Earth Day Goal Should Be Human Prosperity
By Alex B. Berezow
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
This quote by Walt Kelly was plastered across the very first Earth Day poster in 1970 and largely captures the sentiment of even today’s environmental movement. What a shame that it sends such a terrible message.
The notion that humans can be destructive is quite obviously correct. However, referring to ourselves as the “enemy” not only lacks the power to motivate but also misdirects our attention. Instead of counting the ways in which we have harmed the planet, we should be focusing on how to improve it. And contrary to what greens might believe, the best way to do that today is to promote human prosperity.
Conventional wisdom tells us that prosperity and environmentalism are at loggerheads, but this is flatly untrue. Far from being contradictory goals, they can be complementary. A cursory glance around the world reveals that the countries most concerned about the environment are also often the ones wealthy enough to care. Indeed, it is usually citizens of prosperous countries who find the time to worry about issues such as the ethics of tossing dead fish at Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
The developing world, on the other hand, hardly has time for such luxuries. Who can realistically care about endangered species when one’s family barely scrapes together enough food?
The link between poverty and the inability to properly steward the planet’s resources is perhaps best exemplified by the plight of the black rhinoceros. This animal is being poached to extinction because its horn can fetch up to $30,000 per pound on the black market. Put simply, this animal is far more valuable dead than alive to the impoverished people of Africa.
Passing tougher poaching laws might slow the problem, but the true solution is to facilitate economic development in areas that lack it. When the people of Africa prosper, only then will they have the luxury of protecting this critically endangered species.
Similar reasoning applies to the destruction of the rainforest. In Brazil, for instance, deforestation is largely driven by the rapid expansion of agriculture. For many Brazilian farmers, profiting from the rainforest means cutting it down and replacing it with crops. Like rhino poaching, laws banning the practice can help, but a real solution needs to involve a shift in financial incentives that comes from thoughtful economic policy and development.
Better technology can also help. Increased usage of high-yield genetically modified crops would help curb the need for agricultural expansion, as would an increase in the number of large corporate farms. Though routinely demonized, “Big Agri” is far more efficient at feeding the planet than small family farms. Efficiency will be key to feeding the planet’s 9 billion people in 2050 in an environmentally sustainable way.
Economic and technological development is what partially allowed the United States to reconsider its environmental legacy. The rise of conservationism, such as that endorsed by Theodore Roosevelt, would have been much more difficult had the U.S. not become a more prosperous country. In fact, this realization sheds light even on today’s debates.
Why has the U.S. considered implementing cap-and-trade, a policy whose long-term benefits are unknown and the beneficiaries of which are mostly inhabitants of other countries? Because we’re wealthy enough to care about global warming. Why is the U.S. not squeezing every drop of oil out of ANWR and the Gulf of Mexico? Because we’re wealthy enough to be concerned about the ecological impact of an oil spill.
Additionally, it is wealth that allows the U.S. and other nations to spend precious resources researching clean energy, such as wind and solar. And it is wealth that allows us to quickly respond to environmental catastrophes, from man-made oil spills to lightning-induced forest fires.
In summary, when people no longer have to worry about food and shelter, they can spend their resources caring for the environment. In economic terms, investing in human capital today will yield a tremendous return for the planet tomorrow. Happy, healthy people will inevitably lead to a happy, healthy planet.
Planting a tree or turning out
the lights early is nice, but if you really want to help the planet this Earth
Day, send money to a charity that
promotes economic development. When the world becomes a richer place,
it will also become a greener place.
Alex B. Berezow is the editor of RealClearScience. He holds a Ph.D. in
microbiology