time-spans: 23 years, 17 years and then just 2 years at the end. Were the two years singled out just because they could be made spectacular?

Well, there you have it. The two years immediately preceding have 0 and 0.6 violent Atlantic hurricane days, and yes, the two years just after had only 1 and 1.2 days (28). Documenting these trends, the original researcher pointed out that Atlantic violent hurricane days “show a substantial decrease in activity with time” (29) while Mr. Asimov claimed the contrary. In fact, since hurricane days have been documented, they too show a decline of 1.63 days/decade (30).

Deforestation is also a fashionable concern. In 1996 the World Wide Fund for Nature told us that the rate of forest loss in the Amazon rainforest had increased by 34% since 1992 to 1,489,600 hectares a year (31). What they did not tell us was that the 1994/5 year had been a peak year of deforestation, at an estimated 0.81%, higher than any other year since 1977 (32). The year 1998/9 is estimated at 0.47% or nearly half of the top rate in 1994/5.

If we allow environmental arguments to be backed merely by purported trends of two or three carefully selected years, we invariably open the floodgates to any and every argument. Thus, if we are to appraise substantial developments we must investigate long periods of time, not the two to five years usually used, but as far back as figures exist. By using long-term trends we protect ourselves against false arguments from background noise and lone swallows.

Fundamentals: how is it important?

The only truly limited resource is capital without which nothing can be achieved. Therefore, when we are told that something is a problem, we need to ask how important it is in relation to other problems, as we are constantly forced to allocate our resources.

We all hear about pesticides getting into the groundwater. Since pesticides can cause cancer, we have a problem. Thus, they must be banned. Yet, before making such a judgment, we should ascertain with accuracy how much damage they actually do and how much it would cost to avoid their use. Recent research suggests that pesticides cause very little cancer. Moreover, to ban pesticides would actually result in more cases of cancer because fruits and vegetables help to prevent cancer, and without pesticides fruits and vegetables would get more expensive and people would then eat less of them.

Likewise, when the World Wide Fund for Nature told us about the Amazon rainforest loss increasing to 1,489,600 hectares a year, we should really ask ourselves: how much is that? (33). Is it a lot? A more significant data is that the total forest loss in the Amazon since the arrival of man has only amounted to 14% (34). Without asking the essential question of “how important ” things are, we cannot allocate and use our resources where they make the most impact.

Fundamentals: it is the people that count

Counting lives lost from different problems also emphasizes a central assumption in my argument: that the needs and desires of humankind represent the crux of our assessment of the state of the world. This does not mean that plants and animals do not also have rights but that the focus will always be on the human evaluation (35).

On that account the reader can naturally disagree, yet the overriding principle remains that only people debate and participate in decision-making processes, whereas penguins and pine trees do not (36). When we are to evaluate a project, it depends solely on the assessment by people. And while some of these people will definitely choose to value animals and plants very highly, these plants and animals cannot to any great extent be given particular rights (37).

This is naturally an approach that is basically selfish on the part of human beings. This human-centered view does not automatically result in the neglect or elimination of many non-human life forms. Man is in so many and so obvious ways dependent on other life forms, and for this reason alone they will be preserved and their welfare appreciated.

But it is also obvious that a choice frequently has to be made between what is good for humans and what is good for animals and plants. If we choose to allow a forest to stand untouched this will be a great advantage to many animals but a lost opportunity for man to cultivate timber and grow food (38). Whether we want an untouched forest or a cultivated field depends on man’s preferences with regard to food and undisturbed nature. The conclusion is that we have no option but to use humans as a point of reference.

Delusion and reality check

The public environment debate has unfortunately been characterized by an unpleasant tendency towards rather rash treatments of the truth. Blatantly false claims can be made again and again, without any references, and yet still be believed. They are not due to primary research in the environmental field; it generally appears to be professionally competent and well balanced (39). They are due to many environmental organizations, such as the Worldwatch Institute, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature, whose claims tap deeply into our doomsday beliefs. They are then readily picked up by the media and many deluded commentators.

The number of examples are so overwhelming that they could fill a book of their own and I have considered many of them in the course of my book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Let us in this summary look at some of the more outstanding examples of environmental mythmaking.

Reality: Worldwatch Institute

The Worldwatch Institute's publications are almost overflowing with statements such as: “The key environmental indicators are increasingly negative. Forests are shrinking, water tables are falling, soils are eroding, wetlands are disappearing, fisheries are collapsing, range-lands are deteriorating, rivers are running dry, temperatures are rising, coral reefs are dying, and plant and animal species are disappearing” (40). All this is stated entirely without references (41) to back it up.

Discussing forests, Worldwatch Institute categorically states that “the world’s forest estate has declined significantly in both area and quality in recent decades” (42). Yet, the longest data series from the UN’s FAO, readily available, show that global forest cover has increased from 30.04% of the global land area in 1950 to 30.89% in 1994, an increase of 0.85% over the last 44 years (43). Such global figures are not referred to, however; we are only told that “each year another 16 million hectares of forests disappear ”(44), a figure which is 40% higher than the latest UN figure (45). Regarding the forests’ quality, Worldwatch does not back it up with figures either, but this time for a good reason: no such global figures exist.

Blatant errors are also made with unfortunate frequency. Worldwatch Institute claims that “the soaring demand for paper is contributing to deforestation, particularly in the northern temperate zone. Canada is losing some 200,000 hectares of forest a year” (46). Reference is made to the FAO’s State of the World’s Forests 1997, but the mentioned data shows in fact the reverse: Canada grew 174,600 more hectares of forest each year! (47).

