| The Two Simon Bets
One of the
most misunderstood events in environmental politics was "the bet" between
Paul Ehrlich , physicists John Harte and John Holdren, and Julian Simon.
The facts of that incident are explained in Betrayal
of Science and Reason, by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, (Island Press,
1996, pp. 100-104), excerpted below:
"In 1990 [Julian Simon] won a much publicized ten-year bet with ecologist
Paul Ehrlich [and physicists John Harte and John Holdren] .wagering
correctly that the price of a basket of five metals would fall between
1980 and 1990 (meaning supplies became more plentiful)." (Norman Myers
and Julian Simon, 1994)[34] "[The bet affirmed] cornucopian claims that
the supply of resources is becoming more abundant, not more scarce."
(Ronald Bailey, 1993)[35]
In 1980, Julian Simon repeatedly challenged environmental scientists
to bet against him on trends in prices of commodities, asserting that
humanity would never run out of anything.[36] Paul and the other scientists
knew that the five metals in the proposed wager were not critical indicators
and said so at the time.[37] They emphasized that the depletion of so-called
renewable resources--environmental resources such as soils, forests,
species diversity, and groundwater--is much more indicative of the deteriorating
state of society's life-support systems.
Nonetheless, after consulting with many colleagues, Paul and Berkeley
physicists John Harte and John Holdren accepted Simon's challenge in
late 1980, jointly betting a total of $1000 ($200 each on five metals),[38]
rather than listen to him charge that environmental scientists were
unwilling to put their money where their mouths were. Perhaps it was
a mistake, but it can be quite satisfying to skewer an adversary on
his own terms, and they thought they had a good chance of winning.
Prices of all five metals (chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten)
had gone up between 1950 and 1975. But the prices of three of the five
went down in the 1980s, in part because a recession in the first half
of that decade slowed the growth of demand for industrial metals worldwide.
Ironically, a prominent reason for the slower industrial growth was
the doubling of world oil prices in 1979.[39] Indeed, the price of oil
probably was a factor in the prices of metals in both years, being unprecedentedly
high in 1980 and unprecedentedly low in 1990. Paul and his colleagues
ended up paying a small sum on the bet, even though the price of a ton
of copper (Simon's favorite example) had risen in constant 1980 dollars
from $1970 per ton in 1975 to $2166 in 1989.[40]
Simon issued a challenge for a second bet in 1995. In an essay in the
San Francisco Chronicle, he claimed that "Every measure of material
and environmental welfare in the United States and in the world has
improved rather than deteriorated. All long-run trends point
in exactly the opposite direction from the projections of the doomsayers"[41]
(our emphasis). Simon asserted that everything will get better; he wanted
ecologists to bet that "any trend pertaining to material human welfare"
will get worse.
Paul and Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University,
offered to bet Simon $1000 per trend that each of the following fifteen
continental and global indicators "pertaining to human welfare" will
worsen over the next decade.[42]
1. The three years 2002-2004 will on average be warmer than 1992-1994.
(Rapid climate change associated with global warming could pose a major
threat of increasing droughts and floods.)
2. There will be more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2004 than
in 1994. (Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas driving
global warming.)
3. There will be more nitrous oxide in the atmosphere in 2004 than in
1994. (Nitrous oxide is another greenhouse gas that is increasing due
to human disruption of the nitrogen cycle.)
4. The concentration of ozone in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere)
will be greater in 2004 than in 1994. (Tropospheric ozone is a component
of smog that has important deleterious effects on human health and crop
production.)
5. Emissions of the air pollutant sulfur dioxide in Asia will be significantly
greater in 2004 than in 1994. (Sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere becomes
sulfuric acid, the principal component of acid rain, and it is associated
with direct damage to human health, forests, and crops.)
6. There will be less fertile cropland per person in 2004 than in 1994.
(Much of Earth's best farmland is being paved over, but even if it weren't,
population growth will reduce per-capita acreage.)
7. There will be less agricultural soil per person in 2004 than in 1994.
(Erosion virtually everywhere far exceeds rates of soil generation.)
8. There will be on average less rice and wheat grown per person in
2002-2004 than in1992-1994. (Rice and wheat are the two most important
crops consumed by people.)
9. In developing nations there will be less firewood available per person
in 2004 than in 1994. (More than a billion people today depend on fuelwood
to meet their energy needs.)
10. The remaining area of virgin tropical moist forests will be significantly
smaller in 2004 than in 1994. (Those forests are the repositories of
some of humanity's most precious living resources, including the basis
for many modern pharmaceuticals worldwide.)
11. The oceanic fisheries harvest per person will continue its downward
trend and thus in 2004 will be smaller than in 1994. (Overfishing, ocean
pollution, and coastal wetlands destruction will continue to take their
toll.)
12. There will be fewer plant and animal species still extant in 2004
than in 1994. (Other organisms are the working parts of humanity's life
support systems.)
13. More people will die of AIDS in 2004 than did in 1994 (as the disease
takes its toll of already infected individuals, continues to spread
in Africa, and takes off in Asia.)
14. Between 1994 and 2004, sperm counts of human males will continue
to decline and reproductive disorders will continue to increase. (Over
the past fifty years, sperm counts worldwide may have declined as much
as 40 percent. Paul and Steve bet this trend will continue due to the
widespread use and environmental persistence of hormone-disrupting synthetic
organic chemical compounds.)
15. The gap in wealth between the richest 10 percent of humanity and
the poorest 10 percent will be greater in 2004 than in 1994.
