Scientists accused of scaremongering, 'overheated claims' with warning to humanity

A recentwarning to humanityendorsedby thousands of scientists around the world includes "scaremongering"and "overheated" claims whileignoringmuch of the progress made in recent decades, some experts say.

"Itconcerns me that the message from science is this doom-and-gloom scenario that just turns off about 75 per cent ofpeople," saidErleEllis,an associate professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

There's asmall percentagethatloves the crisisnarrative, and theyjust repeatitoverand over to each other.- ErleEllis,University of Maryland

"There's asmall percentagethatloves the crisisnarrative, and theyjust repeatitoverand over to each other."

Ellis, who is also a senior fellow at the California-based think-tankthe Breakthrough Institute, said he's "somewhat embarrassed" for his scientific colleagues who have rallied behind thiswarning, arguing that it mostly talks about negative trends and ignores the increasing wealth, health and well-being of human populations globally.

'A real disservice'

Ted Nordhaus,environmental policy expert and co-chair ofthe Breakthrough Institute, said while there are certainly global environmentalissues that need to be addressed, some of the more "dystopian" forecasts often end up being "wildly inaccurate."

"I think these really overheated claims do a real disservice," he said.

The direwarning, whichcomes 25 years after a similar missivewas issued by scientists,was published in the scientific journal BioScience. Headlined "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice," the article was signed by more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries.

It paints a bleak pictureof the world's current situation when it comes to freshwater availability, marine life depletion, ocean dead zones, forest loss, biodiversity destruction, climate changeand continued human population growth.

"Humanity has failed to make sufficient progress in generally solving these foreseen environmental challenges and, alarmingly, most of them are getting far worse," it states.

"Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out."

Predictions failed to materialize

When it comes to the issue of overpopulation, the article warns that humanity is putting the world at jeopardy with "our intense but geographically and demographically uneven material consumption" and by failing to recognizerapid population growth as "a primary driver behind many ecological and even societal threats."

Such predictions have been made for centuries, dating back to Robert Malthus who wrote in the 18th century about how population trends would have significant consequences on resources.

In 1968, Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlichcaused waves with the publication of ThePopulation Bomb, which predictedthat overpopulation would result in the starvation deaths of hundreds of millions of people. In an interview in 1979 with CBS News, Ehrlichsaid, "Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come and by 'the end,'I mean an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity."

But with the rise in technology, Ehrlich'spredictions failed to materialize, says Ellis,and instead,the opposite occurredthere's less famine now, and "pretty much every indicator of human well-being" has increasedsince the 1970s.

"I thinkthe fact that those results are not presented [in the article]is a fascinating statement about thepurposeof this message," Ellissaid.

Meanwhile,as more people move to urban, industrial societies fromagrarian societies, where people tend to have more children,human population growth is expected to peak, and likely decline at the latter half of the century,Nordhaussaid.

A toll on the environment

In an interview with CBC News earlier this week, EileenCrist, a professor at Virginia Tech's department of science and technology in society and co-author of the article, said thereal issue when it comes to overpopulationisthe rapid rise of the global middle class. The flip side ofmore people beinglifted out of poverty, she said, isthat it's alsoincreasing the carbon footprint on the planet and takinga toll on the environment.

Ellis agreed that the relationship between how wealth is gained and how it affectsthe environment needs to continue to improve. But compared to the past, weuse less carbon to generateenergy and less land to generatefood, he said.

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"We think that's the other message that we need to have out there that people need to hear:We can do this. We can pull people out of poverty and not expand our environmental footprint," he said. "It is not easy, it is not trivial, but we can do it. We can even do it with existing technology."

For some time to come,Nordhaussaid, the growth in per-capita consumption will be greater than the decline in fertility rates and the slowing in population growth.

However, in the long term,that will be moderated through technology and the more efficient waysresources are turned into goods and services.

"There is a lot of good evidence that sort of demand for all sorts of material goods saturates as populations kind of industrialize and become healthier," he said.

Joel Cohen, a Columbia Universitymathematical biologist and demographer researching global populations, wasless critical of the report, and saidit's good to drawpeople's attentionto theissues facing the planet.

"But I think this gives ammunition to people who are opposed to doing anythingabout these problems because it's soscaremongering," he said.

"I'm glad they've got people talking about it.I just hope it doesn't come back in their face."