When my mother learned she was pregnant with me, my parents sat down one Sunday morning to review their finances. Turning on the radio for a little light music, they pencilled some calculations for the savings they would need to make to pay for my college education. The music paused for an announcement that Japanese airplanes were attacking Pearl Harbor. The notes went into the wastebasket.
Such was life back then: surprised repeatedly by wars and revolutions, by the rise and collapse of ideologies like fascism and communism, and by periods of raging inflation and catastrophic depression, few could confidently predict what their lives would be like even a decade ahead.
Not so today. For all the upheaval of the past half-century, this has been by far the most tranquil period ever. Unlike any of their forebears, a majority of the world鈥檚 young adults have good reason to develop plans for their old age. They know they will probably live to see the greenhouse-warmed planet of the late 21st century.
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鈥淎 majority of the world鈥檚 adults have good reason to develop plans for their old age鈥�
As such, global warming poses an unprecedented problem. For the first time in history, we have learned with scientific precision of grave calamities in store, and find we must change the very basis of the world economy. The remarkable thing is that our society appears to be responding. This also is unprecedented: never in history have people roused themselves against such a distant threat. Millions of people and whole governments are addressing the issue. Even in the US army, senior officers are studying the implications for their organisation and looking for ways to reduce emissions. All this suggests that the pessimists who claim humanity is unable to rise to the challenge have got it wrong.
Of course, it is no use having a long-term perspective without the means to do something about it. Fortunately, our social and political mechanisms are progressing swiftly. Our civilisation has grown more stable not only because scientific advances have doubled life expectancy, but also because we have multiplied our capacity to store, transmit and analyse information. Since 1990 both the volume and speed of traffic on the internet have doubled every two years or less. We are also much better informed than a generation ago about how society works.
The past century has brought social progress as dramatic as that in industry. Economic stability, for example, is no accident: it is engineered by an international network of central banks, steadily expanding their cooperation. Non-governmental organisations provide new services, from the certification of 鈥渇air trade鈥� coffee to secret cash transfers. In 1948, the UN formally consulted with 41 NGOs; it now consults with more than 1600. This growth is driven not only by better communications and new ideas, but more importantly by the spread of democracy. Half the world鈥檚 population now lives under democratic government. It is almost exclusively in these nations that the new cooperative institutions have been created.
Almost every week we see these powerful tools applied in novel ways. Consider what happened recently when Texas power company TXU revealed plans to build a dozen coal-fired plants that would emit vast amounts of carbon dioxide. An alliance of environmentalist NGOs spotlighted the development on the internet. Meanwhile, an international financial consortium took an interest. After intense negotiations, the consortium won the environmentalists鈥� public blessing to buy TXU by promising to sharply reduce the planned emissions. The NGOs held no political office and wielded no investment billions; their power came from the skilful organisation of a million mouse clicks.
Most unexpected of all is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC was created by conservatives to forestall 鈥渁larmist鈥� declarations from self-appointed committees of scientists. Governments committed the IPCC to repeated rounds of study and debate, forbidding any announcement except by unanimous consensus. It seemed a sure formula for paralysis. However, the power of democratic methods, combined with rational argument, overcame all obstacles. The IPCC has evolved into a robust transnational institution that provides authoritative conclusions of grave significance. It is, again, unprecedented.
These developments are nowhere near enough to guarantee we can meet the challenge of climate change. Time is short and the prospect of even partial success remains uncertain. Yet we can avoid catastrophe by mobilising our ingenuity and community spirit. Addressing global warming will require less sacrifice than defeating fascism and communism, but more foresight 鈥� and that is exactly what we have been acquiring. If humanity鈥檚 track record with long-term problems shows mostly indifference and failure, that need not set a precedent for our future.
