Michael Shermer: Humans Have Never Had It So Good
[Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American, is an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University and the author of "The Mind of the Market."]
It is fashionable among environmentalists today to paint a gloomy portrait of our future. Although there are many environmental issues yet to be solved, too many species endangered, more pollution than most of us would like and far too many people still going hungry each day, let's not forget how far we've come, starting 10,000 years ago.
Before that time, all people lived as hunter-gatherers in relative poverty compared with today. How poor were they? If you walk into a Yanomamö village in Brazil today — a good analogue for how our ancestors lived — and count up the stone tools, baskets, arrow points, arrow shafts, bows, hammocks, clay pots, assorted other tools, various medicinal remedies, pets, food products, articles of clothing and the like, you would end up with a figure of about 300. Before 10,000 years ago, this was the approximate material wealth of each village on the planet.
By contrast, if you walk into the Manhattan village today and count up all the different products available at retail stores and restaurants, factory outlets and superstores, you would end up with an estimated figure of about 10 billion (based on the UPC bar code system count). Economic anthropologists estimate the average annual income of hunter-gatherers to have been about $100 per person and the average annual income of big-city dwellers to be about $40,000 per person.
If ever there was a great leap forward, this is evidence of it. It has been estimated by Eric Beinhocker in his book, "The Origin of Wealth," that the $100-per-person annual income rose to only about $150 per person by 1000 BC and did not exceed $200 per person until after 1750 and the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Today the average is $6,600 per person per year for the entire world. Of course, the magnitude of the increase is much higher for the wealthiest people in the richest nations....
And despite the environmental impact of our more prosperous lifestyle, on balance things really are getting better, as documented by Matt Ridley in his forthcoming book, "The Rational Optimist." For instance, over the last half a century, pollution is down in most cities, even in my own Los Angeles. When I took up bicycle racing in 1979, the air was so bad that summer training rides had to be completed well before noon to avoid the pain caused by fine particulate matter — dirt, dust, mold, ash, soot, aerosols, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides — becoming deeply embedded in your lungs. Today, I can ride practically any time of the day on most days of the year and feel no ill effects....
Read entire article at LA Times
It is fashionable among environmentalists today to paint a gloomy portrait of our future. Although there are many environmental issues yet to be solved, too many species endangered, more pollution than most of us would like and far too many people still going hungry each day, let's not forget how far we've come, starting 10,000 years ago.
Before that time, all people lived as hunter-gatherers in relative poverty compared with today. How poor were they? If you walk into a Yanomamö village in Brazil today — a good analogue for how our ancestors lived — and count up the stone tools, baskets, arrow points, arrow shafts, bows, hammocks, clay pots, assorted other tools, various medicinal remedies, pets, food products, articles of clothing and the like, you would end up with a figure of about 300. Before 10,000 years ago, this was the approximate material wealth of each village on the planet.
By contrast, if you walk into the Manhattan village today and count up all the different products available at retail stores and restaurants, factory outlets and superstores, you would end up with an estimated figure of about 10 billion (based on the UPC bar code system count). Economic anthropologists estimate the average annual income of hunter-gatherers to have been about $100 per person and the average annual income of big-city dwellers to be about $40,000 per person.
If ever there was a great leap forward, this is evidence of it. It has been estimated by Eric Beinhocker in his book, "The Origin of Wealth," that the $100-per-person annual income rose to only about $150 per person by 1000 BC and did not exceed $200 per person until after 1750 and the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Today the average is $6,600 per person per year for the entire world. Of course, the magnitude of the increase is much higher for the wealthiest people in the richest nations....
And despite the environmental impact of our more prosperous lifestyle, on balance things really are getting better, as documented by Matt Ridley in his forthcoming book, "The Rational Optimist." For instance, over the last half a century, pollution is down in most cities, even in my own Los Angeles. When I took up bicycle racing in 1979, the air was so bad that summer training rides had to be completed well before noon to avoid the pain caused by fine particulate matter — dirt, dust, mold, ash, soot, aerosols, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides — becoming deeply embedded in your lungs. Today, I can ride practically any time of the day on most days of the year and feel no ill effects....