In its 2000 overview, Worldwatch Institute lists the problems staked out in its very first State of the World publication from 1984. Here is the complete list (48):

- record rates of population growth,

- soaring oil prices,

- debilitating levels of international debt and,

- extensive damage to forests from the new phenomenon of acid rain.

Assessing this list at the turn of the millennium could be a good place to take stock of the important issues, asking ourselves if we have overcome earlier problems. However, Worldwatch Institute immediately tells us without a look at the list that we have not solved these problems: “As we complete this seventeenth State of the World report, we are about to enter a new century having solved few of these problems, and facing even more profound challenges to the future of the global economy. The bright promise of a new millennium is now clouded by unprecedented threats to humanity’s future ” (49).

But a checklist backed up with trends and data tell us another story with the international debt problem being the only real failure in an otherwise not so bad overall improvement of the State of the world:

- record rates of population growth?

Speaking of record rates of population growth is merely wrong, since the record was set back in 1964 at 2.17% (50). Since that record, the rate has been steadily declining, standing at 1.26% in 2000, and expected to drop below 1 % in 2016. Even the absolute number of people added to the world yearly reached its peak in 1990 with 87 million, dropping to 76 million in 2000 and still decreasing (51).

- soaring oil price?

The soaring oil prices which cost the world a decade of slow growth from the 1970s into the mid-1980s declined throughout the 1990s to a price comparable to or lower than the one before the oil crisis of 1971. Even though oil prices have doubled since the all-time low in mid-1998, the price in the first quarter of 2001 is on par with the price in 1990, and the barrel price of $25 in March 2001 is still way below the top price of $60 in the early 1980s (52). Moreover, most consider this spike is a short-term occurrence. And reserves are not falling.

- debilitating levels of international debt ?

Admittedly, the level of debt while declining steadily throughout the 1990s, declined only slightly, from 144% of exports in 1984 to 137% in 1999 (53).

- acid rain?

While harming lakes, it did very little if any damage to forests. Moreover, the sulphur emissions responsible for acid rain have declined in both Europe and the US –in the EU, emissions have been cut by a full 60 % since 1984 (54).

Why then is Worldwatch Institute misreading the situation? The problem, of course, is not lack of data. Worldwatch Institute publishes fine data collections, but carelessness comes because of an ingrained belief (not substantiated scientifically) in a doomsday scenario. It leads the Institute to warn the world that we will face “unprecedented threats” clouding humanity’s future (55) “as the global economy expands, local ecosystems are collapsing at an accelerating pace ” (56).

For the Worldwatch Institute, sub-Saharan Africa is a prime example where “decline is replacing progress" because the global economy expands. "In this region of 800 million people, life expectancy, a sentinel indicator of progress, is falling precipitously as governments overwhelmed by rapid population growth have failed to curb the spread of the virus that leads to AIDS” (57).

But if it is true that HIV/AIDS is decreasing life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa, and that within some states, it has caused shockingly great declines, it is quite obvious that the ever increasing economy crushing the ecosystem is just not there as the cause.

In fact, the scientifically and medically minded review "The Lancet" argued that two principal factors are to blame for the AIDS epidemic in the developing countries, none of them being the crushing of the ecosystem:

- the reluctance of national governments to take responsibility for preventing HIV infection and,

- the failure by both national governments and international agencies to set realistic priorities that can have an effect on the overall epidemic in countries with scarce resources and weak implementation capacity.

Both are the main cause of the problem (58). In other words, political and social factors have caused the decline. If the tragedy is obvious and demands the attention and efforts of the developed world, it is not a result of an ecological collapse brought on by an ever expanding economy.

Reality: World Wide Fund for Nature

Towards the end of 1997, the Indonesian forest fires were pouring out thick clouds of smoke over much of Southeast Asia. There is no doubt that these were obnoxious for city dwellers. It gave the opportunity for World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to stress that the forest fires were a signal that the world’s forests were “out of balance ”, for some at the Worldwatch Institute, it was again a primary sign of ecological breakdown. It was “the year the world caught fire,” because, according to WWF, “in 1997, fire burned more forests than at any other time in history ” (59). WWF president Claude Martin stated unequivocally that “this is not just an emergency, it is a planetary disaster” (60).

But on closer inspection, the figures do not substantiate this wild claim: 1997 was well below the record, and the only reason that 1997 was the year when Indonesia’s forest fires were noticed was that it was the first time they really irritated city dwellers (61).

In all, Indonesia’s forest fires affected approximately 1% of the nation’s forests. It did not prevent WWF in 1997 to issue a press release entitled “Two-thirds of the world’s forests lost forever” (62) and, as they explained “that new research by WWF shows that almost two-thirds of the world’s original forest cover has been lost ”(63).

This seemed rather amazing to me, since most sources estimate the loss at about 20% (64). I therefore called WWF in England and asked to see WWF’s research report. All WWF was able to tell me, however, was that actually no report had ever existed. The figures were coming from a paper at the World Conservation Monitoring Centre. But WWF had overlooked one critical factor in the paper: the forests of the northern hemisphere had been included in the original overview of forest cover, but excluded from the updated one (65).

Notwithstanding, the rumor is now that “we have proof … that the pace of forest destruction has accelerated dramatically over the last 5 years and continues to rise” (66).

But the UN has vastly different figures that don't back up such pessimism. The rate of deforestation, according to the institution, was 0.346 % in the 1980s and just 0.32 % in the period 1990-95. It was not a dramatic increase in the pace of destruction but a decrease (67) .

