Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

The time-lagged decline of deforestation in the tropics is one sign that environmental protection is spreading from developed countries to the rest of the world. The world’s progress can be tracked in a report card called the Environmental Performance Index, a composite of indicators of the quality of air, water, forests, fisheries, farms, and natural habitats. Out of 180 countries that have been tracked for a decade or more, all but two show an improvement.²⁶ The wealthier the country, on average, the cleaner its environment: the Nordic countries were cleanest; Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and several sub-Saharan African countries, the most compromised. Two of the deadliest forms of pollution—contaminated drinking water and indoor cooking smoke—are afflictions of poor countries.²⁷ But as poor countries have gotten richer in recent decades, they are escaping these blights: the proportion of the world’s population that drinks tainted water has fallen by five-eighths, the proportion breathing cooking smoke by a third.²⁸ As Indira Gandhi said, “Poverty is the greatest polluter.”²⁹

Figure 10-4: Deforestation, 1700–2010

Source: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization 2012, p. 9.

The epitome of environmental insults is the oil spill from tanker ships, which coats pristine beaches with toxic black sludge and fouls the plumage of seabirds and the fur of otters and seals. The most notorious accidents, such as the breakup of the Torrey Canyon in 1967 and the Exxon Valdez in 1989, linger in our collective memory, and few people are aware that seaborne oil transport has become vastly safer. Figure 10-5 shows that the annual number of oil spills has fallen from more than a hundred in 1973 to just five in 2016 (and the number of major spills fell from thirty-two in 1978 to one in 2016). The graph also shows that even as less oil was spilled, more oil was shipped; the crossing curves provide additional evidence that environmental protection is compatible with economic growth. It’s no mystery that oil companies should want to reduce tanker accidents, because their interests and those of the environment coincide: oil spills are a public-relations disaster (especially when the name of the company is emblazoned on a cracked-up ship), bring on huge fines, and of course waste valuable oil. More interesting is the fact that the companies have largely succeeded. Technologies follow a learning curve and become less hazardous over time as the boffins design out the most dangerous vulnerabilities (a point we’ll return to in chapter 12). But people remember the accidents and are unaware of the incremental improvements. The improvements in different technologies unfold on different timetables: in 2010, when seaborne oil spills had fallen to an all-time low, the third-worst spill from stationary rigs took place. The Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico led in turn to new regulations for blowout preventers, well design, monitoring, and containment.³⁰

Figure 10-5: Oil spills, 1970–2016

Source:Our World in Data, Roser 2016r, based on data (updated) from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, http://www.itopf.com/knowledge-resources/data-statistics/statistics/. Oil spills include all those that result in the loss of at least 7 metric tons of oil. Oil shipped consists of “total crude oil, petroleum product, and gas loaded.”

In another advance, entire swaths of land and ocean have been protected from human use altogether. Conservation experts are unanimous in their assessment that the protected areas are still inadequate, but the momentum is impressive. Figure 10-6 shows that the proportion of the Earth’s land set aside as national parks, wildlife reserves, and other protected areas has grown from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 14.8 percent in 2014—an area double the size of the United States. Marine conservation areas have grown as well, more than doubling during this period and now protecting more than 12 percent of the world’s oceans.

Figure 10-6: Protected areas, 1990–2014

Source: World Bank 2016h and 2017, based on data from the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, compiled by the World Resources Institute.