Most people on the planet wake up every day thinking that things are getting worse. This should not be something of a surprise since, in fact, it is brought to what they usually read in the newspaper or watch on television. That being the case, this bleak mood is a problem, as it feeds scary stories about how climate change will end in Armageddon.
Despite everything that has been made known in addition to everything that has been speculated, what is a fact is that the world is mainly improving. And it is that the average global life expectancy has more than doubled since 1900 and is now over 70 years. Because the increase has been particularly marked among the poor, health inequality has declined massively. In addition, the world is more literate, child labor is declining and we are living one of the most peaceful moments in history.
An improvement that must also be recognized
Not everything that happens with the world is bad. And it is that people are better economically. In the last 30 years, the average global per capita income has almost doubled, which has led to massive reductions in poverty.
In this way, it is appropriate to say that these changes have also improved the environment. Globally, the risk of death from air pollution, by far the biggest environmental killer, has decreased substantially; In low-income countries, it has almost halved since 1990. Finally, rich countries are increasingly preserving forests and reforestation, thanks to higher agricultural yields and changing attitudes towards the environment.
Clearly, there are many people who can hear all this and remain convinced that climate change will end the planet. That is understandable, but it says more about the influence of environmental activists and desperate media than about reality. And it has been indicated that climate change will cause extreme weather and climate chaos that will literally put human survival at risk. But this vision is not only unfounded; It also contradicts the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Likewise, it is well known that scientists believe that climate change will eventually mean that hurricanes become less frequent but stronger. At the same time, prosperity is likely to increase dramatically in the coming decades, making us more resistant to such events. Once this is taken into account, the overall impact of hurricanes by 2100 will actually be lower than it is today.
Climate change is real and is a problem. According to the IPCC, the overall impact of climate change in the 2070s will be equivalent to a loss of 0.2 percent to 2 percent in average income. That is not the end of the world, but the same as a unique economic recession, in a world that is much better than today.
Source: Bjorn Lomborg | The Globe and Mail
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