The End of Doom (39 page)

Yet “the popular view [is] that diversity is decreasing at local scales,” the Brown University biologist Dov Sax and the University of California at Santa Barbara biologist Steven Gaines report in a 2003 article for
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
. Sax and his University of New Mexico colleague James Brown pointed out in a 2007 roundtable in
Conservation
that “North America presently has more terrestrial bird and mammal species than when the first Europeans arrived five centuries ago.” Sax and Gaines's observations were bolstered by an April 2014 article, “Assemblage Time Series Reveal Biodiversity Change but Not Systematic Loss,” published in
Science
by a team of researchers led by University of St. Andrews biologist Maria Dornelas. Dornelas and her colleagues analyzed a massive data set covering more than 35,000 mammal, bird, fish, invertebrate, and plant species from marine, freshwater, and terrestrial biomes ranging from the poles to the tropics. The data comprised a hundred individual time series of species composition. “Surprisingly, we did not detect a consistent negative trend in species richness,” reported the researchers. Instead, they found that while new and different species have often moved into any given area, the overall diversity of species was in general not declining.

While some introduced species do outcompete natives and contribute to their extinction, that phenomenon is relatively rare. On the whole, the actual number of species in any given area has tended to increase. For example, New Zealand's 2,000 native plant species have been joined by 2,000 from elsewhere, doubling the plant biodiversity of its islands. Meanwhile, only three species of native plants have gone extinct. In California, an additional 1,000 new species of vascular plants have joined the 6,000 native species in the Golden State, while fewer than 30 species have gone extinct. Similar increases in plant diversity can be seen around the globe.

As noted earlier, species that have become extinct and are most in danger of extinction are those that dwell in isolated habitats such as oceanic islands or freshwater streams. In a 2008 article for the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
Sax and Gaines note that thousands of oceanic bird species went extinct as Polynesians spread across the Pacific, bringing not only themselves but also hungry rats. Nevertheless, they point out, the overall species richness of the plant life on Pacific islands has increased considerably, and bird species richness has remained about the same, since the number of extinctions has been balanced by a number of new species moving in.

The richness of mammalian and freshwater species on Pacific islands has dramatically increased as well; it was nearly impossible for animals like rats, pigs, deer, lizards, frogs, catfish, and trout to colonize islands on their own. In addition, while some freshwater species in continental streams and lakes have gone extinct, most now harbor more species than they did before. Hawaii is, for example, home to more than 2,500 new species of invertebrates.

In many cases, the newcomers may actually benefit the natives. In a 2010 review article in the
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics,
the Rutgers ecologist Joan Ehrenfeld reported that rapidly accumulating evidence from many introduced species of plants and animals shows that they improve ecosystem functioning by increasing local biomass and speeding up the recycling of nutrients and energy. For example, zebra mussels are very effective filter feeders that have helped clear up the polluted waters of the Great Lakes enough to permit native lake grasses and other plants to flourish.

A 2012 review article in
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
surveying the literature on the effects of introduced species on ecosystem functioning reported that a “meta-analysis of over 1000 field studies showing that, although regional native species richness has often declined, primary production and several ecosystem processes were usually maintained or enhanced as a result of species introductions.” The researchers further conclude, “What is clear is that ecological theory does not automatically imply that a global decline in species richness will result in impaired functioning of the world's ecosystems.” In a 2003
Science
article, “Prospects for Biodiversity,” United Nations Environment Programme researcher Martin Jenkins noted, “In truth, ecologists and conservationists have struggled to demonstrate the increased material benefits to humans of ‘intact' wild systems over largely anthropogenic ones [like farms].… Where increased benefits of natural systems have been shown, they are usually marginal and local.” Jenkins added that even if the dire projections of global extinction rates being made by conservation advocates are correct, they “will not, in themselves, threaten the survival of humans as a species.”

Only when the ecologically correct ideologies that blind us are upended can we can see the real nature that is all around us. Baselines are properly transformed into aesthetic choices rather than “scientific” mandates. Consider the ambitious Pleistocene Rewilding proposal in which proxy wild species from Africa might be used to replace those North American species killed off by early peoples. African cheetahs might chase after pronghorns, and elephants graze where mastodons once roamed.

A small version of rewilding is the fascinating Oostvaardersplassen experiment in the Netherlands, where researchers are designing an ecosystem that aims to mimic what Northern Europe might have looked like 10,000 years ago. It is stocked with herds of Konik horses and Heck cattle, thought to be respectively similar to the Tarpan horses and the aurochs that once roamed Europe. The newly constructed ecosystem has attracted many wild species that have long been absent from the Netherlands. It is still missing predators, but wolves are apparently moving westward from Eastern Europe. “The Paleolithic landscape at the Oostvaardersplassen is a human creation, the result of human intervention, and will require continual human management and maintenance, as does any ecological restoration,” points out Sagoff.

Marris and Sagoff are correct that the conservation and appreciation of nature can take place at far less exotic locations, such as backyards, city parks, farms, and even parking lots. If biodiversity is what is of interest, Marris notes that the Los Angeles area is home to 60 native tree species, but now hosts 145 species. “With eight to eleven tree species per hectare, L.A. is more diverse than many ecosystem types,” Marris writes. Another researcher has identified 227 species of bee living in New York City. And if some of us choose to conserve some areas as “pristine” with regard to some preferred aesthetic baseline, that's okay. Certainly science can be used to help achieve that goal, but such areas become in effect wilderness gardens, maintained, as Marris observes, by “perpetual weeding and perpetual watching.”

