FINDING MR. BRIGHTSIDE
In a seemingly bleak and precarious world, it might be helpful to take a step back, look at history and put it all in perspective

Story by Joe Shearer

We Americans have a funny way of always going with the “glass is half empty” outlook. Media is constantly accused of negative reporting, bombarding citizens with images of war, global crisis and health concerns.    

Sure, things can always be better in our country. It’s that thinking that’s responsible for bringing about great American inventions like the airplane, the telephone and even toilet paper. (Thank you, Scott brothers.)

For a moment, take a step back and ask yourself whether the bad is really all that bad. People are dying every day, but that can’t be helped. The climate’s getting a little warmer, but is that worse than living through an ice age? Health care is sure to be a hot-button issue this fall, but life expectancy is still high.

Maybe ignorance is bliss after all. Hey, it could always be worse …

The nice little wars

World War I: 116,516 U.S. dead after just more than a year of combat. World War II: 405,399 dead after fewer than four years, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

If that sounds bad today, take it a step further and consider population statistics. According to U.S. Census information, about 132 million populated the country in 1940, as opposed to more than 300 million today.

Two wars. Five years. More than half a million dead. That’s a healthy chunk of the country — think most of present-day Washington, D.C. — gone after about five years of war.

Wait, it gets better (seriously). After World War II, war isn’t quite as messy, but the next two wars are interesting in their own ways.

Most everyone knows about the Vietnam War from school and pop culture. Dragging on for well over a decade, it resulted in nearly 60,000 American lives lost. This war was more defined by its length than anything else.

But what about that little war before Vietnam you rarely hear about? The Korean War, which is still technically active, consisted of three years of major combat. That phantom conflict teachers don’t really talk about claimed 36,574 U.S. service members’ lives.

None of this is meant to trivialize the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Combined, nearly 4,500 service men and women have died since late 2001. Compared to the other four major conflicts of the 20th century, one could conclude these wars to be the cleanest and least costly in terms of human sacrifice.

Technology and new tactics have obviously impacted the face of war, lowering casualties and pinpointing the enemy to minimize civilian deaths. Then, why all the controversy?

Charles Franklin is a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin where he teaches statistical analysis of polls. His blog, Political Arithmetik, serves as a commentary to various polls and trends. He explains that although deaths are relatively low in the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars, other factors lead to — particularly in Iraq — public disapproval.

“Feelings about wars in the past, there’s very little evidence that it’s been directly linked to the carnage,” Franklin says. “It’s much more the political support for the war, and how that political support is maintained, or perhaps lost.”

He cites the example of the Vietnam War, where support eroded at a much slower pace because neither Democrats nor Republicans as a whole were necessarily against it. Simply put, it was much less a political football and more about strategy in the years leading up to 1970.

“It’s a fact that most people are structured in large part by their party leaders,” Franklin explains. “In Vietnam, with a more unified party elite on both sides, you got longer-term support for the war among the mass public. Whereas with Iraq, you pretty quickly divided along party lines, and the public again pretty quickly reflected that division with Democrats becoming overwhelmingly opposed to the war, while the Republicans remained highly supportive and the poor independents in the middle were left to kind of chart their own course.”

Global crisis?

And then there’s global warming. There seems to be an overwhelming consensus it’s real, but the cause is still somewhat of a debate. If you ask former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, man is responsible.

Last December, a report released by the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works told a different story, citing more than 400 scientists — some current or former members of the IPCC — who dispute or challenge the man-made claim. It should be noted some of these scientists used to adhere to the other point of view.

Looking to the future on this issue is enough to make a person’s head explode. Some scientists believe global warming will trigger a new ice age, while others believe man-made global warming stalled the next ice age in the natural cycle. A few stragglers simply believe this is part of an 1,100-year cycle. Confused?

Kent State geology professor Joe Ortiz — like many others in the science community — believes the findings of the IPCC: Man is the cause of current global warming trends. He says some scientists wonder if we missed the last cyclic ice age.

 “There’s always good and bad,” Ortiz says in response to that theory. “The good news is that we don’t have a big sheet of ice on top of us. The bad news is that if we keep putting CO2 into the atmosphere — there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing.”

Ortiz says the alarming rate at which surface temperatures on Earth are rising will most likely lead to problems such as drought in some areas and flooding in others as a result of melting glaciers.

So, while all these scientists quietly debate a possible crisis, be happy you’re not living through the “Little Ice Age.”

The “Little Ice Age” refers to a global cooling period from 1250 to1850. Although the exact years and regions affected vary depending on the source, it is widely accepted that North America and Europe experienced harsh winters, albeit at different times. During the winter of 1780, according to a book Climate Change by Jonathan Cowie, New York Harbor froze over, enabling people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Island.

Whether global warming is a global issue or a global cycle shouldn’t discourage anyone. One good thing is the weather is currently milder than in past ice ages or little ice ages. There’s something to be said about living comfortably, right?

A fountain of youth awaits

Speaking of living, the country has a much higher life expectancy when compared to 1900.

Then, a person’s average life was 47.3 years, according to U.S. Census data. Think about that: 47 years. Today, people are still experiencing mid-life crises at that age, as life expectancy in the States hit 78 in 2007.   

While the health care debate looms large this election season, no one can argue life expectancy is high. Though ranked 45 in the CIA World Factbook, no other nation with a population of 100 million or greater is higher than the United States, save for Japan. If you take the European Union as a whole, its life expectancy is close to the United States at 78.7 years.

Notables ranking higher than the Americans in life expectancy include developed nations such as France, Canada and Australia — all averaging more than 80 years. If you play the population game, none of these nations really comes close to the United States.

What do all these numbers mean? Well, nothing in the near future, at least according to British researcher Aubrey de Grey. De Grey, who has appeared on “60 Minutes” and “The Colbert Report,” and in a number of reputable publications, believes aging is more a disease than the process most people have grown to live with — no pun intended.

The 44-year-old gerontologist is trying to cure that disease you probably didn’t know you had until just now.

“I’m interested in figuring out and implementing a plan to repair and maintain the human body in the same sort of way that we currently successfully repair and maintain simple man-made machines,” he  says. “How long can a vintage car live? There is no limit.”

Not buying it? De Grey explains we have the ability to manage microscopic damage in our bodies to a point where it won’t cause aging, to put it as simply as possible. He estimates — adequate funding withstanding — there could be significant results in testing with mice in as little as 10 years. From that time, he says effective human therapy could arrive in 15 years. There’s a whole lot more to his research, which can be found in his book, Ending Aging.

Admit it; you’re at least intrigued. Think about the implications of having 200 be the new 78. Going back to the first topic of less war and fewer deaths, de Grey thinks if his research is realized, violence will continue to trend downward at a greater rate. He mentions the fact wealthy nations haven’t fought each other since World War II and the gradual elimination of the death penalty worldwide as examples of how this is already happening.

“It seems to me that the reason these things have happened is predominantly because people have a greater perception of the value of life,” he says. “Now, why do they have a better perception of the value of life? I think it’s basically because they have more control over the quality and the quantity of their lives than what they used to when we couldn’t even stop people from dying from smallpox.”

Just hang in there for another 25 or so years.

A happy ending

Citizens and scientists in free societies will always look for new ways to live better lives, simply because they can. There’s nothing wrong with being concerned about conflict, the environment or healthy living, but none of these issues have one clear answer or outcome attached to it.

For those getting tired of misinformation, changing theories or endless debates, the easy thing to do would be to sit back and do nothing. Of course at times, with information constantly being thrown at us, a breather might be healthy every once in a while.