Nothing to fear from a Bigfoot

It seems that by the year 2050, the human race is going to be a planet short of its resource needs. I know this is true because I heard it yesterday morning on the CBC news. I was still reeling from the previous night’s revelation on The National that the Canadian Prairies are — due to global warming — heading for a massive drought. But what is mere drought compared with a missing planet?

The CBC’s story was based on the World Wildlife Fund for Nature’s 2006 Living Planet Report. According to the report, “The world’s natural ecosystems are being degraded at a rate unprecedented in human history.” But surely this is simply a function of the fact that there are more humans living better than at any time in history. Isn’t that a good thing? And is “degraded” the right word?

Not merely do professional alarmists refuse to countenance economics, they staunchly avert their eyes from examining why doleful projections have been wrong in the past.

The father of all such thinking was Thomas Malthus, who contended 200 years ago that the mass of humanity was destined to live at the level of subsistence because of their inability to stop breeding. Agricultural land expanded only gradually, in a linear fashion, while human mouths grew exponentially. Only a fool could fail to see a future of misery.

National Post