Are you optimistic about the future?

I’ve just finished an Environment course with the Open University, and have only just got over the relief of seeing the back of it. An exam yesterday saw a download of everything I could remember from the last seven months of study, all in three hours, in badly-written biro. Much of what I have been studying is only just sinking in, and I have to go back to re-read things still.

People have asked me what the course covered – after a moment’s thought, the response would usually be:

• Flooding (there seemed to be a lot about flooding)
• Competition for resources
• Environmental responses, the unpredictability of them

Thinking back over it, these three things sum up some of the most pressing environmental issues of our time.

Water. Food. Space. A projected population of 9.3 billion people by 2050. That’s nearly four times as many people as there were on Earth in 1950. And all these people are placing ever greater pressure on an environment that some would argue has already passed breaking point. And it isn’t just overcrowded developing countries that are set to suffer, though their suffering will be worst; in the UK, all the evidence suggests that we are heading towards a monsoon climate, with heavy winter rain in the north of the country, and major flooding events on a regular basis. Architects (encouraged by insurance companies) are now designing houses, for construction in this country and other Western industrialised nations, that float. Our environment is changing, now, and our ability to survive no longer depends on our ability to control that change, but to adapt to it.

The numbers are near-incomprehensible – not just on population, but on the human ecological footprint, and on a dozen other indicators of planetary health. One part of the course was a discussion on whether we should feel optimistic or pessimistic about climate change, and the challenges it presents us. The consensus from a panel of experts appeared to be “let’s be optimistic, as the science is good, our understanding of the issues is good, but we have a mountain to climb”. The scientists may say this, but looking at the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen this December, it’s hard not to worry about the potential for a raft of half-baked, woolly policies, frustration and failure from nation states with conflicting interests, even now, when instinctively one’s feeling is that it is now absolutely too late for economic concerns, for quibbling over whether Kyoto was the best deal for all countries, for waiting for the United States to take the lead. It’s tempting to feel thoroughly pessimistic about our prospects.

The truth is, nobody knows precisely what will happen to our climate, our planet, in the next fifty or one hundred years, and particularly the ramifications for all life. Changing technology and science, changes in international politics, conflict over resources, flooding, disease, food shortages, inequalities, notions of development, the unpredictability of environmental responses – all bets are off. Copenhagen could see binding legislation compelling countries to cut their CO2 emissions. The US may not fudge on the commitments it needs to make this December. We may also move beyond the current preoccupation with carbon emissions, and look to issues such as biodiversity and sustainable development that have been comparatively neglected.

So I promise is that I will maintain this blog, along with all of the others that have contributed to Blog Action Day, as a place for discussion, to try to keep the bigger picture in mind, to balance optimism with realism.

And I’ll try and update it more often. Sorry.

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