WWF has it in mind that the deforestation is more manifest in Brazil, which “still has the highest annual rate of forest loss in the world” (68) than anywhere in the world. In actual fact the deforestation rate in Brazil is among the lowest as far as tropical forest goes; according to the UN the deforestation rate in Brazil is at 0.5% per year compared to a world average of 0.7% per year (69). So it seems that WWF could not get a single fact right.

In general, the (unbiased) researchers find that “the statistics for forest loss in general circulation today massively exaggerate deforestation during the twentieth century” (70). And it is estimated today that in West Africa the actual deforestation has been about 9.5 –10.5 million hectares, or about five times less than what was estimated by WWF/WCMC (71).

This leads me to the so-called Living Planet Index of the WWF that among other measures use these forest estimates. The index is showing a "decline" over the past 25 years of 30%, “implying that the world has lost 30% of its natural wealth in the space of one generation” (72).

This index uses three measures:

- the extent of natural forests (without plantations),

- changes in population of 102 selected marine species.

- changes in population of 70 selected freshwater species.

The index is very problematic. First, excluding plantations of course ensures that the forest cover index will fall (since plantations are increasing and vestigial forests are not). Yet, it is not known whether plantations are bad for nature overall.

Plantations produce much of our forest goods, reducing pressure on other forests. For example, in Argentina, a vast land, 60% of all wood is produced in plantations which constitute just 2.2% of the total forest area, thus relieving the other 97.8% of the forests (73). To further its case, WWF asserts that plantations “make up large tracts of current forest area” (74). In fact, they constitute only 3% of the world’s total forest area (75).

Then, using 102 selected marine and 70 selected freshwater species there is naturally no way of ensuring that these species are representative of the innumerable other species. Actually, since research is often conducted on species that are known to be in trouble (basically because troubled species are the ones on which we need and seek information in order to act), it is likely that such estimates are grossly biased towards decline.

Surely, in order to assess the state of the world, we need to look at many more informations and better measures. But to conclude that we now get 30% less from the ecosystem each year is almost nonsensical (76). What the records tell us is that forest output has not decreased but actually increased some 40% since 1970 (77). Marine food production has almost doubled since 1970. Thus, by WWF's own flawed measures, we did not experienced a fall in ecosystem contribution but actually an increase.

Reality: Greenpeace and the extinction of the world

Greenpeace’s official biodiversity report stated not so long ago that “it is expected that half the Earth’s species are likely to disappear within the next seventy-five years” (78). If you switch on Discovery channel, it is clear that most of the species are endangered. Yet, this pessimism is not backed-up by a single scientific research. In fact, established figures show that the world would lose not about 50% of all species within a generation but only about 0.7% within 50 years.

Greenpeace International has pulled its report off the internet, and it now admits that: "many environmental issues we fought for ten years back are as good as solved". Yet, Greenpeace is just honestly saying that even so, its (business) strategy continues to focus on the assumption that "everything is going to hell” (72). It is no more the environment that is at stake but the survival of the species: the Greenpeace one.

Reality: wrong statistics and bad economics

There is an amazing amount of incorrect statements in many books. A recent one is about synthetic chemicals mimicking human and animal hormones. It has made people anxious and boosted the sale of a new kind of popular scientific book such as "Our Stolen Future" (79).

This book hinges a large part of its argument on a purported connection between synthetic hormones and breast cancer. It states that “by far the most alarming health trend for women is the rising rate of breast cancer, the most common female cancer” (80). We are told that “since 1940, when the chemical age was dawning, breast cancer deaths have risen steadily by 1% per year in the United States, and similar increases have been reported in other industrial countries. Such incidence rates are adjusted for age, so they reflect genuine trends rather than demographic changes such as a growing elderly population” (81). A compounded 1% increase since 1940 means mathematically a 75% increase in breast cancer deaths comes 1996 (82). Frightening, isn't it?

But this statement is again wrong. Between 1940 and the mid 1990s, existing statistical data show that the age-adjusted death rate dropped some 9% instead of increasing by the proclaimed 75%, and by 1998, the drop is even larger at 18% (83).

Reality: water problems

Another spectacular misreading is in relation to water sanitation. If we believe the Global Environmental Outlook Report 2000, "worldwide, polluted water is estimated to affect the health of about 1,200 million people and to contribute to the death of about 15 million children under five every year” (84). How do we reconcile this statement with the WHO figures for the total number of deaths among children under 5, estimated to be at about 10 million, remains a mystery (85)!

One of the most widely used college books on the environment, "Living in the Environment", claims that “according to a 1995 World Bank study, 30 countries containing 40% of the world’s population (2.3 billion people) now experience chronic water shortages that threaten their agriculture and industry and the health of their people” (86). Many different environment texts used this World Bank statement with slightly differing figures (87). Unfortunately, none refers further to any study to back up the claim.

Checking where the figures were coming from, I discovered that the World Bank had only issued a press release with the following headline: "The world is facing a water crisis: 40% of the world’s population suffers from chronic water shortage” (88). But what was made clear in the release was that the vast majority of the 40% suffering from chronic shortage were not people who used too much water but those who actually did not have access to water or sanitation facilities. Thus, the World Bank was saying the exact opposite meaning that is now in every book. Who took the pain to read the document? Certainly not Worldwatch because then the document explained that only about 4% of the world’s population was affected and not 40% (89).

