The world is not running out of villains, so why do accomplished authors like Dan Brown resort to bashing sustainable development to create them? Michael Crichton, of Jurassic Park and ER fame, succumbed to the same temptation in his last book before he died—State of Fear.[1]
Brown’s villian in Inferno is obsessed by the fear that human population is growing too fast and will lead to social and ecological collapse. So he devises a biological weapon to get rid of people (I won’t give away the plot, but you can see where it is heading). The villain’s logic borrows from an 18th century religious figure who doubted God’s plan for humanity—the Reverend Thomas Malthus who predicted perpetual suffering.
That is so…18th century.
The 21st century challenges we face are real enough—9 billion wealthy, urban people living in a climate-changed, resource-scarce, government-challenged future (link). These challenges require 21st century nuance and respect. Countless solutions exist that cumulatively can achieve sustainable development. The real challenge is bringing these solutions to scale, not getting rid of people.
Distortions like Brown’s are dangerous because they reinforce the popular mindset that people are the problem. They confuse nature preservation with sustainable development. They reduce the most pressing challenges of the 21st century—poverty, climate, water, energy, pollution, disease—to a bumper sticker: “save earth, kill yourself.” These authors and arguments promote helplessness and hopelessness at a time when we need inspiration. We need people to want to make a difference.
This is a pivotal time in human history—the challenges we face are real and decisions we make in the next decade will define our future. Compelling drama can be found in the stories of heroes creating sustainable development. Real villains exist and must be vanquished, and these villains are all the more compelling because most of us share some of their character flaws as we struggle with our own roles and responsibility in realizing the dream of sustainable development.
[1] Crichton turned out to be a climate denier, and his villains were environmentalists attempting to mitigate climate change. His characterization of the “environmentalist agenda” is similar to Brown’s—people and civilization are the problem. Both these authors seem to miss the point that sustainable development is about sustainable development of humans.