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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@ur momisugly Yardbird who says: August 18, 2012 at 12:16 pm
. . . Sorry David, I thought it was obvious sarcasm.
Not all of us are like Issac Newton who truly had a gift for recognizing the obvious . . .
Being of “strickt German “upbringin” assuming could get you into a world -o- hurt . . . no such a beast as phacetious!
Matt’s Ted Talk, when ideas have sex, is also worth viewing – and should be compulsory viewing for politician’s and the doomists.
How about a review and a synopsis John! Why would I want to do that?
http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scientists-Antihumanism/dp/1594034761
A must read.
“racist hate speech”
From Dorlomin? Highly doubtful.
@BioBob,
Your defense of Rachel Carson is laughable.
Unless the data was held in Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) form. As it was for dates and most other printable data back then. Some was held in packed decimal format–again, not binary. Converting to and from binary took too much time (it had to go through packed decimal format as an intermediate step, IIRC)–it wasn’t considered worth it, even though it would have saved space–and avoided the Y2K problem.
Nevertheless, use of binary to store dates would have increased if there’d been a national standard for the start-date for a Julian Date scheme. Instead, a multitude of start-dates for different languages and operating systems and vendors developed. But the NBS (currently NIST) would have had to be on the ball and issue a Federal standard for such, which its Poo-Bah at the time would, I believe, have been too fat-headed to see the need for.
“Matt’s Ted Talk, when ideas have sex, is also worth viewing – and should be compulsory viewing for politician’s and the doomists.”
There’s plenty of footage of queues outside Northern Rock for politicians to decide on whether to take Matt Ridley seriously.
The trouble is that we have a lack of civil discourse. I have a question for you. What are you doing here? Are you sincerely trying to convert people to your viewpoint. In that case, you are using the wrong strategy. Most of us here equate ad hominem with “intellectual baby talk” (to quote Christopher Muncton).
Are you trolling? In that case, you can hardly expect anyone to think you are sufficiently literate to be able to criticize someone else’s reading comprehension if you can’t even catch your own typos. The other thing you should consider is that, if someone else has failed to understand your writing, your writing might be the problem.
I just finished reading the Wired article. About time, jeesh, if we had left it up to timid boot-licking sycophants we would still be living in caves huddling if fear waiting for the cave bear to come back to eat us.
Not you Scipio . . . with that attitude, they would have dressed you in berries and garlic and thrown you to the bear!
See! I told you we were doomed.
leftinbrooklyn says:
“the availability of the gullible never seems to wane”
“There is a sucker born every minute” PT Barnum
Yup RoHa . . . we’re on to you! May as well give up the doom and gloom!
why are the alarmoholics/catastrophiles/disasterbaters like this ? what does misery love ?
Nice piece, Matt.
Re DDT – Steve Milloy has been researching DDT junk science scares for many years and has published extensively on the subject. Here is a link to get you started:
http://junkscience.com/ddt/
I don’t any serious student of the topic disputes that DDT was misused and overused at times (although the main downsides were wasted money and increasing bug resistance). But the claims about birds, human health etc are simply unsupported by the evidence. Meanwhile, millions have died of malaria, and on a more First World note, a bit of DDT would soon sort out the bedbug epidemic.
I think, echoing a poster way upthread who mentioned sci-fi, a lot of the public fascination with disasters is voyeuristic and vicarious, and should not be taken too literally. Yes, it makes good copy and people like to read about it, but only a sad and neurotic minority ever really believe that the world is about to end, and they are the kind of people who will believe just about anything.
The bulk of popular support for environmentalism comes from more positive sources, such as appreciation of the wonders of nature and the desire for clean air and water. That these essentially benevolent sentiments have been usurped by nutty or just plain unscrupulous political operators and their entourages is what we need to address most urgently. And, the political pendulum does seem to be changing direction in many parts of the West, especially as we are the ones paying the bills for the panic du jour.
In my earlier post I said, “when someone comes up with a reasonable hypothesis about something, one group will take the extreme point of view that emphasizes the worst scenario while an opposing group will take the opposite extreme point of view. Mr Ridley’s examples demonstrate that, while in reality the truth is somewhere in between.” I think that becomes obvious in this particular forum right now concerning the debate about DDT. I really don’t want to get involved in that particular discussion because I don’t have an informed point of view on it. I would, however like to use the example of Hubbert’s peak oil theory in order to demonstrate how the two extreme points of view have exploited it.