Actually, the most important human problem with water today is not scarcity but that too many people have no access to clean water and sanitation. That is a different assessment of the problem since the issue is a political one, not the result of an ecological catastrophe.

Thus, the most important water question should be whether access to water and sanitation has been improving or declining. The good news is that progress have been made in the right direction. Yet, people like to delude themselves as can be seen when reading "Water in Crisis", the best researched book on the subject. Peter Gleick, its editor, is another adept of the Litany of gloom.

While showing that from 1980 to 1990, things got better, the proportion of people in developing countries with access to water increasing from 44% to 69% (more than 25%), and sanitation from 46% to 56% of world population (90) for the period from 1990 to 2000, he concluded that things got worse and that far more people would end up without water or sewage facilities. Why? Because of an accounting error. Gleick assumed that 882 million more people will be born in the nineties. Since none of these from the outset would have access to water or sewage facilities, their number was therefore added up to the total number of unserved people at the start of the period (91).

This is an entirely unreasonable assumption, for, in essence, by such calculation it is decided that for the said period, not a single new water supply will be added to serve the 882 million born during the decade. It is obviously wrong. Just in the preceding decade, 1.3 billion people have been added to the number supplied with water. What would be reasonable as an assumption then would be to assume that a similar rate of growth would be maintained. That would mean in fact that no progress is registered (meaning this is the lowest assumption) while a higher growth rate, if progress were to be made, could be expected. No matter how erroneous the graph of Gleick was, it has been reproduced and has for instance been distributed in a seminal article as a proof of impending water shortage (92).

The true numbers show in fact that the share of people in the developing countries with access to drinking water has increased from 30% in 1970 to 80% in 2000. Equally, the share of people with access to sanitation has increased from 23% in 1970 to 53% in 2000, and this in spite of the population growth. Although there is still much left to do, the water and sanitation crises are another delusion.

Reality: Pimentel and global health

Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University is a frequently cited and well-known environmentalist, responsible, among many other arguments, for a global erosion estimate far larger than any other. He is also famous for arguing that the ideal population of a sustainable US would be 40-100 million (i.e. a reduction of 63 –85% of the present population) (93).

In October 1998, Professor Pimentel published as lead author an article on the “Ecology of increasing disease” in the peer-reviewed journal BioScience (94). The basic premise of the paper is that increasing population will lead to increasing environmental degradation, intensified pollution and consequently more human disease. Along the way, many other negative developments are suggested. The article has been extensively quoted and used to predict the decline of the world (95). Yet the article is seriously misleading on all of its central conclusions.

One of Pimentel's claims is that the biggest infectious disease killer, tuberculosis, has claimed 2.5 million lives in 1990 and 3 million in 1995, with an expected toll of 3.5 million dead in 2000 (96). However, in 1999, the actual known tally of deaths from tuberculosis was 1.669 million people. As for the WHO, it estimated an almost stable yearly rate of 2 million dead from tuberculosis over the 1990s (97).

What went wrong? To use the TB rate infection of the US to extrapolate a worldwide trend was already seriously problematic, yet was done without second thought ("patterns of TB infection in the United States are similar to the world situation, in which TB cases increased by approximately 18% from 1985 to 1991, the article claimed) (98). Then, Pimentel, for obvious reasons, took from such data the lowest number of tuberculosis cases recorded at some point of time (1985), 22,201 cases and compared it with the highest, 26,283 cases (registered in 1991).

Using almost any other years, he would have got a decline trend rather than an 18% increase. The range was carefully selected to justify the argument. (Portfolio managers use the same method to beef up their performance and market their products).

In 1996, two years before release of the paper, the total number of deaths was already below the 1985 level. The latest available figure of 1999 stands at 17,531 cases in the US, well below the 1991 number. Even absolute numbers as the ones used by Pimentel do not back up his claim, but the use of absolute numbers is also in itself another fraud. Averaging by the 6% growth rate registered by the population during the period would have clearly shown that the percentage of deaths by tuberculosis for a population of 100,000 people was basically stable before dropping significantly in the late 1990s. Therefore the tuberculosis data, for what it is worth, does not substantiate the central conclusions of the article.

Pimentel looked also at the cancer-related deaths as a proof of the danger of chemicals and pesticides, pointing out that “in the United States, cancer-related deaths from all causes increased from 331,000 in 1970 to approximately 521,000 in 1992” (99). But here again, he used the same flawed method to back up his claim. Firstly, he used once more absolute numbers, conveniently ignoring a 24% increase in the population, and secondly, he ignored the age distribution factor of such a population (an aging population making cancers more likely).

When adjusted by those factors, the cancer death rate in the US was actually lower in 1996 than in 1970, despite increasing cancer deaths from past smoking habits. Furthermore, when adjusted for smoking-related deaths (chemical and pesticide exposure is not the same kind of exposure), the rate has been declining steadily since 1970 by about 17%.

What we have here is an academic picking up absolute numbers, and no trend, to show that things are getting worse. Pimentel, for example, stated that “in Thailand the prevalence of HIV infections in males increased from 1% to 40% between 1988 and 1992” (100). But that was simply an increase in the growth rate on a short period, not the percentage of HIV prevalence among a population. In actual fact, even the so-called commercial sex workers never had a 40% prevalence since measuring started in 1989, the highest rates being at some point 8-9% (95). Globally, UN AIDS estimates that among the adult population, the prevalence of HIV has never been higher than 2.15% (101).

