Is Humankind Dangerously Harming the Environment?
The issue of whether mankind is dangerously or negatively harming the environment has been a debate over a long period of time. Individuals and scholars make quite compelling arguments on either spectrum of the issue. From the argument between Lester Brown and Bjorn Lomborg, it is evident that the debates on this issue may continue for a much longer period of time. Both authors did agree to some extent that humans do deplete the earth’s resources; however Lester Brown had a more sonorous argument because he equated the effects of such depletions towards the livelihood of mankind.
Though opposing, both authors agree on some key issues regarding the environment which are highly supported by …show more content…

He mentions that Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown has created a litany of environmental fears namely the depletion of natural resources, population out growing food production, species and forest disappearing and the pollution on the world’s air and water. Bjorn thus states that no evidence supports the litany presented. He however thinks that energy and other natural resources have become more abundant. He states that more food is now produced per head of the world’s population and more so than any time in history. He also mentions that although species are becoming extinct, it is occurring at a much lower rate than often predicted. And that the release of greenhouse gases does appear to be a long-term phenomenon, but its total impact is unlikely to pose a devastating problem for the future of humanity (p. 320). Bjorn mentions that since scientific funding goes mainly to areas with many problems it may give an impression that many more potential problems exist than is the case. He also says that because the fact that environmental groups need to be noticed by the mass media and need to constantly be making money, they may exaggerate the information; he gives an example that the Worldwide Fund for Nature issued a press release entitled, “Two-thirds of the world’s forest lost forever”, when the truth turns out to be nearer 20% (p. 323). Bjorn claims that the source of confusion is the attitude of the people. Given that people tend to be