We do not argue that all environmental trends are unfavorable, simply
that many of the most important ones are very unfavorable and thus demand
prompt attention. It is sensible to focus on the things that need fixing
rather than on those that don't. Virtually all long-term trends have
short-term fluctuations; thus in response to Simon's challenge, Steve
and Paul picked fifteen trends to avoid having a statistical fluke decide
this bet.[43]
Yet Simon refused to accept the wager, going back on his original challenge
by saying he will gamble only on "direct" measures of human welfare
such as life expectancy, leisure time, and purchasing power.[44] Steve
and Paul refused to let Simon change his bet for several reasons. First,
life expectancy is determined by a complex interaction of many factors,
including infant and child nutrition, availability and sophistication
of medical services, cleanliness of air and water, and other elements
of environmental quality. Also, while life expectancies may temporarily
(i.e., between 1995 and 2005) continue to rise, that increase may well
not be sustainable.
Steve and Paul deliberately limited their list to negative environmental
or social trends because they are the ones that need to be fixed regardless
of whether other trends are positive. Policies and practices are established
by area by area. Life expectancy is more likely to increase (certainly
over the long term) if negative trends such as those listed by Steve
and Paul could be turned around by wise policy actions. No doubt it
would be higher today if those trends had been reversed twenty years
ago.
A second reason for not letting Simon off the hook is that he, not the
"doomsayers," prominently declared "all trends" to be positive. Steve
and Paul indulged in this betting foolishness in the first place in
the hope of (1) getting Simon to retract his socially dangerous and
scientifically ridiculous assertion that all material or environmental
welfare trends were positive, (2) getting Simon to contribute $10,000-15,000
to the environmental charities they select in 2005 to receive the winnings,
or (3) getting the public to see that Simon blusters and asserts but
won't back up his own rhetoric when seriously challenged. The third
outcome was the one obtained.
Bets, of course, are a poor way to settle disputes about the human future,
but Paul and his colleagues have been compelled to make two of them
in an effort to counter the inaccurate information spread by Simon and
others.[45] Scientists in all nations must be ready to counter the arguments
of brownlash spokespersons who misinterpret information on what is happening
to the environment. Such misinformation gives aid and comfort to those
who promote unrestrained population growth and reckless consumption
and in so doing threaten society's life-support systems. Rational scholarly
discourse is all very well, but it does not hold sway where controversies
affecting public policies are concerned.
The fifteen wagers Paul and Steve offered Simon are ones we would love
to lose. In fact, we will keep on doing everything in our power to make
that happen. But the complacent outlook and inaccuracies spread by Simon
tragically increase the chances that we will win the bet--while humanity
loses. We can only hope the wagers will cause Simon and others to reconsider
the risks they so blithely encourage the public to take by promoting
the fantasy that indefinite growth is both possible and benign.
Notes
34. N. Myers and J. Simon, 1994, Scarcity
or Abundance? A Debate on the Environment, W. W. Norton, New York,
back flap copy.
35. R. Bailey, 1993, Eco-Scam: The False
Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse, St. Martin's Press, New York,
p. 54.
36. See, e.g., J. Simon, 1981, The Ultimate
Resource, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, p. 27.
37. J. Holdren, J. Harte, P. Ehrlich, and
A. Ehrlich, 1980, Bad news: Is it true? Science 210:1296-1297.
38. The bet was made on real (adjusted for
inflation) prices.
39. Simon himself admitted he was lucky in
a letter to Ehrlich, Harte, and Holdren in October 1989. Crowing in
advance about his victory, he said, "I have been lucky that this
particular period coincided so nicely with my argument."
40. World Resources Institute, 1992, World
Resources Report 1992-1993, Basic Books, New York.
41. J. Simon, 1995, "Earth's doomsayers
are wrong," San Francisco Chronicle, 12 May.
42. P. Ehrlich and S. Schneider, 1995, "Wagering
on global environment," San Francisco Chronicle, 18 May.
43. In the first bet, prices increased for
two metals and fell for three, an outcome that easily could have been
changed by chance. On the direction of the trends in 2005, Paul and
Steve agreed to accept the verdict of a panel of scientists chosen by
the president of the National Academy of Sciences. Referees would have
been necessary in some cases, since terms like "significantly"
(e.g., in item 10 of the proposed wager) and estimates of such things
as losses of agricultural soils involve questions of judgement. But
there is an empirical basis on which competent scientists could make
reasonable judgements. The bet would have been binding on Ehrlich's
and Schneider's heirs, and their winnings would have gone to non-profit
organizations dedicated to preserving environmental quality and human
well-being.
44. Simon now tells reporters that he wants
to bet only that the net effects of human activities will be positive,
such as an increase in life expectancy, and accuses Steve and Paul of
being unreasonable for not accepting this new kind of bet (see, e.g.,
C. Petett, 1995, "2 Stanford scholars take on rosy economist,"
San Francisco Chronicle, 18 May). He claims that the Ehrlich-Schneider
list dwells on aspects of our environment for which the connection to
human welfare is questionable. Of course, the scientific community (of
which he claims to represent the consensus) doesn't seem to find the
list so "questionable"--see appendix B ("The Scientific
Consensus," from Population Summit of the World's Scientific
Academies, 1993, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.)
45. The wager has been taken quite seriously
by the media and the public in western countries; see, e.g., J. Tierney,
1990, "Betting the planet," New York Times Magazine,
2 December; New Scientist, 1995, "Apocalypse tomorrow .
. . " 3 June, p. 3; R. Mestel, 1995, "Doomsters take on global
bet," New Scientist, 3 June, p. 5.
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