Reality: the Malthusian syndrome

The reason Pimentel stated all the above was to justify his central premise: that the prevalence of human disease is increasing (102) because of environmental degradation of one sort or another due to too many human beings causing an “unprecedented increase in air, water and soil pollutants, including organic and chemical wastes” as well as increasing malnutrition (103). To sum up, 40% of all deaths are caused by “various environmental factors, especially organic and chemical pollutants”, Pimentel concluded (104). It is what one could call a neo-malthusian view.

Let us look at some of the claims further. Take malnutrition: “In 1950, 500 million people (20% of the world population) were considered malnourished. Today more than 3 billion people (50% of the world population) suffer from malnutrition, the largest number and the highest rate in history", Pimentel claims (105). The number of malnourished “increases every year” (106).

Is it true? Can statistics lie? There are several ways they can. One is with a sample with a built-in bias. Absolute numbers would fall into that category. Another one is with a well-chosen average. We have seen many examples of that one. A third method is to use two different sets of information to infer a third unrelated one.

Pimentel did this when using 1950 data from "The World Food Problem" by David Grigg (1993), and 1996 data coming from a press release of the WHO. These two sets of data are using dramatically different definitions of malnutrition. The 1950 data use the most common definition: lack of calories. If a human being got less than 20% above physical minimum, he/she was counted as undernourished or starving. According to the published data, the number of undernourished (getting less than 20% of what was needed) went up from 550 million to 650 million, and then declined to 534 million.

Keep in mind that they are absolute numbers. In the meantime, the population of the developing world had increased by more than 1.6 billion. Therefore the real percentage of starving people dropped during the period from 34% to 17%, as many more people in the Third World were well nourished than in the past. Yet, in absolute numbers, it can also be said that a great deal of people are still malnourished. However the prevalence of malnourishment is on the decline, not on the rise.

An even tighter definition of malnourishment (55% calorie intake instead of 20%) used since 1970 by the FAO shows too a decline from 917 million in 1970 to 792 million in 1997. At the going rate of decline, it is expected that the number will fall to 680 million in 2010 and 401 million in 2030, and this in spite of a population increase of about 1.9 billion people since 1970. With this tighter definition, the percentage of starving people has dropped even faster, from 35% to 18% in 1996, to reach 12% in 2010 and hopefully 6% in 2030, than with the 1950 one. It is therefore difficult to concur with Pimentel using those data alone.

Then comes the second set of data from the WHO. Here, it is not a lack of calories that is targeted but micronutrient malnutrition, in other words lack of iodine, iron and vitamin A in the food intake (107). While the two definitions focus on equally important problems, they produced two entirely different sets of measures and they are not exactly dealing with an identical problem.

The micronutrient question has only drawn the attention of researchers ten years ago, therefore the available data are limited to a short range. But even on such a short range, they show a 40% decline in the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency, while 60% of all salt are now fortified with iodine (108), thus reducing the prevalence of iodine deficiency in food intake. Furthermore those deficiencies are not prevalent worldwide.

Therefore how can one compare 500 million undernourished people with 3 billion lacking micronutrients? The comparison does not tell us anything specific about malnourishment itself. As both indicators show great improvement since records began, how can one conclude to an increase in malnutrition among the population, to a situation going from bad to worse

Reality versus rhetoric

One of the main rhetorical figures of the environmental movement is to pass off a temporary truism as an important indicator of inevitable decline. Thus Worldwatch Institute wants us to change to renewable energy sources because "from a millennial perspective, today’s hydrocarbon-based civilization is but a brief interlude in human history” (109).

This is obviously true, but a thousand years ago we did not use oil, and a thousand years from now we will probably be using solar, fusion or other technologies we have not yet thought of. The problem is that such truism does not really narrow down the time when we have to change energy supply: now, in 50 years or in 200 years

When seen from a millennial perspective, many things become brief interludes, such as the Hundred Years War, the Renaissance, the twentieth century and indeed our own lives.

To mention only all the negative consequences is most evident when discussing global warming and global climate change.

For example, according to Newsweek: "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production, with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree, a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states. To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity" (110).

While this article sounds surprisingly familiar and contemporary, it was actually written in 1975 and published under the headline “The Cooling World".

So 1975 was a time when we all worried about global cooling, not global warming!

Of course, today there are better arguments and more credible models underpinning our worry about global warming and since our societies are adjusted to the present temperature, either cooling or warming will entail large costs. But notice how the Newsweek article conspicuously left out any positive consequences of cooling. Today, we worry that global warming will increase the outreach of malaria, consequently, the author could have outlined the benefit of the reduction of infected areas. Equally, if a shortening of growing seasons with a cooling world was a worrying trend, why don't we mention now that a warming world would result in lengthening the growing season (111)?

If we are to make an informed decision about cooling or warming phenomena, one certainly needs to include both the resulting costs and benefits. If one rhetorically focuses only on the downside, inefficient and biased decisions will ensue.

A widely and spectacular misleading environmental metaphor that environmentalists use to scare us is to compare the current situation of the planet to that of Easter Island.

A small island situated in the Pacific Ocean more than 3,200 km west of Chile, Easter Island is most well known for its more than 800 gigantic heads cut in volcanic stone, set all over the island. Archaeological evidence indicates that a thriving culture, while producing the stunning statues, also began reducing the forests around 900 AD, using the trees for rolling the statues, as firewood and as building materials. In 1400 the palm forest was entirely gone; food production declined, statue production ceased in 1500, and apparently warfare and hunger reduced the population by 80 % before an impoverished society was discovered in 1722 by Dutch ships. Since then, Easter Island has been an irresistible image for the environmentalists, show-casing a society surpassing its limits and crashing devastatingly.

