Unless earthly human population growth reverses: biodiversity will not reverse its downward trend, air and water pollution will not reverse their increasing trends,(all according to World Resources Institute data) and the WHO will not report a decrease in the percentage of humans with persistent illnesses.

I think the wording on this one needs a little tinkering. I also think the growth rate change required for the bet should maybe be specified, at least within some range. And there should be some timeframe on this.

Beyond that, I personally only find the part about the WHO questionable. I'd say the other consequences are pretty much guaranteed for the foreseeable future. Of course, I'm sure someone will disagree, too.

The current bet is for the period through 2013, and reads, "Unless earthly human population growth reverses: biodiversity will not reverse its downward trend, air and water pollution will not reverse their increasing trends, and the WHO will not report a decrease in the percentage of humans with persistent illnesses."

For one thing, human population is, beyond any doubt, NOT going to stop growing by 2013. Currently, it's growing at something like 77 million people per year. And the amount of growth is only going down by 1-2 million per year. Virtually every population projection I've ever seen doesn't have population growth stopping until at least approximately 2040.

Second, "air and water pollution" is extremely ill-defined. In the United States, pollutants for which we have air quality standards are lead, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulates (total, less than 10 microns, less than 2.5 microns). Essentially ALL of these have been declining (i.e. concentrations going down) for the last 20 years. See U.S. EPA data at this site:

http://www.epa.gov/airtrends/sixpoll.html

World-wide "air pollution" trends simply aren't tracked. (If the bet originator is thinking of carbon dioxide, CO2, as a "pollutant," it is not recognized as such by the U.S. Clean Air Act.)

"Biodiversity" is a completely ambiguous word. (Are genetically engineered crops adding to "biodiversity?") If "biodiversity" were changed to "extinction rate" I seriously question whether the 10 years would be sufficient to determine a trend. (And if a single species going extinct is taking to mean, a priori, that "biodiversity" has "declined," then one would have to be foolish to bet against even 1 species going extinct in the next 10 years.

"The number of humans with persistent illnesses" is also ill-defined, unless the WHO has a specific list. Even then, simple better tracking of who has these illnesses would falsely make it appear like the number is increasing. A more realisticly measurable parameter would be average world-wide life expectancy. I think World Resources Institute tracks that. But it would be pretty foolish to bet AGAINST average world-wide life expectancy increasing by 2013, in my opinion. Average life expectancy in the country with the highest life expectancy (which has shifted around, now held by Japan, I think) has increased by about 1/4 year per year, for the last 160 years.

Since population growth is a significant driver of 'nest-fouling' on a finite planet, I can't omit it from the bet, as has been suggested. There are possible, albeit unlikely, events which could end population growth (thus permitting a counterparty to 'win' the bet) such as global epidemic, droughts on multiple continents causing mass starvation, or nuclear war.

I'm willing to use different wording for the toxification of air and water. And I'm open to discuss other indicators for illness - but not longevity. One can keep 'limping along' for a long time with medical technologywhilst not being robustly healthy.

I added a quote from WRI site to the argument section, and simplified the bet wording. Thanks for the input.

Ten years is too short for really radical change, so I agree that biodiversity will continue its decline. However, if we change the period to 20 years, I believe the number of artificially created species (genetically modified organisms) will grow more quickly than the loss of naturally occuring forms. Diversity will ultimately increase.

Yes, 10 years is too short.
But even in a longer period I don't think that artificially created biodiversity will prevail. Nature has it's way to correct inbalances.
By nature I'm not referring to a religious dogma or some other gnostic dogma for that matter.
We (just in the last few centuries) began to understand (poorly I'd say) some of the mechanisms involved in these corrections.
Even genetically altered diversities will eventually become natural (no matter if we like it or not). And if they don't have the neccesary build they will dissapear.

- it should be technically possible to arrest the current practice of encroachment and disruption of habitat for endangered species simply by giving the people now making a living that way another way to feed their families; whether this is politically possible is another question.

- The possible solution I have outlined above depends on being able to compensate displaced workers directly; we know what happens when we give relief money to political leaders in the developing world - much of it goes to numbered bank accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg.

- Even if workers in industries which destroy wild habitat are doing as well or better working in ecologically neutral and/or positive industries than they were when they were on the ground destroying rain forest, we're still going to have a problem with "poaching".

Anyone who can make a dime off of exploiting resources in the rain forests - from heads of state down to individual rare bird hunters and loggers specializing in valuable, rare woods - will try to make some side money even if a formal agreement not to do so makes them as well off as they were when they were crapping up the ecology of their country.

- because of this, we'll need to make the people we are paying to not screw up the rain forest are held accountable for failure to hold up their end of the deal.

I bet we can devise ways to quantify destruction of rain forest and other wild habitat, so we can withhold money from the people who didn't hold their end of the deal up.

We'll also need a military presence in order to protect the people we send to measure compliance, and to counter any organized use of force against local people who are protecting their assigned bit of habitat. It may even be useful to train former workers in land clearing schemes to be a local constabulary charged with enforcing agreements regarding destruction of wild habitat.

As the world's human residents get richer, they will demand a cleaner environment. This has been happening in the US for decades and it will happen in the developing world once they get over the hump of Kuznets' curve.