Material Progress is Sustainable

February 21, 2001 by John McCarthy

Many people, including many scientists, mistakenly believe that human progress, in the form it has taken in the last few hundred years, is unsustainable,” says Stanford University Professor of Computer Science Dr. John McCarthy. In this article, he presents the scientific case for technological optimism.

Originally published February 4, 1995 as an academic paper, Stanford University, in a longer version. Published on February 22, 2001.


[Very likely, the greatest rate of progress for the average person occurred around the end of the 19th century when telephones, automobiles, electric lighting, and home refrigeration came in short order.]




I offer no opinion about a “right” population, and I suspect that population will eventually be limited by a sense of crowdedness rather than by material considerations.

There is a widespread belief that the present standard of living of the advanced countries is not sustainable and not extendable to the present backward countries. I and many others don’t agree. This exposition mainly concerns scientific and technological bases for optimism rather than the historical and economic arguments ably advanced by the late Julian Simon.

Here are some frequently asked questions about sustainability of progress.

Q. What is meant by material progress?


  1. Increased access to material goods.
  2. Increased life span.
  3. Reduced childhood death.
  4. Increased opportunities for education.
  5. Societies that people choose to migrate to.
  6. More individual choice of occupation, lifestyle and avocations.
  7. More opportunity to enjoy both culture and nature.
  8. Cleaner environment.
  9. Increased consideration for the values in nature, e.g. for the preservation of biological diversity.
  10. Increased concern for less advanced people and their cultures.
  11. More and more new goods and services available to more and more people. Available novelty is a good. Compulsory novelty is often a nuisance or worse.

All this progress was a consequence of the advance of technology and also of advances in government and other social organizations in capitalist society. These other social organizations include universities, societies for the promotion of the arts, trade unions, publications, political parties, and advocacy organizations. Mainly it was technology, which became increasingly based on scientific discoveries.


All these things are dependent on the material wealth of society. People can dispute about how to divide the wealth, but there has to be wealth to divide. Here are some of the questions that have led some people believe this progress can’t continue and some answers to the worries.



Q. Aren’t our forests being exhausted?


Q. Is humanity suffering from an enormous loss of biodiversity.

A. The loss is quite small of the important or individually interesting species like mammals and birds. However, beetle species in the Amazon may be disappearing.

Q. Isn’t the world running out of energy.

A. No. Nuclear and solar> energy are each adequate for the next several billion years. That’s right; billion not just million or thousand.

Q. Isn’t it important to conserve energy?


Q. When will we run out of oil?

A. Twenty years ago, I had been convinced that by the end of this century we would be out of oil directly pumpable from the ground. Obviously, we won’t, and I am cautious about how much oil there is left. Maybe 20 years, maybe 50 years, maybe 100 years, but I can’t see it lasting longer than 100 years.

However, oil can be extracted from oil shale, from tar sands (as it is in Alberta, Canada) and synthesized from coal. These processes(except for tar sands) are too expensive to compete with just letting it just flow out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, but the technology was developed when it was thought oil would run out soon. The costs would be affordable. Taking these sources into account we probably have several hundred years supply of oil, provided “greenhouse” warming permits its use.


A. Oil and natural gas are readily replaced by nuclear energy for heating and electricity generation. However, oil is not so readily replaced for transportation. If we can develop good enough batteries, electric cars are a solution. If not, liquid hydrogen will work for cars and trucks.

Q. What about the non-fuel uses of oil and natural gas? Don’t our plastics depend on their availability?

A. Oil and gas are used as feedstocks for making plastics of all kinds, but the amounts are much smaller than their use for fuel. Any source of carbon will do in place of oil and gas – coal or biomass, for example. Oil and gas are used today, because they are cheap, easy to handle and carry the energy required for the chemical reactions along with the materials.

Q. Will we run out of minerals?


Indeed once we can extract minerals from random rock, the only way of running out of an element is to eject it from the planet or to let it subduct under a continent. This is because using quantities of elements doesn’t destroy them. Therefore, the scrap piles will eventually be ores. This won’t happen for a long time, because more concentrated ores will remain available for a long time.

In fact metal ores have become more inexpensive recently as is illustrated by the famous bet between the Stanford environmentalist Paul Ehrlich and the economist Julian Simon. In 1980 Simon sold Ehrlich (on credit) ten year futures on five metals of Ehrlich’s choosing. The total price was $1,000. In 1990 Ehrlich had to pay Simon $600, because the metals had gone down in price.



Q. What if the population increases?


Q. How fast is population increasing?




Q. Is the population problem urgent?


Q. Isn’t the world running out of usable fresh water supplies.




Q. Won’t global warming do us in unless we drastically reduce our use of energy?

A. No. Global warming can be avoided or reversed should it turn out to be a serious problem. However, there is a thorough paper “Why Global Warming Would be Good for You” by Tom Moore of the Hoover Institution.

Q. What about trash and garbage? Aren’t we likely to drown in them?


Q. Given all this uncertainty about the prospects for continuing material progress, isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?



Q. Have environmental and health and safety regulations been expensive to our society?


However, our society can survive even a large amount of irrational regulation. I remain an extreme optimist–one who believes the would will probably survive even if it doesn’t take his advice.

Q. Aren’t the people of the advanced countries using more than their proper share of natural resources?





A. Important policies depend on it.