Worldwatch Institute tells us in its millennium edition: "As an isolated territory that could not turn elsewhere for sustenance once its own resources ran out, Easter Island presents a particularly stark picture of what can happen when a human economy expands in the face of limited resources. With the final closing of the remaining frontiers and the creation of a fully interconnected global economy, the human race as a whole has reached the kind of turning point that the Easter Islanders reached in the sixteenth century" (112).

As for Isaac Asimov, the message is clear “if we haven’t done as badly as the extinct Easter Islanders, it is mainly because we have had more trees to destroy in the first place.” (113).

Again, the problem with such a story is that it only indicates that crashing is indeed possible, but it makes no effort to explain why, of the 10,000 Pacific islands, only 12, including Easter Island, seem to have undergone declines or crashes, whereas most societies in the Pacific have indeed been prosperous (114).

Moreover, a model of Easter Island seems to indicate that its unique trajectory was due to a dependence on a particularly slow-growing palm tree, the Chilean Wine palm, which takes 40 to 60 years to mature (115). This fact alone sets Easter Island apart from all the other Polynesian islands, where fast-growing coconut and Fiji fan palms made declines unlikely or impossible.

Models predicting an ecological collapse of the Easter Island type need increasing population with increasing resources to produce an overshoot. But in the modern world, such a scenario seems very unlikely, precisely because increased wealth causes a fertility decline (see Armatya Sen on the subject). And it is worth pointing out that today’s world is much less vulnerable to such a problem than an isolated island, precisely because trade and transport effectively act to reduce local risks.

To rely on rhetoric instead of sound analysis backed up by reliable data lead to poor forecasts.

In 1972, a best-seller "Limits to Growth" that purported to be a scientific book, claimed we would run out of gold in 1981, silver and mercury in 1985 and zinc in 1990 (116). Yet, in 2002 most resources actually have become more abundant and commodity prices have collapsed. Needless to say, gold, silver, mercury and zinc are still abundant.

Reality

Matter-of-fact discussions of the environment seem nowadays to be very difficult, or next to impossible (in view of the reaction my book provoked). Yet it is absolutely vital to get our facts right because, with limited resources, we need to prioritize our efforts in many different fields, e.g. health, education, infrastructure and defense, as well as our environment.

In the course of the last few decades, the Litany of gloom seems to have become the adequate and true description of the world. For people to make erroneous claims, such as those we mentioned here, without real evidence to authenticate them, was made possible because our environment, as we dream it, was or is not in good shape.

But to what extend it is being damaged or improved, is not clear. Yet, people tend now to be extremely skeptical towards anyone who says that the environment is not in such a bad state and that it is not getting worse. This is why I have gone to great lengths to check the facts with more than 1,800 references.

Most of the statistics I used come from official sources, which are widely accepted by the majority of people involved in the environment debate. This includes our foremost global organization, the United Nations, and all its subsidiary organizations: the FAO (food), the WHO (health), the UNDP (development) and the UNEP (environment) as well as data published by international organizations such as the World Bank, the IMF and from the relevant countries’ public authorities.

Just because figures come from international or governmental organizations does not of course mean that they are free from errors – some figures come from other publications which are less “official ”in nature. If you find yourself thinking “that can’t be true,” when reading this article or my book "The Skeptical Environmentalist", it is important to remember that the statistical material I present is usually identical to that used by the WWF, Greenpeace and the Worldwatch Institute.

People often ask where the figures used by “the others” are, but there are no other figures. The figures I used are the official figures everybody uses. To sum up, let's take the widely perceived point that overall forest cover in the world has decreased. Only the FAO’s Production Yearbook published data calculating the area of forest cover from 1949 up to 1994. Environmentalists believed there is less forest whereas I think there is more. Why? Because in its 1950 edition, FAO calculated that the world had 40.24 million sq./km of forest. In its 1994 edition, FAO worked out a figure of 43.04 million sq./km. So in a way, things are getting better not worse. Yet, the environmentalists continue to claim that we have less and less forest!

Reality and morality

Finally what about the moral aspects of the environment debate? In the same way as you can only be for peace and freedom and against hunger and destruction, it is impossible to be anything but for the environment. But it cannot be in the interest of our society to debate about such a vital issue as the environment to use myth rather than truth.

Many people have pointed out that although I may be right in claiming that things are not as bad as we thought they were, such arguments should not be voiced in public as they might cause us to take things a bit too easy. In essence we are said that if the environment gets cleaned up, it is because people worried in earlier times. Therefore the Litany of gloom would be a necessary tool to preserve the future.

However, this principle does not stand scrutiny. A good example of how misconceived principles can lead to the wrong argument is the problem of air pollution. In London, it has declined since the late nineteenth century. What is because of environmental concerns? No, the decrease for the greater part of the twentieth century was due to technical factors: a change in infrastructure and fuel use. The decline connected to environmental worries expressed in concrete policy changes is in fact marginal at best.

Although kindling public concern clearly makes people choose more “correctly” as seen from an environmental viewpoint, it inevitably leads to an “incorrect" allocation when comes the decision.

What we need to do is to confront our myth that economic progress is undercutting the environment. We are now at the stage where we believe that we are faced with an inescapable choice between higher economic welfare and a greener environment. But, surprisingly, and it is well documented, environmental development often stems from economic development: only when we get sufficiently rich can we afford the relative luxury of caring about the environment.

