The Environmentalists' Paradox

This column was published in the Cranbrook Daily Townsman Tuesday September 21, 2010.

A long standing environmentalist tenet holds that humans are living beyond our global means. It states resource depletion and ecosystem degradation will, sooner or later, bring about our ultimate demise. There is no lack of data available to support evidence of ecosystem decline. Be it salination or drying of water bodies such as the Aral Sea, collapse of fisheries (think Atlantic cod), musings on peak oil or deforestation, many argue that we’re destroying our home and native planet.

Yet rumours of our imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. Recent measures suggest the average human condition has not only avoided decline in the face of such ecological troubles but is actually improving. Estimates of a Human Development Index (HDI) based on life expectancy, literacy, education and gross domestic product indicate that the average human condition in every major region of the world has increased over the past thirty years.

Estimated "Human Development Index" as calculated by United Nations Development Programme in 2006. Source: Raudsepp-Hearne et al. 2010.

A paper (abstract available here) in the September issue of BioScience terms this “the environmentalist’s paradox.” The authors, scientists at Montréal’s McGill University led by Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne, ask “How is it that human well-being continues to improve as ecosystem services decline?” They offer four hypotheses to explain the paradox:

The four hypotheses are:
1. Critical dimensions of human well-being have not been captured adequately, and human well-being is actually declining.

2. Provisioning ecosystem services, such as food production, are most significant for human well-being; therefore, if food production per capita increases, human well-being will also increase, regardless of declines in other services.

3. Technology and social innovation have decoupled human well-being from the state of ecosystems to the extent that human well-being is now less dependent on ecosystem services.

4. There is a time lag after ecosystem service degradation before human well-being is negatively affected. Loss of human well-being caused by current declines in services has therefore not yet occurred to a measurable extent.

The authors cite sufficient data to reject the first hypothesis, stating “Most well being indicators… [show] that human well-being is, on average, growing.” Agree with it or not, global human condition is better. Turns out the “good ‘ol days” weren’t so good. No doubt some human populations are worse off, but the authors examined whether data lumping might mask key declines. Not so: the HDI is increasing across the board.

The second hypothesis is generally supported. Our ability to produce food currently outweighs declines in other services provided by ecosystems, such as water quality and quantity and forest cover. Again, measurements are at the global scale so localized impacts that directly affect human well-being should be considered. Examples include losses coral reefs that support fisheries and wetlands that provide flood protection.

For the third hypothesis, the authors conclude there is not enough evidence to suggest a de-coupling of humans from nature. Rather than replacing ecosystem services, technology has tended to extend them. We’re still dependent on natural products from ecosystems but more generally efficient in their use.

But our prospects are not propitious, for technology and resources both have limits. One report estimated that 40% of all protein in human diets depends on nitrogen fertilizer produced from fossil fuels. We are largely living off the capital of millions of years of biological accumulation on Earth.

The fourth hypothesis is perhaps the most intriguing. Are we experiencing a lag between ecosystem degradation and its potential to affect human well-being? Can we expect a visit from the “ghost of collapse-yet-to-come”? Here, the authors waffle. Theory strongly supports the existence of a lag, but they could find little actual evidence. Instead, they caution that “changes present new challenges to humanity” but admit actually measuring this is crazy difficult.

They conclude that we are having “an unprecedented effect on the biosphere,” but only “weak evidence” suggests that such impacts are “reducing aggregate human well-being at the global scale.” The paradox stands for now, but the authors don’t seem convinced that it will hold up long-term.