Matt Ridley has just had a tremendous essay published in WIRED magazine, one that everyone should take a few minutes to read, because it sums up the issues of all the end time fears, fallacies, and failures we have collectively experienced in one tidy little package. – Anthony
By Matt Ridley
When the sun rises on December 22, as it surely will, do not expect apologies or even a rethink. No matter how often apocalyptic predictions fail to come true, another one soon arrives. And the prophets of apocalypse always draw a following—from the 100,000 Millerites who took to the hills in 1843, awaiting the end of the world, to the thousands who believed in Harold Camping, the Christian radio broadcaster who forecast the final rapture in both 1994 and 2011.
Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking. Consider some of the environmental cataclysms that so many experts promised were inevitable. Best-selling economist Robert Heilbroner in 1974: “The outlook for man, I believe, is painful, difficult, perhaps desperate, and the hope that can be held out for his future prospects seem to be very slim indeed.” Or best-selling ecologist Paul Ehrlich in 1968: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.
In the 1970s [“and 1980s” was added in a later edition] the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked on now … nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.” Or Jimmy Carter in a televised speech in 1977: “We could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”
Predictions of global famine and the end of oil in the 1970s proved just as wrong as end-of-the-world forecasts from millennialist priests. Yet there is no sign that experts are becoming more cautious about apocalyptic promises. If anything, the rhetoric has ramped up in recent years. Echoing the Mayan calendar folk, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock one minute closer to midnight at the start of 2012, commenting: “The global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth’s atmosphere.”
Over the five decades since the success of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and the four decades since the success of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth in 1972, prophecies of doom on a colossal scale have become routine. Indeed, we seem to crave ever-more-frightening predictions—we are now, in writer Gary Alexander’s word, apocaholic. The past half century has brought us warnings of population explosions, global famines, plagues, water wars, oil exhaustion, mineral shortages, falling sperm counts, thinning ozone, acidifying rain, nuclear winters, Y2K bugs, mad cow epidemics, killer bees, sex-change fish, cell-phone-induced brain-cancer epidemics, and climate catastrophes.
So far all of these specters have turned out to be exaggerated. True, we have encountered obstacles, public-health emergencies, and even mass tragedies. But the promised Armageddons—the thresholds that cannot be uncrossed, the tipping points that cannot be untipped, the existential threats to Life as We Know It—have consistently failed to materialize. To see the full depth of our apocaholism, and to understand why we keep getting it so wrong, we need to consult the past 50 years of history.
The classic apocalypse has four horsemen, and our modern version follows that pattern, with the four riders being chemicals (DDT, CFCs, acid rain), diseases (bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, mad cow disease), people (population, famine), and resources (oil, metals). Let’s visit them each in turn.
Read the entire essay here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/ff_apocalypsenot/all
Be thankful for all the good things we have, and worry not for the future as described by alarmists.
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Re: malaria/DDT. Disappointed to say the least. Multiple tens of millions of real deaths from malaria without using DDT. The dead are on a scale of combining the dead attributable to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot in the name of Silent Spring. There are duties and responsibilities that go with any fear-based warning combining activism and “our best science.” While the results may not be apocryphal, the harm from the combination of fear, activism and junk science can exceed the harm from the original concern by more than an order of magnitude.
Simple lessons constantly having to be learned and relearned. Catastrophe is emotional. Catastrophe happens. Catastrophe sells. Catastrophe motivates. The bigger the catastrophe, the bigger the motivation and the more important you feel. Rationality – not so much. Imagined or misunderstood catastrophe produces its own catastrophe. The words “poison” as used by BioBob above or “pollution” as commonly used to describe CO2 are examples of motivation over reason. Those words sell almost as well and as instinctively as sex and are used carelessly for imaginative misunderstanding.
Peter Miller says:
August 18, 2012 at 1:50 am
“I enjoyed the article and saw nothing controversial in it. The absence of alarmist comments here suggests that its contents struck home”.
“I have just noticed I kept using the term ‘his’, is alarmism, especially in climate matters, purely a masculine trait? Are their any female alarmists?”
==============
Good points.
Possibly all the females were appointed to high level government positions in the US. Seems the males exhibit pretty much feminine traits. LOL You can interpret that one yourself.
Killing the buffalo was necessary to deprive the Indians of their food source and force them to become docile.
Anyway, the buffalo is in no danger of extinction. There aren’t many in the wild but there are ten times as many being raised in captivity. There were many more in the 1800s but today’s population of 500,000 isn’t shabby. As for the ethnic cleansing thing; it’s part of our history and we have to live with that.