On its most general level, this conclusion is inescapable from existing data. Higher income is correlated with higher environmental sustainability.

Of course, many people love to say that we should have a pollution-free environment. This would be bliss, but is it a reality? The point is that we, in the real world, never ask for 100 %. Similarly, we have to find a level at which there is sufficiently little pollution, such that our money, effort and time are better spent solving other problems. This calls for access to the best possible and least myth-based knowledge, the choice between reality and delusion.

© Lømborg

asian affairs.com

1- Lester Brown was president of Worldwatch Institute until 2000, and is now chairman and senior researcher.

2 - Other environmental papers and reports are available which are better from an academic point of view.

3 - Scott 1994: 137

4 - The term "the Litany" as well as the following description is from Regis (1997).

5- It is claimed that no one would make these statements any more, but an almost identical description was the backbone of Time magazine's presentation of the state of nature in their special edition of 2001

6- Perhaps the most concentrated statement exemplifying all the Litany comes from Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl's book on "Our Angry Earth" (1991:ix)

7- This and the following claims are documented in the individual chapters below.

8 - WFS 1996:I, table 3; FAO 1999c :29.

9 - Simon 1995:6

10 - WRI 1996a:105

11- E.g. Easterlin 2000

12 - WRI 1996a:105.

13 - UNEP 2000:55.

14 - Scotney, D.M. and F.H.Djikhuis 1989: “Recent changes in the fertility status of South African soils.” Soil and Irrigation Research Institute, Pretoria, South Africa. Despite several attempts, I was unable to get hold of this publication.

15 - IFPRI 1999:14, and FAO 1995b:86 –7. Notice, FAO does not split up food production increase into yield and area increase (expecting a total annual increase of 3.4%, cf. IFPRI 2.9%, of which 1.7% comes from yield increases).

16 - The annual yield growth has been 0.37% since 1993, the total production 20.7% (FAO 2000a).

17 - Pimentel et al.1995a.

18 - Boardman 1998.

19 - From 2,007 to just 1,579 calories per day per capita (FAO 2000a).

20 - From 1,711 to 2,170 calories per day per capita, 1988 –98 (FAO 2000a).

21 - Of course, one should also take into account that the countries are of very different sizes.

22 - FAO 2000a.

23 - WI 1984:18.

24 - WI 2000c.

25 - E.g.Brown and Kane 1994:138.

26 - Brown and Kane 1994:142.

27 - Asimov and Pohl 1991:45. The ellipsis is in the original text. I have left out an obvious repetition: “The twenty-three years from 1947 to 1969 averaged about 8.5 days of very violent Atlantic hurricanes from 1947 to 1969, while...”.

28 - Landsea 1993: figure 8, see http://www.aoml. noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/climo/

29 - Landsea 1993.

30 - Landsea et al.1999:108.

31 - WWF 1997a:18.

32 - INPE 2000:9.

33 - WWF 1997a:18.

34 - INPE 2000:7; Brown and Brown 1992:121.

35 - I do not generally buy the argument that animals should have equal rights, cf. Singer 1977.

36 - Although I refrain from using more radical interpretations, this formulation was naturally inspired by Baxter 1974. A view of life like this is known as objectification, and is the dominant view (Agger 1997:64ff).

37 - I strongly feel that animals and plants have the right not to be damaged or to die unnecessarily (I am a vegetarian for that very reason), but the crucial word here is “unnecessary.” When is something sufficiently necessary for a human to justify the death of a cow? This can presumably only be decided in a specific situation, and on the basis of procedural justice as in a democratic decision making process. And this is a decision made by humans according to their principles.

38 - But the choice is rarely unambiguous: virgin forests naturally also provide humans with recreational facilities, while the fields give life to a lot of corn.

39 - Although we will see counter-examples, as in Pimentel et al.(1998), below.

40 - WI 1998a:4.

41 - The rest of the Worldwatch Institute’s books naturally contain many examples of these claims, but as mentioned above, such singular examples are practically useless in terms of global evaluation.

42 - WI 1998a:22. They continue in the following sentence with, “As noted earlier, almost half the forests that once blanketed the Earth are gone.” despite the fact that Goudie (1993:43) estimates 20% and Richards (1990:164) 19% during the last 300 years. It suggests an unreasonable comparison between a trend over a couple of decades and a trend over a couple of millennia.

43 - It seems obvious that the 1949 estimate was off and would cause an even more optimistic conclusion than the one reported here.

44 - WI 1998a:22.

45 - 11.26 million ha/year (FAO 1997c:17).

46 - WI 1998a:9.

47 - 873,000 ha in the latest assessed period 1990 –5 (FAO 1997c:189).

48 - WI 2000a:xvii.

49 - WI 2000a:xvii.

50 - USBC 2000a.

51 - see Armatya Sen in this issue (Asian Affairs nº17)

52 - Measured in constant 2000 US$; IMF 2001a; data from Figure 65.

53 - World Bank 2000c, 2000e:I:188. Incidentally, this is also the trend (for 1984 –98) presented in another Worldwatch Institute publication (WI 2000b:73).

54 - EEA 2000.

55 - WI 2000a:xvii.

56 - WI 2000a:4; cf.WI 1998a:xvii, quoted in the opening of Part II.

57 - WI 2000a:4.

58 - Ainsworth and Teokul 2000.

59 - WWF 1997b, 1997d, 1998c.

60 - WWF 1997b, title and p.1.

61 - See references in the section on forests.

62 - WWF 1997e.

