The blog, Peak Environmental Impact, begins, ...
"You won’t hear about it from green campaigners, but many of the key drivers of environmental destruction are slowing down. The rate of population growth is nearly half today what it was in 1970. The global population could peak as early as the middle of this century. By some calculations, the amount of farmland needed to grow food globally has already peaked. And per capita water use, food consumption, and material use have all already peaked in rich countries, and many developing ones as well. Taken together, these trends suggest a truly remarkable possibility: overall human impacts on the environment could peak and then decline within the next several decades.
How soon we hit the peak, and how rapidly impacts decline, depends on how quickly key trends driving the slowing of environmental impacts can be accelerated. And therein lies the rub for environmentalists: to get to peak environmental impact quickly, we will need to accelerate key economic and technological processes that greens have long opposed."
It ends, ...
"Peak human impact is an inspiring vision, and it is within sight. Achieving it will be difficult, but no technological or scientific breakthroughs nor significant economic sacrifices are required. Human societies have repeatedly shown themselves capable of overcoming outmoded dogmas and myths — not just with science and rationality, but also with positive visions of the future. We can do that again."
Lynas says that a key challenge is about how quickly a shift to urban living can be achieved as all kinds of benefits accrue from this, not least reduced energy demand and enhanced emancipation. Implicit in all this is whether we can emancipate our own thinking about the necessity of people remaining poor in order to protect the biosphere. A challenge indeed, as the notion that people are better off if they suffer in this life (as a preparation for the next) remains entrenched in many minds.
Responses
Of course, that all depends on what form urban development actually takes:
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/19/5985.abstract
I respect Lynas, especially his evolution on GMOs. That said, I think there's all too much evangelizing amongst the ecomodernists these days. I tend to agree with Clive Hamilton here:
http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/elist/eListRead/the_technofix_is_in/
"The ecomoderns’ techno-fetishism is possible only because they don’t think about politics. It is true that thinking about the politics of climate change is depressing. For those who “embrace an optimistic view toward human capacities and the future,” the easiest path is to ignore the messy world of politics and focus one’s gaze on humankind’s amazing technological achievements."
I recommend his Earthmasters book. It's excellent.