Anything we do will change the environment. Does that mean we have to go back to the caves so things can return to ‘normal’? The whole point of Ridley’s article is that we need to view our situation sanely. Not all environmental changes are bad. In terms of biodiversity, the area where I live is probably just as ‘good’ as it was a hundred years ago. It sure is different though.
This is a short but worthwhile TED video
Dare to disagree: http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree.html
Re Beng on ‘fear’
Mencken summed it up…
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Matt didn’t mention the most likely apocalyptic vision, the next ice age.
I love Matt Ridley. The Rational Optimist is an excellent reads and the obvious parent of the though behind this essay. However, I (like several above) could not help but think of Lomborg while reading Ridely’s most recent missive. Ridley is admired by at least one influential economist even though his thinking is not necessarily as an economist, as is Lomborg’s. Russ Robert’s has interviewed Ridely, upon release of the Rational Optiimist, on Robert’s always great “Econtalk” podcast. I highly recommend Ridley and Roberts both.
corio37 @4:37
See Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D. “The Liberal Mind – The Psychological Causes of Political Madness, October 2006 Free World Books, LLC, St.Charles, IL LCCN 2006926407
Lot’s of great posts . . . to give a shameless plug to wired . . . they did an excellent job on Steve Jobs . . . circumspect!
The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale? | Wired …
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/ff_stevejobs/all/Jul 23, 2012
– Steve Jobs was a Buddhist and a tyrant, a genius and a jerk. What is your interpretation
Truth is I used to believe in the Boogie Man . . . too! Till I found out it was really my older brothers . . . jerking my chain! Gullible, to me means, just don’t know any better! yet?
Messed up the link!
http://www.wired.com/business/2012/07/ff_stevejobs/all/
“Sorry bout that!” chief!
There is term circulating to explain this type of thing – first world problems. Until very recently, our lives were just one mini-apocolypse away from being an unmitigated disaster. For the hunter gatherers, it was one injury, one bad hunt, one bad year of horrific weather (drought, harsh winter, flood), one group-wide epidemic. Then we got a little better. We learned agriculture and to store food, but we were still pretty close to that mini-apocolpyse. One bad crop, one locust plague, one bad year of weather, etc. Every time we step up our game, our challenges also have get bigger in order to ruin us, but they were never far from our minds because they were always very real.
But today, in order to completely wreck society, our apocolypses have to be very big. We’re still one disaster away from utter ruin, but those have to be really big disasters. Super volcanos, meteor strikes, utter fiscal collapse, pandemic plague, zombie apocalypse (just kidding), but you get the idea. We’re so wrapped up in security because of our modern lives that we have to invent really big disasters to scare anyone, so you have a proliferation of the apocalypse. Just like all the other really silly and petty things people find time to gripe about.
First World Problems
Andrew McRae wrote:
“Mr Ridley, I note your comment above and await your list of references to the evidence that convinced you that DDT is non-toxic.”
I had a look at your links Andrew. Some observations:
1.
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/PHS/PHS.asp?id=79&tid=20
Has some definitive statements.
Most assertions of adverse effects are qualified by terms like: …most likely affect…would be expected…may affect…suggest that…may have…
This is the part dealing with cancer:
So after decades of research the environmentalists still cannot definitively say that DDT causes cancer. It is only “reasonably anticipated to be” or “is possibly” or is a “probable” human carcinogen.
Which still sounds scary till you realize that many “natural” compounds found in greater quantities in common foodstuffs fall into the same category. And many other “natural” compounds also found in greater quantitiesin common foodstuffs are definitively (not possibly or probably) classed as carcinogens (as always in sufficient quantities).
2.
http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc83.htm#SectionNumber:6.2
The supposed effect on birds was what launched the campaign against DDT, led first by the Audebon Society and was also the basis for Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring.
So the bird species that were actually studied often showed “little or no shell thinning” or “thinning at levels similar to those found in the wild”. Not quite enough to silence spring.
3.
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/summ02/Carson.html
Basically demolishes the claims in Caron’s book.
4.
http://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/DDT_and_Birds.html
This article cites no peer-reviewed literature and as Paul Ehrlich is one of the three co-authors has zero credibility with me.
Matt Ridley wrote:
Actually, Borlaug was one of those who defended the use of DDT long after it became unfashionable (hazardous-to-funding).
As for the non-toxic nature of DDT
The best evidence does not come from controlled trials. It is the absence of cancer (or other adverse effects) in specific communities (and in particular children), who were deliberately exposed to large quantities of the stuff, that is the strongest evidence that DDT is generally harmless to humans.
Outbreaks of polio (or “infantile paralysis” as it was then commonly called) in the 40s and 50s led to desperate attempts to halt this (as yet not well-understood) disease. Towns were “bombed” and kids sprayed with the stuff.
