How Are We Doing? Revisiting Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance” 30+ Years Later
Given that we have just been through yet another record-setting summer heatwave (worldwide, July was the hottest month on record, since temperatures have been measured and tracked), I thought I’d revisit Al Gore’s seminal tome, which has been sitting on one of my bookshelves since I first read it after its publication in 1992.
What surprised me as I scanned through it over a couple of days is that, while the first half of the book documents numerous examples of our environmental crisis (his passion and life’s work both in and out of politics), the second half of the book displays his deep understanding of history, psychology, and philosophy. He uses these disciplines to explain how we got to where we are and how we might find a way out of our impending peril (and that was thirty years ago).
I decided to take another deep dive into the book and follow up with research on various topics he covered then to assess how we are doing today. (I do not want to bog down this blog with annotated footnotes, but I will say that my research came from precise questions entered into Google Scholar to come up with reputable sources for the current statistics used here.) I purposely did not follow up with his award-winning book and documentary, An Inconvenient Truth (2007), but wanted to go to the original source, which also offered a longer view, thirty years, from which to measure progress — or not.
I’m sure you can guess the results, but let me take a few memorable topics he elaborated on then.
1. The Aral Sea.
One of the early images in the book is that unforgettable photo of the Aral Sea (bordering Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, formerly the Soviet Union), which depicted large fishing vessels in a desert because the lake had dried up. In 1960, it was the largest lake in the world. By 2007 (fifteen years after Gore’s book was published), it had declined to 10% of its original size. This was largely a manmade disaster (the Soviet Union’s agricultural policies) compounded by climate change. Early in the last decade, there were efforts to fix what was left. The lake had now become two bodies of water (the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea). A dam was created for the North Aral Sea and fish were re-stocked in it, but it’s still a losing battle. Both parts of the lake are expected to dry up in twenty years.
Might we learn lessons from this is the United States? Lake Powell in California and Lake Mead, bordering in Nevada and Arizona, are drying up rapidly. Lake Mead now has one-fourth of the water it had when it was created in 1935, and yet people still flock to the southwest to live. It serves 20 million people, and without the lake, the Hoover Dam cannot generate power or provide water.
Grade: FAIL
2. Polar Ice Caps.
In 1992, Gore noted that the polar ice caps had thinned 2% of the previous decade. Now, as per NASA, they are melting at 9% per decade; .9% in 2022 alone.
Grade: FAIL
3. Deforestation
Deforestation not only gives us less protection against carbon emissions, but it significantly changes the environment for all. Gore reported that one Tennessee’s worth (his home state) of rainforest burned each year and that species were vanishing at a rate 1000x faster than at any point in the last 65 million years.
Brazil, which contains most of the Amazon rainforest (called “the lungs of the world”), is in a crisis today, having lost 20% of its trees over the last fifty years. They ought to learn from Ethiopia’s tragic history. After WWII, the country was 40% covered by trees. In the years that followed, short-term greed outweighed environmental concerns (as it often does) and now Ethiopia is only 1% covered in trees. You think that might have something to do with the poor, starving masses there? Last year, 20 million Ethiopians required humanitarian assistance.
We can also cite Haiti. The deforestation and soil erosion of the 1980s has caused decades of famine and decreased protections from natural disaster. Like many of our other friends in Central America, these aren’t lazy people looking for a free ride in the United States. They are truly facing catastrophic events due to climate change and poorly considered agricultural decisions.
Grade: FAIL
4. Population Growth
In 1992, the world’s population was 5.5 billion; in 2023, we just passed the 8 billion mark. Back then, best estimates were that we would reach 9 billion by 2032. That has since been revised to 2037. But the question remains: Even if population isn’t growing as fast as anticipated thirty years ago, can we sustain 9 billion people? According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people per day across the world die of starvation. This is actually down from 37,000 per day thirty years ago, so I have to give it a low pass.
Grade: PASS
5. Skin Cancer
Scientists estimate that a 1% decrease in the ozone layer leads to a 2% increase in skin cancer. Although I couldn’t find statistics specifically between 1992 and today, the overall picture is that skin cancer has increased 17-fold among men and 9-fold among women since 1950.
Only this last week, beloved singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who lived the outdoor Florida lifestyle to the max, died of skin cancer.
Grade: FAIL
6. Waste.
Back in 1990, the world produced a half a billion tons of chemical waste per year. Today, it’s about 400 million tons — a decrease of about 20%. However, even if we’ve reduced the number, the cumulative effect over the decades is still more waste that gets into our water and soil, causing God-knows-what kind of damage now and in the future.
As far as municipal solid waste goes, the world produces over 2 billion tons per year; this is expected to increase to 3.4 billion tons per year by 2050! (Today, only about 13% of solid waste is recycled.)
Grade: FAIL
7. Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Despite all of the awful statistics in the previous examples, the greenhouse gas emissions may be the most important topic for the world’s survival, because the warming planet is the cause of so many of the other world problems. It has caused untold natural disasters that only seem to be getting more dire. For example, 10 million people in Bangladesh have already been displaced by rising waters; it is estimated that by 2050, 17% of their land and 20 million more of its people will be displaced. That’s just one country. Where will all these people go? Droughts and massive forest fires and hurricanes continue unabated.
Let’s start here in the United States. We have led the world in greenhouse gas reductions (as we should have, since we are 4% of the world’s population but were responsible for 23% of emissions in 1991. With freedom comes responsibility). Today, the U.S. accounts for 14% of emissions (China’s has risen to 31%). On a per capita basis, Americans have reduced their emissions from 23 tons per person to 18 tons per person. This is on par, generally, with Canada and Australia, but far below most European countries, which fall under 10 tons per person. Poorer countries (without industrialization) are around 2 tons per person. However, as other larger countries industrialize (like China and Russia), their numbers go up. We are losing the battle, still. Here’s something to further depress you, dear reader: Experts say we need to get the entire world down to 2 tons per person in order to avoid a 1.5 degree Celsius temperature increase by 2030 (we’re already at 1.1 degrees above pre-industrial levels) and net zero by 2050. There is a global effort among several governments to work at this, but perhaps we’ve passed the tipping point?
Grade: FAIL
Gore’s Earth in the Balance is definitely worth a revisit. It was a great wake-up call then and even more of one now, because we failed to act decisively — but we seldom listen to prophets when we need to. As Gore said, “Research in lieu of action in unconscionable.” To paraphrase, he also asked the important question (often overlooked by politicians who think only of the economic benefit): When productivity is high (good), aren’t there also consequences (bad) that should count when measuring success?
I’ll close with one more quote from Al Gore, when he was discussing how politicians tend to work: “The future whispers while the present shouts.”
Have we reached the point of shouting yet?
