Global warming and climate change: pessimism versus optimism

¶ … Future: Promising or Foreboding

It is relatively easy to be pessimistic about the future in our modern world. One only has to glance at the news to find aspects of our world that portend a gloomy and depressing future. There are daily reports about wars, terrorism, increasing poverty, the spread and HV/Aids and a host of other factors that suggest that the future is a very bleak for humanity on this planet. The recent announcement from the scientific community about the increase in global warming and climate change suggests that the entire human species might disappear in the future.

One could easily fill an entire book with dire and pessimistic prophesies about event that bode ill for the future of humanity.

On the surface it would seem to be far more difficult in this situation to find aspects that suggest that we might have a bright future. Optimistic views are often buried deeply among the daily references to gloom and doom that saturate the media and news. However, pessimism is only one way of looking at the situation and development in our modern world.

If we look at many of the events and occurrences in our world from a slightly different angle they can also suggest other possibilities that point to a more optimistic future for humanity and even a bright future for civilization. In this paper I would like to suggest that there has been an overemphasis on the negative and doom - laden view of life in modern society. While there are many aspects of our world which suggest that the future is a forbidding place, there are just as many and possibly even more aspects which suggest that the future can be optimistic and hopeful.

As Davidson states in Optimism in an Era of Uncertainty (2004); "In this time of high global tensions and economic uncertainty, is maintaining an optimistic outlook possible or even warranted? I believe it is. " (Davidson, 2004)

Global warming and climate change

One of the greatest threats that face humanity and which suggests an extremely pessimistic future is the issue of global warming.

The recent scientific consensus that emissions caused by human activity are the direct cause of this crisis and that it could lead to our demise, is certainly a cause for pessimism about the future. "The world's scientists... gave their starkest warning yet that a failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will bring devastating climate change within a few decades." (Worse than we thought)

However at the same time this crisis is in many ways also a cause for optimism about the future. The reason for this view is that as humanity and different nations become more aware of the importance of the dangers of global warming and climate change, so they become more unified. In other words people are generally becoming more aware of the fact that the only way to deal with problems of this magnitude in an adequate way is to work together - and this cooperation is a factor that leads to a more optimistic assessment of the future. "We share the need to address mounting ecological challenges, such as climate change, that threaten our collective well-being and even survival." (What future will we choose?)

This sense of mutual cooperation in the face of extreme threat has also extended to other areas in recent years, such as the greater recognition of world poverty and aspects of social polarization and discrimination in the world. There is a general awareness, which has also been fostered by communication systems like the Internet, of the problems that we all share on the planet. There is a growing sense of the need "...to reconcile development with the environment in order to pass on a healthy world to future generations and to meet the basic needs of present generations for adequate access to water, housing, healthcare, education and jobs." (What future will we choose?) While the present age is certainly one of trauma, conflict and social inequalities, yet many people see this not in negative terms but rather as a period of transition or change towards a better and not a worse future. All the crises in the world are in a strange way bringing more people together in terms of a common awareness of the problems of humanity and the need to do something collectively about it.

Energy resources

The energy shortage and the dependency on oil is a central factor in world economy and have an often negative influence on international politics. The battle for control of energy resources has always been a central concern in our age and it is also one that has been suggested could lead to a future of war for humanity.

On the other hand are many indications that the need for energy could also lead to positive developments in the future. This refers to new technological developments and to the envisaged decentralization of energy and the challenges that this poses for the future. A commentator on future trends, Jeremy Rifkin, states that the "...future energy regime will be decentralized and decarbonized." (Wagner, 2004) This is also linked to the drive towards the greater democratization of the world through various modern technological developments like the Internet. In other words, experts like Rifkin state that instead of leading to division and conflict, energy resources will be controlled in the future not by large corporate entities but will be decentralized to be more equitably shared by all. According to Rifkin, "Every auto, home, and office will have its own fuel cell, and everyone will be on their own." (Wagner, 2004) the future scenario that he paints is certainly one that is optimistic and in which there are shared resources and opportunities motivated by world wide communication. Rifkin therefore envisages a "Third Industrial Revolution," where, "Decentralized communication and distributed generation of energy will force us to change other institutions [as we move] from a fuel economy to a market economy to a dispersed economy." (Wagner, 2004) This view suggests a future democratic situation of economic and energy resource sharing, modeled on the internet example of networking and community cooperation. This prediction is a far cry from the negative future projections which see only greater division and conflict in the world over resources. I feel that we too easily accept the media- driven views that stress the nataive and not the positive aspects of future developments.