Videos:
Early news reports:
DDT was spectacularly successful against malaria but the fact that DDT did little to stop polio may have put wings under the subsequent campaign to ban it.
Unfortunately, if you Google polio+DDT you will find a substantial community of enviro-scared, anti-vaccine nuts who blame polio on DDT.
Correction: the second video is not paywalled. You can watch it but there is no sound
http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/BHC_FoxMovietone/1948/07/24/X24074801/?v=0
I don’t believe Y2K was exaggerated. Precisely because people were aware of the problems, we fixed most of them. I do recall Al Gore’s campaign website said “January 1, 19100”, and that some ATMs didn’t work correctly.
Were it not for the “hype”, a lot more of the Y2K bugs (plural; anyone who refers to “the Y2K bug” in the singular is clueless) could indeed have gone unpatched, and caused major problems.
commieBob:
I write to thank you for – and to draw attention to – your excellent post at August 18, 2012 at 7:52 am.
I especially liked these two of your points:
and
If everybody everywhere were always to accept those attitudes then the world would be a better place, and it would always be getting better.
Richard
“Let’s not go overboard with this celebration, please. All of our actions have consequences even if they may not be catastrophic to earth. We did poison over 10 thousand with Thalidomide, Millions of people are poisoned each year by pesticides. Acid rain does have effects on ecosystems even if they are not apocalyptic. Mercury, lead and other effluents from manufacturing regularly poison people. Rachel Carson’s warnings were hardly of a coming apocalypse and her message completely distorted and her warnings remain as valid today as they were when silent spring was published. Read. the. book.”
Sorry BioBob but you are full of Barbara Striesand. How about YOU reading “the BOOK”? Try this one on for size (in my hand right now)… “DDT A Review of the Scientific and Economic Aspects of the Decision to Ban It Use as a Pesticied” (EPA 540/1-75-022). I HAVE read that book. Some of the SHODDIEST garbage passing as “science” I’ve ever seen.
The “egg shell thining” has been found to be caused by the UNCOMBUSTED Ethylene Di-Bromide added to Tetra-Ethyl Leaded gasoline to stabalize the lead addition.
REMOVED (note I didn’t say BANNED, because the Auto Makers and the Refineries BEG to have the REQUIREMENT to put lead in gasoline during the late 60’s…as HARDENED VALVE SEATS and better refinery mixes..negated the need for the lead to change the OCTANE and coat the valve seats (fatigue cracking)) in 1970. Great co-incidence that by 1980 the “birds of prey” came back.
I could probably write a 100 page essay, just on memory..but in thoughfulness to the people who scan these pages, I’ll just mention our very own case of the Lake Superior (horrors!) asbestos “pollution”. A local “activist” judge, forced a fine company called Reserve Mining to pay $300,000,000 to install “ultra filtration” units for the municiple water supplies all around Lake Superior. Reserve mining went “belly up” in about 1975. (After developing an “on land” disposal lake for the “tailings”, which are GRAVEL…darn it, GRAVEL!!!! The seperation process uses froathing water, magnets and grinding….NO ADDITIONAL CHEMICALS…)
2000 people out of work, and a terrible blow to the Arrowhead of MN. In 1976 the EPA sponsored some extensive studies of the “tailings”. Turns out the Asbestos” was nothing but a fine mineral fiber, typical of the rock in the arrowhead region. ALSO TYPICALLY FOUND IN MUNICIPLE WATER SUPPLIES FROM WELLS ALL AROUND THE NORTHERN REGIONS OF MN. The EPA paid for EPIDEMILOGICAL work and found NO increase in GI track cancers in communities with fiber amounts (SMALL, very SMALL) HIGHER than those in Lake Superior water.
THUS – NON-PROBLEM. Hey, BioBob..tell that to the people whose lives were destroyed by Judge Miles Lord .(He is dying of cancer presently…I think I last heard, ironic..NOT a GI track I understand. Just a penalty of life. Unavoidable in many cases.)
Max
Chemical Eng.
Metallurgical Eng.
It’s always $$$: http://gcaptain.com/record-arctic-presents-commercial/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29
Always consider the messenger, and ask: “What are your affiliations; what is your trade; what are you selling?”
commieBob says: exttinction
My point had absolutely NOTHING to do with extinction. It referred to destruction of biologically productive systems in nature by man. The millions of buffalo that once migrated up and down the great plains are GONE or severely reduced, as are most of the components of their habitat and cohort species. Atlantic Cod are not in any danger of extinction either but there is no commercially viable harvest of that destroyed fishery on the scale of prior numbers either. There are only tiny runs of Atlantic Salmon, remnants of once massive anadromous populations in the North Atlantic basin. etc etc
And that WAS the point. Take a course in reading comprehension please.
