"Can we be optimistic about the planet’s environmental future given humanity’s pursuit of economic growth and a rising global population?"

Yes we can, for many reasons:

1. empirical evidence suggests global warming and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations are net beneficial, not harmful.
- https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/18/3575
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-020-00263-w

2. Economic growth is beneficial, not harmful. It reduces poverty, improves health, longevity education, infrastructure, etc. Ongoing global economic growth will be massively beneficial for the poorest countries, especially in Africa, South America and SE Asia. We should do everything we can to increase economic growth.

3. Population growth is not a problem. To support increasing population we need increasing food, water and energy. There is no shortage of agricultural land. Agricultural productivity is constrained not by available land but by poor infrastructure and governance. Energy and water are effectively unlimited. Fresh water can be produced by desalination from seawater and energy. Energy is effectively unlimited - nuclear fuels are effectively unlimited and petrol, diesel, jet fuel, etc can be produced from electricity and seawater.

Given our slow response over the past 30 years it seems a dramatic change in attitude is required. This appears unlikely so long as we are promised and demand more of everything except hardship.

Our behaviour towards the approaching danger so far is well-described by Tolstoy in War and Peace:

"With the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant.

In solitude a man generally listens to the first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in Moscow as that year."

While one can and does commend the rollout of solar cookers etc in India and elsewhere, they could do better and deploy the Aussie invented two-tank bio-digester system, that converts all their local onsite organic waste into storable methane.

A gas that can be used in the cooking with endless free hot water when it fires up the diesel genny that lights their hovels Or everything when it is used to fire up a ceramic fuel cell which then creates a 50+% as a salable surplus! Which will repay an interest-free loan over time!regardless of the means of the affected/improved households!

The exhaust product from the latter in mostly pristine water vapour given the gas is not burned but part of a chemical reaction that for simplicity's sake could be viewed as electrolysis in reverse. And the combination comes with an 80% energy coefficient. provides endless free hot water.

The waste products of the bio-digestor are completely sanitised, carbon-rich soil improver and completely sanitised reusable water drinkable once passed through an activated carbon filter? If that is a requirement during drought conditions or some such?

Coal has to be phased out around the world along with fossil fuel, there are far more affordable CARBON FREE alternatives some of which restore complete independence and totally independent control/economic sovereignty!

Along with a turbocharged economy and new status as an energy superpower! And currently prevented by prohibitions placed solely to protect current profit curves and carbon sourced energy products, big nuclear the grid, solar panel installers and big pharma. Assisted in this endeavour by their(bought and paid for) puppet pollies?

Well, who placed the prohibitions, created the preventing regulations will die in a ditch before allowing their removal and supported by a veritable tide of bogus science/reasons for this abysmally absurd asinine activity?

Well, Ah say, brother, need a splash of cash to assist with the electioneering campaign?

Understand the reluctance to mention its name ( shush, carbon-free nuclear power and just too cheap/we'll all be ruined) or the sullen silence yet, genius?TBC.
Alan B.

Currently, the hydrogen economy is unaffordable!

One cubic metre of hydrogen has the calorific value of one litre of unleaded petrol. and nobody in their right mind/paying their own fuel bill with their own money? Is going to cop a $15-$16.00 a litre/cubic metre fuel bill,

Well, it's by electrolysis, claims the pump attendant! Don't care two whatsits if it's by Phar lap, it's too dammed dear, would be the old timer's response?

Besides, methane can be compressed as a lower carbon-producing fuel if say we need future air fuel, And runways could have rail guns installed to all but catapult planes skyward, saving fuel. Albeit, I'd sooner go by electrically-propelled airships held aloft by the helium in their innards.

And powered by their solar panel paint job on the exterior. Not new science, just not as efficient as much heavier solar panels!

Or nuclear-powered submersibles that can regularly exceed fifty knots all while providing an armchair ride even through the wildest future tempest!

The cost of producing hydrogen can be halved via the assistance of a catalyst. And vastly more so, when the current cost of electricity is reduced from 24 + cents PKWH to less than one cent and doable with nuclear waste burning MSR!

When that day comes and it must, we'll be able to pump hydrogen into your gas tank for less than a dollar per cubic metre! It's the current price gouged cost of coal-fired energy that's the prob!

And what do you save if the fuel source is coal and the source of the gas is derived via cooked coal and the carbon disposed of by technology still in cloud cookoo land? And proposed by our Cheif scientist, no less?TBC.
Alan B.

Alan B might like to reconsider the claim that the product of methane combustion in a fuel cell is mostly water. The products of methane combustion, whether in a gas stove or a fuel cell, are water and carbon dioxide. The products are the same but the way the energy given out in the reaction is captured is different.

Meanwhile once again this essay gives a very sobering assessment of the global situation - pointing out that business as usual is not an option.
http://www.da-peace.org/excerpt-two-is-not-peace

Nice to have some, of whatever Peter Lang is smoking.

After 25-30 years of global "climate policy", the planet's still getting warmer and the rich are still getting richer. Exactly as you would expect, when the global model is for endless growth. Hard to see things changing much, in the next 25-30 years.

Meanwhile, Australia has lost its mind over Zero Net 2050. Which appears to rely on preposterous assumptions about "carbon capture" and "carbon credits".