63 - WWF 1997a,1997e. 103. Goudie (1993:43) estimates 20%; Williams (1994:104) 7.5% and Richards (1990:164) 19% during the last 300 years. IPCC also estimate a global forest area reduction of 20% from 1850 to 1990 (2001a:3.2.2.2).

64 - A problem of definition which could be applied to as much as 33% of the currently forested area, this is unclear from provisional descriptions, although the Northern forests cover 1.2 billion ha (Stocks 1991:197). Aldrich was not aware of other historical accounts of forest loss and was happy to receive a copy of the references in note 102.

66 - WWF 1997e.

67 - In the period 1980 –95 the world lost 180 million ha (FAO 1997c:16), for 1990 –5,56.3 million ha (p.17) which is the total forested area at 3,454 million ha (p.10). For the 1980s (in million ha): 3,634 (1 –0.346%) 10 =3510.3 and for 1990 –5 (in million ha): 3510.3(1 –0.32 %) 5 =3,454. When I told Mark Aldrich at the WCMC about the claims of increasing deforestation, he said candidly “Well, that sounds like the WWF.”

68 - http://www.panda.org/forests4life/news/ 10897.htm.

69 - FAO 1997c:189,18.

70 - Fairhead and Leach 1998:xix.

71 - Fairhead and Leach 1998:183.

72 - WWF 1999:1.

73 - FAO 1997c:13, table 2.

74 - “Only about 3% of the world’s forests are forest plantations ” (FAO 1999a:1). Compare, however, to a FAO estimate in 1997: plantations in the industrialized world total approx. 80 –100 Mha, in the developing world 81.2 Mha out of a total forest area of 3,454 million ha, i.e. 5.2% (FAO 1997c:10,14, and WWF 1998a:36).

75 - This claim was not made in the new WWF 1999.

76 - WI 1999b:77.

77 - Greenpeace, Protecting Biodiversity : http:// www.greenpeace.org/~comms/cbio/bdfact.html. This link has now been removed because of my criticism.

78 - Verdens Gang , 19 March 1998.

79 - Colborn et al.1996.

80 - Colborn et al.1996:182. It is ironic and insupportable, when reading the book, to believe Theo Colborn’s assertion, that “we wrote into our book that I thought it was a very weak, very poor connection (between environmental contaminants and breast cancer )”(PBS Frontline 1998).

81 - Colborn et al.1996:182.

82 - 175 %=1.01 ^(1996 –1940).

83 - ACS 1999,CDC 2001a.

84 - UNEP 2000:42,http://www.grida.no/geo2000/ english/0046.htm.

85 - WHO 1998: “In 1997, there were 10 million deaths among children under 5.” 10.466 million, Murray and Lopez 1996c:648.

86 - Miller 1998:494. It is added that “in most of these countries the problem is not a shortage of water but the wasteful and unsustainable use of normally available supplies.” However, it does not seem aware that most of the 40 % comes from lack of access to water.

87 - Miller 1998:494; Engelmann and LeRoy 1993: http://www.cnie.org/pop/pai/water-11.html.

88 - World Bank 1995b.

89 - Serageldin 1995:2.

90 - Estimate by USAID and WHO; World Bank 1992:49.

91 - Today we know that the figure will be around 764 million because the birth rate has fallen more rapidly than expected (USBC 1996:A-3).

92 - Engelman and LeRoy 1993; see http://www. cnie.org/pop/pai/image4.html;http://wwwcatsic.ucsc .edu/~eart80e/SpecTopics/Water/water1.html. It is important, however, to point out that it actually does not look as though the provision of water and sewerage facilities will show such rapid progress, and that we see both an absolute and a relative increase from 1992 to 1994 (Wright 1997:3).

93 - Pimentel et al.1995a; Pimentel and Pimentel 1995.

94 - Pimentel et al.1998.

95 - Anon.1999d;Gifford 2000; Anon.1998b.

96 - Pimentel et al.1998:822 –3.

97 - WHO 2000b:164; Murray and Lopez 1996c: 465, 648.

98 - Pimentel et al.1998:823.

99 - Pimentel et al.1998:818. This connection is especially clear in Anon.1998b: “Of the 80,000 pesticides and other chemicals in use today, 10% are recognized as carcinogens. Cancer-related deaths in the United States increased from 331,000 in 1970 to 521,000 in 1992, with an estimated 30,000 deaths attributed to chemical exposure.”

100 - Pimentel et al.1998:824.

101 - UNAIDS 2000:128 –9.

102 - Pimentel et al.1998:817.

103 - Pimentel et al.1998:824.

104 - Pimentel et al.1998:817. Notes 357

105 - Pimentel et al.1998:822.

106 - Henderson 2000.

107 - World Bank (1993:76) estimate that direct and indirect lost Disability Adjusted Life Years are 73.1 million DALYs for undernourishment, and 72.1 million DALYs for micronutrient deficiencies.

108 - Darnton-Hill 1999.

109 - WI 1999a:23.

110 - Gwynne 1975.

111 - Of course, this also includes a distributional issue, if England has a longer and more agreeable growing season, Ethiopia may get more stifling heat, but then under the cooling scenario when England got colder climates, Ethiopia must have benefited.

112 - WI 1999a:11.

113 - Asimov and Pohl 1991:140 –1.

114 - Brander and Taylor 1998:122; Encyclopedia Britannica estimates about 10,000 islands.

115 - Brander and Taylor 1998:129.

116 - Meadows et al.1972:56ff.