LOL @ur momisugly http://www.aquapulser.com
DDT was only one of the chemicals Carson warned about using in a STUPID manner. Your comment is just full of stupid. Tell me all about the benign characteristics of Aldrin, Chlordane,
Dieldrin, Endosulfan, Endrin, Heptachlor, Lindane, Aldicarb, Carbaryl, and hundreds of others, many of which have also been withdrawn from broadcast use because of toxicity to non-target species.
Carson never called for complete bans on chemicals, merely suggested that more intelligent use of pesticides would be better for humanity and our environment rather than widely broadcasting chemicals with unknown long and short term effects. Further, Carson was an advocate for use of pesticides to control insect disease vectors in an reasoned manner using integrated pest management.
I don’t need to read every last diatribe on DDT to know you are wrong about pesticide use in general and I never made any claims about the toxicity of DDT on humans, birds, or bacteria for that matter. If you want to eat DDT, feel free. Give it to your tropical fish or pet birds for all I care.
William Astley says:
August 18, 2012 at 3:39 am
As it becomes obvious that dangerous anthropomorphic “climate change” is a scam, as is “green energy” it will be interesting to watch the political back pedaling…..
____________________________________
I think the whole scam was to force a “COMPROMISE” where we shut down nasty coal plants and replaced them with natural gas and the tax payer gets to help foot the bill because it is for the good of mother GAIA. This is why ENRON, Shell and BP were pushing all of this in the first place.
Enron And BP Invented The Global Warming Industry: Enron, joined by BP, invented the global warming industry. I know because I was in the room. This was during my storied three-week or so stint as Director of Federal Government Relations for Enron….
It seems some of the independent environmental groups are catching on to the fact that WWF is an accomplice of corporations. Remember HRH Prince Philipp and HRH Prince Bernhard lauunched WWF-US in 1962. Bernard’s family is a large stockholder in Shell Oil. In 1966, The Burmah Oil Company bought Castrol. Burmah Oil, one of Britain’s oldest companies, had once effectively owned the company that became BP, before selling its majority holding to the British government at the start of World War I… Philip Beresford, author of The Book of the British Rich has said that the Queen invests and own trillions of shares in “blue chip” stocks, including General Electric Company of Great Britain, Imperial Chemical Industries, Royal Dutch Shell, and British Petroleum.
Then there is the e-mail with an attachment written by Shell VP Ged Davis asking for comments from Climate Scientists, Greenpeace and Politicians. Ged Davis’ IPCC-SRES Zero Order Draft on storylines and scenarios. (Agenda 21)
Oil companies BP and Shell gave money for formation of ClimateGate unit at University of E. Anglia in 1971
This is perhaps the most telling comment if you realize Lovelock has not really changed his point of view, he is just staying “BOUGHT”
And last but not least. Remember Robert Watson chair of IPCC?? He was chief scientist for the office of mission to planet earth at NASA, Associate director for environment under President Clinton, former Chief Scientist and Director for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (ESSD) at the World Bank and is now Chief Scientific Adviser, for DEFRA, UK.
SO what is the World Bank doing for “Climate Change” and Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (their phrase)??
Graph: World Bank Lending for Thermal Generation
The World Bank’s explanation
David Jones says:
August 18, 2012 at 12:26 am
Yardbird says:
August 17, 2012 at 3:51 pm
“And of course, all these disasters, like Noah’s flood, caused by our sins; by the fact that humans are unnatural and do not belong on earth.”
“Humans are unnatural”??
What are you smoking??
Sorry David, I thought it was obvious sarcasm.
These things should cause us to consider. http://www.healthyrelationshipblog.com
“”intelligent use of (insert) “your wild oats” would be better for humanity and our environment rather than widely broadcasting “your wild oats” with unknown long and short term effects”””
A good piece of general advise for just about any discipline.
h/t BioBob August 18, 2012 at 11:50 am & Carson!
The Monster says:
August 18, 2012 at 10:09 am
I don’t believe Y2K was exaggerated. Precisely because people were aware of the problems, we fixed most of them. I do recall Al Gore’s campaign website said “January 1, 19100″, and that some ATMs didn’t work correctly.
Were it not for the “hype”, a lot more of the Y2K bugs (plural; anyone who refers to “the Y2K bug” in the singular is clueless) could indeed have gone unpatched, and caused major problems.
2000 is a decimal number. Computers work in binary. To a computer the difference between 1999 and 2000 is nothing special.