This is chapter 2 of 5 of our series “Why we need the ‘ Europeans of the Planet’, published each Friday”. Chapter 1: “ The Great Depletion — the planetary challenge” was published last Friday.
One of the great ironies of human history is that the period in which humanity has exerted the greatest pressure on the natural world has also been the period in which human well-being has improved most dramatically.
When Thomas Hobbes [5] published Leviathan in 1651, life for most people was indeed precarious. Disease, famine, violence, infant mortality, and material deprivation were widespread. Average life expectancy at birth in many societies was less than forty years, literacy was limited, and the overwhelming majority of humanity lived at or near subsistence level.
Today, by contrast, humanity enjoys levels of health, wealth, education, and personal security that would have been unimaginable to earlier generations. Global life expectancy has more than doubled over the past two centuries; extreme poverty has fallen dramatically as a proportion of the world's population; literacy has become the norm rather than the exception; and technological progress has expanded access to food, medicine, information, and mobility on an unprecedented scale. Few periods in human history can match the scale of these achievements.
Yet this success has not come without cost. The same industrial, agricultural, and technological systems that have lifted billions out of poverty have transformed the Earth's ecosystems at extraordinary speed. Vast areas of forest have been cleared or fragmented, biodiversity has declined across many regions, freshwater systems are under increasing pressure, and atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases continue to rise.
Deforestation remains a significant concern, particularly in tropical regions such as the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin, and parts of Southeast Asia. However, the global picture is more complex than is often assumed. While forest loss continues, its rate has generally declined since the late twentieth century, and some regions—including parts of Europe, North America, and China—have experienced net forest expansion through reforestation and afforestation programmes. The challenge is therefore not simply one of shrinking forest area, but of declining ecosystem quality, habitat fragmentation, and the replacement of diverse natural forests with less biodiverse managed landscapes. [6]
The situation is even more serious with respect to biodiversity. Scientists increasingly describe the current period as the beginning of a Sixth Mass Extinction, characterised by extinction rates substantially above the long-term natural background rate. Habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and overexploitation are placing growing numbers of species under pressure. Although the exact scale and trajectory remain subjects of scientific debate, there is broad agreement that humanity is driving one of the most significant episodes of biological loss since the extinction event that ended the age of the dinosaurs sixty-six million years ago. [7]
This presents a profound challenge. The same civilisation that has delivered unprecedented human flourishing now faces the task of preserving the ecological foundations upon which that flourishing ultimately depends. The question is no longer whether humanity can transform the planet. It plainly can. The question is whether it can learn to do so without undermining the natural systems that sustain its future prosperity.
You were reading Part 2 of 5: “Prosperity Amid Depletion — the paradox”. This series will be continued next Friday with Part 3 of 5: “The Psychology of Inaction — why we fail to respond.”
2.1 Supporting Evidence
The Case for Human Progress
The evidence is remarkably strong and largely uncontested.
Key trends since approximately 1800 include:
Indicator |
Long-term Trend |
| Life expectancy |
Strong increase |
| Infant mortality |
Strong decrease |
| Literacy | Strong increase |
| Extreme poverty |
Strong decrease |
| Food availability |
Increase |
| Child mortality |
Strong decrease |
| Access to education |
Strong increase |
This perspective is associated with thinkers such as:
They argue that many public discussions underestimate the extraordinary progress achieved since the Enlightenment.
The Case for Ecological Deterioration
The evidence is also substantial.
Scientists point to:
- biodiversity decline,
- habitat loss,
- climate change,
- freshwater depletion,
- soil degradation,
- ocean acidification.
These concerns are frequently associated with:
2.2 Important Counter-Voices
1. The Progress Optimists
Thinkers such as Steven Pinker argue that many environmental narratives understate humanity's ability to innovate and adapt.
They note that:
- air quality has improved in many wealthy countries,
- some forests are returning,
- agricultural efficiency has increased,
- technological substitution often reduces resource intensity.
2. The Ecomodernists
The ecomodernist school argues that:
More technology, not less technology, is the solution.
They advocate:
- nuclear energy,
- intensive agriculture,
- urbanisation,
- synthetic foods,
- decoupling prosperity from environmental impact.
3. The Deep Ecologists
At the opposite end of the spectrum, deep ecologists argue that mainstream sustainability policies underestimate the severity of ecological overshoot and biodiversity loss.
They believe current reforms may be insufficient to prevent major ecosystem disruption.
[5] Hobbes, T. (1651/2012). Leviathan (I. Shapiro, Ed.). Yale University Press.
- A foundational work of political philosophy. Hobbes's description of life in the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" has become one of the most cited characterisations of pre-modern insecurity. The work provides an important historical
[6] Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2024). The state of the world's forests 2024. FAO.
- Provides authoritative global data on forest cover, deforestation, reforestation, and forest management. Particularly valuable because it reveals a more nuanced picture than common narratives of uniformly accelerating deforestation, showing regional variation and declining global deforestation rates compared with previous decades.
[7] IPBES, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services. IPBES Secretariat.
- The most comprehensive international assessment of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. The report concludes that approximately one million species face elevated extinction risk and provides the strongest institutional evidence supporting concerns about large-scale ecological deterioration.
[8] Pinker, S. (2018). Enlightenment now: The case for reason, science, humanism, and progress. Viking.
- Pinker presents a comprehensive statistical defence of the proposition that humanity has experienced unprecedented progress in health, prosperity, knowledge, and freedom. The work serves as a major counterpoint to narratives of civilisational decline.
[9] Rosling, H., Rosling, O., & Rosling Rönnlund, A. (2018). Factfulness: Ten reasons we're wrong about the world—and why things are better than you think. Flatiron Books.
- Using extensive global data, the authors demonstrate dramatic improvements in health, education, income, and life expectancy. The book is among the most influential contemporary defences of the view that long-term human progress is frequently underestimated.
[10] Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K., Persson, Å., Chapin, F. S., Lambin, E. F., ... & Foley, J. A. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461(7263), 472–475.
- Introduces the influential Planetary Boundaries framework, arguing that humanity is approaching or exceeding several ecological thresholds. The paper provides a bridge between human-development achievements and concerns about the sustainability of current trajectories.
[11] Kolbert, E. (2014). The sixth extinction: An unnatural history. Henry Holt.
- This Pulitzer Prize-winning work popularised scientific concerns regarding accelerated biodiversity loss and the possibility that human activity is driving a sixth mass extinction event. It remains one of the most influential books on contemporary ecological decline.
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