In addition to this optimism about future energy resources there are also hopeful signs of technical breakthroughs and alternate energy systems for the future. In opposition to the pessimistic view of the decline of energy in the future, there is a view that suggests that; "There is a world-wide boom in investment in green technology already under way... Although the consensus view is that the sunlight-powered future won't be taking over until 2050, I'd place an optimistic bet that one of the many smart ideas being researched now will turn out to be an unforeseen winner much earlier." (World Question Centre)

Communications

The advent of the Internet is certainly one of the main reasons for projecting an optimistic vision of the future. This aspect has already been mentioned as a great facilitator of innovation and, more importantly, of cooperation between peoples. The Internet is not only a means of communicating problems that can lead to cooperative solutions- but it has also led to the disappearance of barriers between nations and countries to a great degree; thereby reducing areas of misunderstanding between people. The following quotation illustrates this spirit and feeling about the Internet that bodes well for an increase in communication and cooperation in the world.

Technology has advanced so significantly in the last decade, and many in the generation of kids, high school age and younger, are so fluent in every aspect of the technology that they have moved beyond being participants stimulated by the technology to being creators, creating both technology and content, collaborating and sharing every aspect of their lives, their opinions and their causes across borders that, to them, are increasingly invisible.

World Question Centre)

Science and technology

The field of science and technology is another area that can be discussed in terms of positive and negative futures. On the one hand the growth of technology has been blamed for many of the ills in the world - including the present threat of climate change, pollution and many other negative aspects. Industrialization, which is associated with scientific and technological development, has also been linked to the growth of the "urban wasteland" and the loss of existential meaning in modern life.

Instead of improving the human condition, technology has become the harbinger of nihilism because only the pure ratiocination promulgated by technological rationality is given credence. This is not to suggest that techniques per se are necessarily dehumanizing but that the technological world-view may justify the destruction of the environment and severely restrict human cognition.

Education

While some educationists claim that there is a decline in educational standards in many developed countries and that this will lead to future problems, others claim that there is a "skills revolution" under way in which "people everywhere are getting more education.... " (World Question Centre)

According to experts like James N. Rosenau, Professor of international affairs at George Washington University, "Television is exposing more people to ideas and skills they were never exposed to before..." (World Question Centre) There are also a growing number of commentators who are of the opinion that the Internet will be used to a greater extent in the future. "...technologies such as the Internet allow people to search for obscure ideas. These forces interact and accelerate the pace of the skills revolution, which is bound to continue with new generations." (World Question Centre)

The future of education also looks bright in the light of the various new and more holistic approaches to the present problems of education. One of the leaders in the field of education research is Professor Howard Gardner. He envisages a future where new scientific techniques will be used to eradiate or treat learning disabilities and deficiencies. He states that in the near future, we will be able to use neural imaging techniques to determine which infants or toddlers are at risk of having problems in reading, writing, calculating, spelling, mastery spatial relations, mastering social relations, and the like. (We may even have genetic markers for these risk factors). And I believe that the more specific the detection of the disorder (i.e. which kind of reading problem, what sort of social deficit), the more likely that we can ultimately devise interventions that directly address a particular problem.

World Question Centre)

Views like those expressed by Gardner and others therefore provide an optimistic outlook and suggest that the developments in science and technology can benefit fields like education in the future.

Conclusion

There are many other aspects that can be included in a more optimistic prognostication of the future. This could include aspects such as the changes in social discrimination and other social factors that are improving as a result of more accessible communication and technology. What I think has been made clear in the above research and discussion is that one can view developments and facets of the modern world from both a negative and positive perspective. The pessimistic view of the future of humanity has tended to dominate in the common perception of the future. As one commentator states, " Paradoxically, one of the biggest reasons for being optimistic is that there are systemic flaws in the reported world view. Certain types of news -- for example dramatic disasters and terrorist actions -- are massively over-reported, others -- such as scientific progress and meaningful statistical surveys of the state of the world -- massively under-reported. "(World Question Centre)

On the basis of the research and with reference to the many expert who are of the opinion that there is hope, I believe that there has not been enough attention given to the potential that modern civilization shows for a positive and hopefully future. An important point is made by Colborn (2007) who suggests that whether we experience a positive or negative future depends largely on our attitude towards that future. "Our attitude toward the future could spell the difference between succumbing to disaster or triumphing over the odds. Attitude has critical implications for survival..." (Colborn, 2007) in this light it becomes important therefore to develop a more optimistic attitude towards the future of our world.