The author has been spending too much time in Australian classrooms, or listen to a continuous loop of Greta's greatest speeches!

While climate change cultists continue to forecast doom and despair, and ram this cult of Carbon on us, the human world will be distracted from sorting out all the real problems of pollution, water and resource mismanagement, land degradation, deforestation and good old fashioned infrastructure under-investment.

Typical navel gazing and no ideas or commitment to the value of humankind!

Meanwhile mother earth ( atmosphere, mantle and oceans) will slowly move along on... ignoring all the minor impacts we have on its development.

No Allison, also listen to Boris Johnson and many others.

Dayton: I get that your knowledge of the inner workings of a ceramic fuel is minus zero in real terms otherwise you wouldn't be opening your mouth to change socks!

Ceramic fuel cells do not burn or combust anything genius, but rather rely exclusively on a chemical reaction that then produces electricity and mostly pristine water vapour! Repeat mostly pristine water vapour!

Think electrolysis in reverse. Albeit, assisted by a catalyst.
Electricity in, gases out. Reversed, gas in, electricity and water out, as the pristine vapour. And high school chemistry.
.
It's fact-free folk like you, we have to thank for our current disastrous energy policy, the current economic and political outcomes, in a nation that could do so much better! Minus the numbskull element as the economic albatross around its allegorical neck.

Y'll have a nice day now, y'hear.
Alan B.

The author should read "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline" by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitso as the realisation that global population growth will likely stop mid century and be in significant decline by the end of the century will modify many of his overly pessimistic views.

The regressive pseudo science that the warmist religion use to try and destroy Western economies is 200 times (to quote Wong) more dangerous that burning coal and driving cars. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Even the smartest evolutionist could not believe that theory anymore. One uni professor once tried to tell me humans were evolving into smarter forms. The gw religion shows the exact opposite. Never before have so many been dumbed down and incapable of knowing that burning coal does not change temperatures or climate.

DD

Consumerism is a word not to hyperventilate over. People need stuff. That's been the human way for two million years. Everything living consumes. If you don't, you die.

Plenty of people, most I would hazard a guess, consume very little. It has little to nothing to do with ego to my mind.

Forget consumerism, it's actually overpopulation the bogey here.

Dan

yes, consumerism drives civilisation and economic well-being, no doubt.

I am not necessarily criticising this reality. I also enjoy the fruits of a first world standard of living.

I merely suggest the consequences of the extent of recent trends, compounded by a rising global consumer population. More energy, more plastic, more land needed for food, and so on

I was interested to read the gracious, considered and proportionate response by Alan B to my comment about methane fuel cells. He continues to insist that the product of the oxidation of methane in a fuel cell is “mostly pristine water vapour”.

Hydrogen is the only fuel for which water vapour is the only product when it is oxidised in a fuel cell. Any hydrocarbon used as a fuel will have carbon dioxide as a product along with water vapour. For methane the overall stoichiometry is: one molecule of methane consumes two of oxygen to produce one molecule of carbon dioxide and two molecules of water.

Rather than spending time to think of an even more polite response Alan, you might like to look at this article:

https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i43/Best-Effort-Yet-Make-Direct.html#:~:text=Currently%2C%20methane%2C%20a%20primary%20constituent,efficiently%20than%20combustion%2Dbased%20methods.

which has a simple schematic diagram of a methane fuel cell showing the electrochemistry involved. I draw your attention to the carbon dioxide leaving the anode and to the net reaction shown at the bottom.

One of the main advantages of using a fuel cell for the oxidation of methane is that less fuel is required for a given output of energy than would be if a simple combustion engine was used. You will find this point made here:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181029130939.htm

if you read the article carefully.

Bernie Masters perhaps it might be a little early to

1) say that the conclusions in "Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline" by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson are "likely." In around 2010 the anti abortion group Population Research institute produced a video saying that overpopulation was a myth and one of their key points proving that overpopulation was a myth was that the "historically accurate" low variant of the United Nations population projections showed that world population was going to peak at 8 billion in 2040.
https://overpopulationisamyth.com/episode-1-overpopulation-the-making-of-a-myth/
Ten years later the United Nations low variant for the peak world population is 8.92 billion in 2055. This is the number (or less) that the Empty Planet thinks will happen. The current world population is 7.77 billion, and it is increasing by more than 80 million a year. Nobody thinks the world population is going to peak at 8 billion in 2040. Oddly enough the Population Research Institute has left that video up.

2) It might also be a little early to say that with the low variant there is nothing to worry about. There are great gaps in the Empty Planet. The Empty Planet doesn't care anything at all about the environment. Even if the world's population follows the low variant that is still a steady increase to 8.92 billion in 2055. Currently 7.77 billion is doing substantial damage to the world's ecosystems. Seven point 9 billion, then 8.2, then 8.4 etc up to 8.92 billion will do substantially more damage over the next 35 years.
2a) The median Variant for 2050 is 9.74 billion and for 2100 10.88 billion.

The Empty Planet is a public relations book. The first clue is the title. Who thinks 8.9 billion people is empty? The books goal is to get people concerned about the environment to shut up and continue with business as usual. No thanks.