More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—and What Happens Next

by Andrew McAfee

smelters that make aluminum using zero-carbon energy sources now appear to be able to charge a premium since, as Reuters puts it, even “industrial customers [are] under pressure to reduce their carbon footprints.”

My point is that scolding companies for their misdeeds makes the scolder feel virtuous (it’s a form of rebuke often labeled “virtue signaling”), but rarely accomplishes much beyond that.

America and other rich countries have already moved post-peak in their exploitations of our planet. This isn’t despite these nations’ steady and sustained growth; it’s because of it.

The Golden Rice Project, which is supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, gives free humanitarian licenses to plant-breeding organizations in the developing world. The project is an example of a successful public-private collaboration, since the Swiss biotech company Syngenta was instrumental both in advancing research on golden rice and in acquiring relevant patents and then donating them to the nonprofit.

The Fishermen’s Preservation Trust uses its funds to buy permits on the open market. It then leases the associated fishing rights at below-market rates to islanders, many of whom come from families that have been fishing for generations. Organizations such as the trust show us that in addition to conserving land and animals, it might also be possible to conserve jobs and the communities built up around them.

I believe that by far the most important thing we can do for the planet is inform ourselves, and to use the best available information to guide our actions and decisions. This

practice. Most people (including myself before I started researching this book) base their beliefs and practices related to humanity’s relationship with the earth not on the best available evidence, but instead on very different foundations. We base our views on theories and projections that seemed quite plausible at the time of the first Earth Day in 1970 but have since been shown to be badly wrong.

We believe things because the people around us believe them, or members of our political tribe do, or members of the opposite political tribe believe the opposite. Many of us believe things because we have an inherently zero-sum perspective: if someone is doing better, it must be because someone else is doing worse.

This awareness is too important to be left to tribalism, cognitive biases, stale theories, intuitions and superstitions, unreasonable fears, and the misinformation campaigns of parties with vested interests.

Promoting nuclear energy. We currently have only one power source that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases and is scalable, safe, reliable, and widely available. We

Promoting genetically modified organisms. GMOs have been extensively studied and found to be safe. They also have the potential to greatly improve crop yields, reduce pesticide use, and improve nutrition. Yet they are strenuously resisted in many parts of the world. This needs to change.

Promoting markets, competition, and work. Capitalism is widely unpopular at present, and socialist ideas are making a comeback. Yet markets, competition, and innovation have brought us previously unimaginable prosperity. As we’ve seen, they’ve also finally enabled us to take less from the earth.

But companies are also sensitive to their reputations, for many reasons. Perhaps the most straightforward is that people tend to buy more from companies with excellent reputations, and to shun those with a lousy public image. So a well-constructed “carbon reducing” certification might well have two positive effects: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing sales for certified companies.

Goodall’s How to Live a Low-Carbon Life and Lynas’s Carbon Counter both stress that housing and transportation combine to account for nearly half of the typical person’s carbon footprint.

“A diet including chicken and pork, but no dairy or beef, has lower greenhouse gas emissions than a vegetarian diet that includes milk and cheese, and almost gets within spitting distance of a vegan diet.”

Social capital can be increased and disconnection decreased in lots of ways. Joining a grassroots political or advocacy movement; volunteering to help vulnerable populations such as disabled veterans, refugees, or elderly people living alone; attending religious services and related activities; and teaching others your skills are all good ways to build links among people.

better way is to start by finding common ground.

is to find out which aspects of the human condition and the state of the world they care most about, then go from there. Doing so can’t hurt and might lead to more connection.

Before and during the Industrial Era countless people took seriously a command from the God of the Hebrew Bible. The book of Genesis declares that immediately after creating human beings, “God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” We were fruitful. We multiplied. And we subdued so much, so thoroughly, that it’s easy to believe our dominion was ordained from on high. But we failed miserably at our duty to replenish. It’s as if we didn’t hear that crucial divine word.

Amazingly enough, doing all this won’t require radical course changes in our economies or societies. We just need to let the four horsemen of the optimist—capitalism, technological progress, public awareness, and responsive government—do more of what they do.

“we must make Nature worthless.” He means, of course, that we should be working to make it economically worthless, so that it’s safe from the voracious attention of capitalism. Then we can enjoy its true worth.