Since there is no goal or end state toward which any particular ecosystem is heading, who is to say that landscapes and ecosystems modified by human activities are somehow inferior, sick even, and in need of healing? In his 2001
BioScience
article, “Values, Policy, and Ecosystem Health,” Robert Lackey, a fisheries biologist at Oregon State University, pointed out that “ecosystems have no preferences about their states.” How do we know whether or not an acre of land would “prefer” to be a swamp or a cornfield? As Lackey notes, either of them could be considered “healthy” depending on what human preferences are being implemented. “To a conservationist interested mainly in biodiversity, we have degraded nature, but to an agronomist, we have altered wild land to make it better serve humans,” noted the Nature Conservancy's Peter Kareiva and his colleagues in their 2007
Science
article “Domesticated Nature: Shaping Landscapes and Ecosystems for Human Welfare.”

“Humans must proactively manage ecosystems based on such carefully considered goals as selective conservation of threatened species, maximization of local and regional biodiversity, maintenance of watersheds and soil systems, and other essential functions provided by natural ecosystems,” argued Wheaton College researcher John Kricher. “In the next millennium, the balance of nature is what humanity will make it to be.” It would be well if more ecologists and environmental activists took to heart Marris's chief insight about conservation: “There is no one best goal.” She bravely and correctly concludes, “We've forever altered the Earth, and so now we cannot abandon it to a random fate. It is our duty to manage it. Luckily, it can be a pleasant, even joyful task if we embrace it in the right spirit. Let the rambunctious gardening begin.”

 

CONCLUSION: ENVIRONMENTAL RENEWAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NOT NIGH.
Far from it. Humanity does face big environmental challenges over the course of the coming century, but the bulk of the scientific and economic evidence shows that most of the trends are positive or can be turned in a positive direction by further enhancing human ingenuity. Let's briefly review that evidence and those trends.

Human population growth is slowing and will very likely peak at around 8 to 9 billion in this century and begin falling. This virtuous trajectory is the result of a combination of happy developments, not the least of which is expanding education and oppportunities for girls and women around the world. The process of economic growth reduces child mortality, which in turn encourages parents to have fewer children and invest more in their health and education. Increasing agricultural productivity ameliorates hunger and liberates people from the fields to seek better opportunities in cities. Rising agricultural yields that result from the application and spread of modern farming technologies, most especially including biotechnology, also means that the amount of land devoted to crops and pasturage is shrinking. Humanity has already likely reached “peak farmland,” which means that huge swaths of land will be restored to wild nature over the course of this century. As people abandon the landscape, this greatly enhances the prospects for protecting and preserving the planet's biodiversity.

People at the end of the century will be much wealthier than we are today. Consider again the “middle-of-the-road” projection for economic growth over the rest of the century done by the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation's Environment Directorate. In that nothing-special scenario, world population will have peaked at around 9.6 billion in 2065 and fallen to just over 9 billion by 2100. The world's economy will have grown more than eightfold from $67 trillion to $577 trillion (2005 dollars). Average income per person globally will have increased from around $10,000 today to $60,000 by 2100. US annual incomes would average just over $100,000. That amount of wealth enables people to buy a lot in the way of health, education, and wild nature.

Advances in human ingenuity can and in many instances are already beginning to reduce the deleterious side effects of resource usage. The evidence shows that economic growth ultimately results in a cleaner environment. For example, as the developed economies grew over the past four decades, their levels of air pollution steeply declined. Whatever retards economic growth will also retard environmental improvement. Ominous forecasts that humanity is about to run out of vital resources have proven false. Over the course of the last couple of centuries, the availability of resources has increased and the prices of resources have fallen due to technological progress and expansion of free markets. Markets also drive industries and consumers to cut their costs by using resources ever more efficiently. This ceaseless drive for efficiency is already resulting in the dematerialization of some aspects of the economy and the further withdrawal of humanity from nature.

Fears about the effects of modern technologies have turned out to be greatly exaggerated. Widespread predictions of vast cancer epidemics or a rising tide of infertility due to falling sperm counts as a result of exposures to trace amounts of synthetic chemicals have been disproven. Instead of a rising epidemic of tumors, cancer incidence rates have been falling in the United States for the past two decades. The activist insistence on increased precaution toward adopting new technologies very often results in leaving in place more dangerous and polluting old technologies.

The attack on biotech-enhanced crops is one of the more egregiously dishonest activist campaigns. Every independent scientific organization that has evaluated modern biotech crops has found them safe to eat and safe for the environment. To repeat: No one has gotten so much as a cough, sniffle, sneeze, or stomachache from eating foods made with ingredients from modern biotech crops. Among other benefits, biotech crops have reduced pesticide usage, boosted crop productivity, and improved the incomes of farmers around the world.

Man-made climate change is a problem, but it does not portend the end of the world. The solution to future climate change is the same as the remedy for other environmental problems—the application of human ingenuity and technology. Progressives want to use the “climate crisis” as a stalking horse to scare the rest of us into adopting their vast schemes to transform the world's economy into some kind of post-capitalist utopia. Consequently, progressives strongly support United Nations negotiations aiming at a global treaty that would impose central planning on the climate. So far, those negotiations have utterly failed.

It is unfortunately the case that government meddling on a global scale has massively distorted energy markets through pervasive subsidies, mandates, and price controls. The result is retarded innovation in the technologies of energy generation. A big first step toward renovating our energy supply systems would be to eliminate those impediments to understanding the real comparative benefits and costs of the production and use of energy. Ultimately, the better and far more effective way to ameliorate and avert future climate change is to mobilize human ingenuity through market processes to drive down the costs of no-carbon energy sources. Despite the constraints on innovation caused by government interference, notable advances in no-carbon energy generation technologies have already been made, ranging from innovative nuclear reactor designs to more efficient and cheaper solar panels.