matt ridley - inicio · tallow candle 1800 –6 hrs. kerosene lamp. 1880 –15 mins. incandescent...
TRANSCRIPT
Reasons to be cheerful
Matt Ridley
Are we better off?
World GDP per capita
http://www.krusekronicle.com/2008/07/index.html
World economic growth
http://www.oecd.org/document/47/0,3746,en_21571361_44315115_49095919_1_1_1_1,00.html
People living on less than $1* a day
Pinkovskiy and Sala‐i‐Martin 2009* Adjusted for inflation
Even in Africa
Pinkovskiy and Sala‐i‐Martin 2009
``It’s blindingly obvious that completely unsustainable
population growth in most of Africa will keep it permanently,
hopelessly, stuck in deepest, darkest poverty.’’
Jonathan Porritt 2007
How long does it take to earnan hour of reading light?
Tallow candle 1800 – 6 hrs
Kerosene lamp1880 – 15 mins
Incandescent bulb1950 – 8 secs
CF bulb1997 – ½ sec
Labour cost of 1,200 lumen hours at average US wage
Nordhaus 1997
Living longer
Death rate, England and Wales
http://valemail.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/birth‐and‐death‐rates‐national‐statistics/
Falling death rate
Child mortality
http://www.unicef.org/progressforchildren/2007n6/index_41802.htm
Infectious disease
Polio
http://givewell.org/international/charities/The‐Carter‐Center/Guinea‐Worm
Guinea worm
Tuberculosis
Stroke (US)
Age‐adjusted mortality
Heart disease (US)
Age adjusted mortality
Cancer Mortality (US)
Age adjusted mortality
http://www.good.is/post/chart‐watch‐america‐leads‐the‐world‐in‐obesity‐but‐it‐s‐not‐alone/
Obesity
The AIDS epidemic in America
Expected death toll
• Ebola, Hanta ‐‐ ??
• vCJD – up to 136,000 (UK govt)
• SARS – millions (WHO)
• Bird Flu – 2m‐7.4m (WHO)
Actual death toll
Tens
176
774
c200
Pandemics that weren’t
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
Deaths
vCJD deaths, UK
http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm
“Figures show rise in vCJD deaths” – BBC News, 2 March 2004
“But some advocates for women’s health tried to pressure The Lancet into delaying publication of the new findings, fearing that good news would detract from the urgency of their cause, Dr. Horton said in a telephone interview.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/health/14births.html
But are we… ?
Happier?Cleverer?Cleaner?Kinder?Freer? More equal?More peaceful?
Than 50 years ago?
Happier
Pew Survey
Cleverer
IQ scores
``By 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the
earth by half.’’
Life Magazine 1970
Cleaner
BBC, ONS
Kinder
Freer
More equal
Pinkovskiy and Sala‐i‐Martin 2009
More peaceful
S. Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature, 2011
Battle deaths in wars
S. Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature, 2011
Domestic violence, US
S. Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature, 2011
Rape, US
S. Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature, 2011
How is this possible?
``No man ever saw a dog make fair and deliberate exchange of a bone with
another dog’’
Adam Smith 1776
Comparative advantage
David Ricardo 1817
Adam takes 4 hours to make a spear and 3 hours to make an axe
Oz takes 1 hour to make a spear and 2 hours to make an axe
If Oz makes 2 spears
And Adam makes 2 axes
And they trade…Then they each save an hour of work
Division of labour in nature
The earliest evidence of trade
Bouzougar et al. 2007. PNAS 2007 104:9964‐9969; Barton et al 2009 doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.
Neanderthal localism
http://www.eva.mpg.de/evolution/staff/hublin/pdf/Hublin_Steele_2006_CurrAnth.pdf
Dzudzuana cave, Georgia
Sexualpopulation
Asexualpopulation
Cumulative evolution requires sex
Hybrid ideas
Tasmania
Henrich 2004 American AntiquityTwo Tasmanians repairing and making spears(B. Duterrau, 1855)
Tierra del Fuego
The human cloud
Maori fishing tackle; Kline and Boyd 2010
The collective brain
internet traffic : the Opte Project. Licensed under Creative Commons.
Can it go on?
Population projections
Population growth rate is falling
http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/04/food‐consumption‐around‐world.html
People have more food
N America
Europe
S AmericaAsia
Africa
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/08/peak‐oil‐climate‐change‐and‐the‐threat‐to‐food‐security/#more‐48870
…while crop prices have fallen
``Farmers can no longer keep up with rising
demand for food, and famine is inevitable.’’
Lester Brown 1974
http://www.climate4you.com/images/AllCompared%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979.gif
The global temperature has risen…
http://clivebest.com/blog/wp‐content/uploads/2011/06/normalised.png
…less than expected
Sea level rise is slow and slowing
http://www.thegwpf.org/the‐observatory/1378‐indur‐m‐goklany‐global‐death‐toll‐from‐extreme‐weather‐events‐declining.html
Deaths from extreme weather
1900
2007
Change
Malaria
P. Gething et al Nature 2010
Inexhaustible
Resource abundance
Isn’t pessimism necessary?
Isn’t optimism complacent?
``We cannot absolutely prove that those are in error who say society has reached a turning point, that we have seen our best days, but so said all who came before us and with just as much apparent reason...On what principle is it that with nothing but improvement behind us we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?’’ Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1830