All aboard the magical happiness train
THE global population is thought to have been about a billion when the Brits camped on the banks of what’s now known as the River Derwent. In the two centuries since, the world’s population has exploded beyond 7.5 billion.
Expanding by roughly 83 million a year, it won’t be long before it passes 8 billion. At this rate, humans will number 11.2 billion by the end of the century.
Can we expand at this feverish pace forever? Can our species continue to dream up ways, such as skyscrapers, to increase the density at which we can live? Can ingenuity and science in food production keep pace with the growing mouths and the decreasing available space? Can health systems cope with relentless accelerating demand?
In 1968, Stanford University Professor Paul Ehrlich and his wife, Anne, wrote The Population Bomb, a bestseller that doubled down on fears that had been growing since World War II about whether human numbers were sustainable. Their dramatic prognosis of impending disaster won political and intellectual support. But, as the decades unfolded, some of their doomsday scenarios failed to happen. They predicted hundreds of millions would die in famines in the 1970s and 1980s, and that there would be a big rise in the world death rate. Neither came to pass.
By the end of the 1980s, fear of population was replaced by a self-assured swagger and a
“greed is good” mantra that encouraged corporations in Europe, the US and Asia to reach around the globe.
This expansion was extraordinary at generating wealth. Governments worldwide — even the Chinese Communist Party, formerly a command economy — joined the corporate expansion model to win their share of the spoils.
Citizens everywhere were assured that the wealthier corporations became, and the easier we made it for them to expand, the more the benefits would trickle down. All we had to do was consume. Genetic engineering, nanotechnology and computing would solve any problems as they arose.
This magical economic happiness train could deliver undreamed of wealth for undreamed of numbers of people, without deleterious consequences, as long as we coupled up our carriages and let it go, full steam ahead.
Let’s face it, on the surface at least, the train has worked.
In China, it has been miraculous, with hundreds of millions lifted from poverty to access the luxury and swell of consumerism enjoyed by middle classes in the West.
IN 2014, the Hodgman government in Tasmania, like most around the world, hitched its carriages to the magical happiness train, “streamlining” rules and regulations that govern developments so as to make it easier for corporations.
It spruiked Chinese tourism and students, and construction of hotels and accommodation to cater for them. It courted overseas investment and vowed to significantly lift the state’s population to 650,000 by 2050. The resultant “economic indicators” under then-premier Will Hodgman suggested that Tasmania was wealthier than ever. The happiness train was apparently rollicking down the rails. But anyone living here in the past few years knows there has been plenty of unease at the community’s grassroots.
There is a shared sense that, contrary to the statistics, daily life for Tasmanians is not better; in fact, it is worse.
Commuters who were previously happy to drive 20 to 30 minutes to work found themselves stuck in traffic for an hour each way and, when a breakdown blocked the Southern Outlet or Tasman Bridge, much longer. Getting kids to school became a frustrating weekday grind.
No longer could we park next to a city shop for three minutes while we dashed in. Now, we have to drive into a multistorey carpark, pay top dollar to park, and walk three blocks to the shop — or run the gauntlet of an army of parking attendants marching the streets ready to slap a fine under the windscreen wiper.
Bushy hills, bays and blocks that had long been unofficial or official recreation areas or reserves for neighbours were targeted for development, causing community outcry.
Trails to beaches were sealed, and land cleared for carparks and buses, creating scars on ancient landscapes.
Subdivisions and houses crowded out wildlife from neighbourhoods that were once alive with potoroos, wombats, blue tongues, echidnas and bandicoots.
Privacy and neighbourly issues of personal space were affected by new developments. Restaurant prices soared. Abalone, crayfish and other premium Tasmanian products became harder to buy locally and, where available, sold at international prices.
Spectacular parts of the state were inundated with tourists, many of whom did not speak English and failed to engage in eye contact, let alone conversation, and who spent most of their time on buses that filled roads and carparks. National parks and world heritage land explicitly saved from industrialisation were offered up as development opportunities.
Hospitals were no longer able to cope with demand, with ambulances ramping for hours at a time. Hundreds of millions were spent on new wards and resources, but demand still vastly outstrips supply. Specialists warn that people are dying because of overworked services.
Of course, all this fails to mention the existential threat to not only all Tasmanians but to all humanity, and to the biosphere itself, posed by climate change.
THE pandemic pause has, at least temporarily, derailed the happiness train. It has also given many of us a rare opportunity to face the reality of what is, and isn’t, crucial to our personal lives.
Does our wellbeing depend on growth and consumption? If so, is it sustainable? Could the magical happiness train possibly be little more than a pyramid scheme on wheels?
Tasmania, we need to talk, and what better day to start that tough conversation than today, the United Nations’ World Population Day.