Vested Interests in Doom

From Matt Ridley’s Rational Optimist blog:

Today, infected by Malthusian ecology, the Left relentlessly preaches millennial doom and technological risk: the climate is heading for catastrophe; resources are running out; population is growing too fast; farming cannot keep up; habitat is being destroyed; poverty, hunger, pollution, disease and greed are only going to get worse. A dramatic change in human stewardship of the planet is needed.

Based on the trajectory of the past five decades, and even (or especially) if the world economy grows rapidly, this century is likely to see mild climate change, cheap and abundant resources, falling population, ample food, more wilderness, and the average person becoming gradually – though erratically – wealthier, healthier, happier, cleverer, cleaner, freer, kinder, more peaceful and more equal. Each of the past five decades has almost certainly seen records set for each of those adjectives for the world as a whole.The evidence suggests that these predictions are likely to be wrong.

Yet the pessimism monster is irrepressible. No matter how many scares are proved wrong, the next set of dispatches of doom are treated with the same reverential respect.

Read the whole thing.