Fox News, Sept 5, 2007

2013-11-06 One of the longest-running big picture debates is between optimists and pessimists  arguing the state of the world. Pessimists  have constantly painted a dystopian future from Malthus and Jevons to the 1972 book Limits to Growth. Optimists have cheerfully pointed to how everything is getting better. 

Biodiversity - the species we share our planet with - is under pressure. Post-2015 Consensus research finds that a global target to prevent the loss of coral reefs will gives at least $24 of environmental benefits per dollar spent. Likewise, reducing the current loss of forests by half would likely do about $10 of good for each dollar spent. However, increasing protected areas, because it is very costly but only somewhat helpful, is likely to do less than $1 of good per dollar spent.

2013-01-22

Bjorn Lomborg challenges Sir David Attenborough's notion of humans being a “plague on the Earth” and insists that the planet can sustain a much bigger population thanks to innovation.

"He argues that new technologies mean that humans need less land to produce food. Therefore the population can grow without harming wildlife and as people become richer it may even be possible to return degraded land to wildlife."