Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think

by Peter H. Diamandis

Acid rain was the first sign that the facts were not matching the fanfare. Once considered our planet’s most dire environmental threat, acid rain develops because burning fossil fuels releases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere, causing an acidic shift in the pH balance of precipitation—hence the name. First noticed by English scientist Robert Angus Smith in 1852, acid rain took another century to blossom from scientific curiosity to presumed catastrophe. But by the late 1970s, the writing was on the wall. In 1982 Canada’s minister of the environment, John Roberts, summed up what many were thinking, telling Time magazine, “Acid rain is one of the most devastating forms of pollution imaginable, an insidious malaria of the biosphere.” Back then, Ridley agreed with this opinion. But a few decades passed, and he realized that nothing of the sort was happening. “It wasn’t just that the trees weren’t dying, it was that they never had been dying—not in any unusual numbers and not because of acid rain. Forests that were supposed to have vanished altogether were healthier than ever.”