At the same time, we’re bombarded with news of ecological collapse, ocean acidification, mass extinction, and water scarcity. The onslaught of negativity can be depressing, even numbing, to the point of action paralysis and nihilism.
An antidote can be found in a document published a little under a decade ago. In April 2015, a team of academics, environmentalists, and interdisciplinary thinkers presented a blueprint for a sustainable, vibrant future. Theirย Ecomodernist Manifestoย charted a path to “protect nature and improve human wellbeing by decoupling human development from environmental impacts.” In the authors’ view, humanity shouldn’t shrink and retreat in the face of environmental calamity, pursuing ideas like degrowth and population control. Instead, we should channel our species’ resillience and ingenuity into technological, pragmatic, and evidence-based solutions. It was a new environmentalism for a modern era. We created the aforementioned problems, and we can solve them. Oh, and we can liberate the world’s denizens from poverty and ensure energy access for all in the process.
Ecomodernism isn’t some pie-in-the-sky, overly optimistic, techno-utopic vision. The environmental decoupling the authors outlined has already been happening through the natural progression of human civilization. “Cities occupy just 1 to 3 percent of the Earthโs surface and yet are home to nearly four billion people,” they noted.
“The average per-capita use of land today is vastly lower than it was 5,000 years ago, despite the fact that modern people enjoy a far richer diet.”
What else? We’re showing signs of consuming fewer resources per capita, from water to raw materials. Population is forecast to peak later this century of our own volition.
Share this article
“Taken together, these trends mean that the total human impact on the environment, including land-use change, overexploitation, and pollution, can peak and decline this century. By understanding and promoting these emergent processes, humans have the opportunity to re-wild and re-green the Earth โ even as developing countries achieve modern living standards, and material poverty ends,” the authors wrote.
Over the next year, with support from theย Richard Lounsbery Foundation, RealClearScience will bring you content focusing on whatย Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, calls “the dynamic core of Ecomodernism”: Decarbonization, Dematerialization, and Land-sparing. We’ll highlight advances in nuclear power, carbon capture, hydrogen, energy storage, geoengineering, solar power, aquaculture, desalination, materials science, infrastructure, and ecological management, just to name a few topics. We’ll also share original ideas from thinkers and organizations spearheading the Ecomodernist movement. And, in accordance with the RealClear ethos, we’ll publish reasoned counterpoints to Ecomodernist notions as well.
As humanity’s collective attention finally turns to confronting the environmental harms we’ve wrought, Ecomodernism provides a unifying path forward that could rally us into action. Ecomoderism is needed now more than ever before.
Ross Pomeroy studied Zoology & Biological Aspects of Conversation at University of Wisconsin-Madison and used to be a zookeeper. Ross is now an editor at Real Clear Science. Follow Ross on Xย @SteRoPo
A version of this article was posted atย Real Clear Scienceย and is used here with permission. Check out Real Clear Science on Twitterย @RCScience
