I have heard similar comments from E.O. Wilson regarding human population growth.  While saying we will need 4 earths to support 9 billion people he states that he is optimistic that we can do it with one earth.  

I know that people like optimists, but are these major spokesmen really being genuinely honest?    

Because:

1. We've done the seemingly impossible before.  Never on this scale, granted.  But trying to predict the maximum human achievement (whether individually or collectively) by a straight-line projection from history almost always underpredicts.

2. We simply don't have a choice.  Either we do this, or our civilization dies.

Make no mistake, pessimism and doomerism is the easy, safe path.  You're most likely to be right, especially if you convince everyone else to think like you.  It certainly requires less effort, less striving, and less risk.  And less hope, which is attractive because holding on to hope is sometimes the hardest thing of all.

Doomers are lazy.

And nobody is saying we should ignore reality, which is that we are in a bad way and getting rapidly worse. The best scientific estimates (Hansen and others) are that we have less than ten years to make significant changes or we will pass a tipping point of no return. Beyond this point, catastrophic climate change will be unavoidable, and it is quite likely that civilization-as-we-know-it will be destroyed or at best severely damaged.

When I took the Inconvenient Truth training, Mr. Gore talked about a "Hope and Despair" budget. Focus too much on the negative, and people give up because the problem seems overwhelming or believe that it is already too late. This is not what the scientists are saying - we do have some time, but not much.

The point of this article was that we need to get much better, fast, at protraying a better world. Use the impending disaster to motivate people to get moving - but toward what? I have been trying to show what Canada could be like, if we so choose, here: A Vision of Canada

Can it be done? It must be done. To quote Churchill: "It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required."

* Inconvenient Truth presenter * Green Party of Canada candidate

I am a doomer but I ain't lazy and I have not given up the fight.  This is the epic battle of all time.  

I've always said that the glass half-full/half-empty is a dumb conundrum--the only question is whether you have adequate water for your needs ... the size of the container is a distraction.

"Doomer" and "cornucopian" or "optimist" are just labels we invent to permit easier stereotyping, which we like to do (heuristics are efficient, even when inaccurate).  When we've got someone properly labeled we can stop listening, because we know what opinions we expect to hear from someone bearing the label we've applied; this frees up mental energy for the important task of thinking about what WE want to say.

All labels really tell you is how the person labeling you experiences your perspective relative to what they think their own is.  I'm a total optimist in some circles, a horrible black doomer in others, while saying pretty much the same things.  I imagine myself a realist to the greatest extent possible, and I maintain that by trying to notice when labels are being substituted for thinking (as they so often are).

The 5% Project