We can live 100 years. But is it sustainable for the planet?

The starting signal for the revolution called to postpone the aging process took place in 2012. Shinya Yamanaka and John Gurdon won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on how to reprogram adult cells into stem cells (Gurdon's pioneering research had allowed 1996 cloning of the sheep Dolly). Today, among the most promising projects in this regard is the team led by molecular biologist David Sinclair, whose research at Harvard Medical School could prevent cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. They have managed to extend the life of mice and plan to test in monkeys before considering applications in humans. Companies such as bioRxiv, Calico and Altos Labs, with Spanish scientists, also focus on cellular rejuvenation.

Prolonging life is a very realistic possibility considering that there are already places, the so-called blue zones, where people live for around 100 years: Okinawa (Japan), Sardinia (Italy), Icaria (Greece) Loma Linda (USA). ) and Nicoya (Costa Rica). There, healthier lifestyle habits are developed (movement, diet and stress reduction) and belonging to a community is encouraged, with solid social and family ties. But this possibility is also an obsession of many billionaires, and, specifically, the reversal of aging, a vein of business in Silicon Valley.

Time is of the essence for many of its gurus. Bill Gates is 68 years old; Tim Cook, 63; Jeff Bezos, 60; but no one like Bryan Johnson has literally made it a way of life. At 46 years old, he boasts of having the skin of a child after receiving plasma from his 17-year-old son (something that has had results in mice), following a strict diet, exercising and taking 111 pills a day. He allocates two million dollars annually to his anti-aging process. He also leads the movement Don't die (don't die) and offers products and consulting through his company, Blueprint.

In any case, if initiatives that aim to make human beings live longer continue to proliferate and, above all, if they continue to be sponsored by the most powerful magnates in the world, in about two decades it is likely that significant advances will be available to the public. in general. But the crucial question is: are we prepared to make it ecologically sustainable?

Demographically, we would face a predominantly aging population, with implications for social security and healthcare. It would also have economic repercussions, such as a decline in the active workforce and changes in consumption patterns.

On the other hand, this clinging to youth, which could well have Madonna as an icon of the refusal to age, grows at the same time as the environmental crisis worsens. According to American scientist and activist Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, by email, ensuring that this extension of life does not harm the planet will depend on “if we successfully reduce the threat of climate change, switch to renewable energy sources, solve our water problems and protect the biosphere.” Something supported by Jofre Carnicer, professor of Ecology at the University of Barcelona, ​​researcher at CREAF (center dedicated to terrestrial ecology and territorial analysis) and scientist at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “It is understandable that many people want to live longer in good health, but this goal should be made compatible with a very reduced carbon footprint and sustainable transportation and consumption habits for the planet and global society,” he points out in the email. of the.

“CO2 emissions per capita They fluctuate around seven tons per inhabitant and should be urgently reduced to less than two tons if we want a sustainable world. This implies structural changes in transportation, food, consumption and production systems, trying to ensure human needs with the minimum possible ecological impact.”

Paradoxically, those who fight to extend their lives in this unsustainable context are, in turn, those who pollute the most on the planet. And this becomes vitally important considering that the climate crisis has been caused by human initiative (with the United States and China at the forefront of the massive burning of fossil fuels). According to the latest Oxfam report, 1% of the population, represented by the richest people in the world, are responsible for more carbon emissions than 66% of humanity.

The Climate Inequality Report, prepared by researchers Philipp Bothe, Lucas Chancel and Tancrède Voituriez, also establishes that “all people contribute to emissions, but not in the same way”; and that the acceleration of the climate crisis is fueled by the polluting activities of a small fraction of the world's population. The additional effort needed to achieve the same emissions reductions, according to this report, would be significantly less for the most polluting groups, which is an important incentive for policies focused on that group. What if instead of investing millions in studying the extension of their own life, millionaires put their efforts into the implementation of renewable energy?

“What really worries me is the current impact of billionaires, no matter how long they live,” Gleick says. “The environmental excesses of the richest people are already a threat to the planet in the form of enormous greenhouse gas emissions, destruction of ecosystems and consumption of resources far above the rest of the human population.”

This imperative desire to invest millionaire sums in prolonging life at all costs contrasts with the omission of the sociological and environmental conditions, as well as the economic instability in which these last years of life would pass. It is especially paradoxical when compared to new generations, who opt for an opposite approach, even giving up having children. And, as Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, recently pointed out, “trends continue to point ominously toward a global catastrophe. The war in Ukraine continues to pose an ever-present risk of nuclear escalation. (…) And the war in Gaza illustrates once again the horrors of modern war.” A 2023 UN report on the state of population highlights that “anxieties around population size are often related to the ability for everyone to access a good quality of life.”

Will it help Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, to live 20 more years of life locked in his Hawaii bunker? Maybe in your case yes. Death (or its allusion), as Borges wrote, makes men precious and pathetic.

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