The theory of peak oil attributed to Hubbert was originally not a theory at all. Hubbert observed that for any given geographical area, the rate of production of oil followed a bell curve from discovery of the source of oil to the depletion of the source. He then hypothesized that since oil is a non-renewable resource, this curve could be applied to each of the earth’s sources of oil and a prediction could be made of when their production would begin to decline. He also went farther back and looked at the rate of discovery of new sources of oil and observed that the rate of discovery of new sources of oil for any particular geographical area also followed a bell curve. He then hypothesized that a similar curve could be made for the entire earth and a prediction could be made of when the rate of discovery of new sources of oil would begin to decline. He then used his hypothesis to accurately predict that US oil production would peak in the 1970’s. He was only concerned with the production of high grade oil, but his model has been used for any non-renewable resource.
The extreme views come into play in the following manner. The doomsayers took Hubbert’s model and assumed that he predicted that we would run out of oil, and then assumed all the catastrophic results of that. The opposite extreme, claimed that we would always find more sources of oil, or alternatives to oil. The middle ground is this. Yes, we will run out of oil, eventually, but we will also turn to other sources of energy and substitutes for oil as the demand for oil outstrips the production and the price of oil rises. We won’t find new sources of oil, at least at a rate which will keep up to our production and consumption. Switching to alternatives also means that we will be faced with economic shocks, at least until we can match the cheapness of oil as a source of energy. Does it mean the end of civilization as we know it, hardly likely, but it also doesn’t mean we can continue to operate the same way we always have. The prediction for peak coal that was made before the utilization of oil is an excellent example. Peak coal would have occurred (and has occurred in places like Britain and Germany) if it weren’t for the use of oil preempting it – what are we going to use to replace oil? One thing to keep in mind is that oil does not only represent a source of energy, it provides the basis for most of the modern chemical industry – fertilizers, medicines, plastics, synthetic textiles, etc.
Michael Tremblay says:
August 18, 2012 at 11:30 pm
In my earlier post I said, “when someone comes up with a reasonable hypothesis about something, one group will take the extreme point of view that emphasizes the worst scenario while an opposing group will take the opposite extreme point of view…..
__________________________________
You just outlined a darn good reason to switch to nuclear for electric power generation. As a chemist I very much agree with “One thing to keep in mind is that oil does not only represent a source of energy, it provides the basis for most of the modern chemical industry – fertilizers, medicines, plastics, synthetic textiles, etc.”
The switch would have been done in the 1970’s if it were not for the WELL FUNDED Astroturf protest groups.
Based on a media scare where I was an insider, I think the Nuclear power scare was a corporate weapon used against the nuclear energy. The Polystyrene scare of the 1990’s most certainly was. Robert Blair stepped on the toes of Shell and BP in the takeovers of Husky Oil and Polysar. They retaliated via the environmental groups/MSM and just about wiped him off the map. (Remember the solid connection between BP, Shell and WWF via the Royals)
The Polystyrene scare BTW was attributed to a elementary school teacher in NH and blew-up nationally literally overnight. It was also based on a whole pack of lies. It was way too coordinated for my taste. It was timed for one month before the airing of the TV ads announcing that McDonald’s, Sweetheart Plastic and Novacor would be breaking ground on a joint highly innovated post consumer polystryene plant that would be designed to use handicapped labor. Polystyrene from McDonald’s would be cleaned and recycled. My boss, a Chem Engineer was the head of the project BTW.
These scares may be dreamed up in the brains of fringe cults but they do not get major media traction unless they have a corporate advantage. As usual FOLLOW THE MONEY.
j molloy who says: August 18, 2012 at 6:21 pm
why are the alarmoholics/catastrophiles/disasterbaters like this ? what does misery love ?
The serious reality is that “misery” goes on all around us every day in different places in the world. Every single day a certain number of humans die for various reasons . . . that is a miserable day for those who “loved” them. As we speak it is burning out west, you would be having a very bad day if it was your house that burned. It’s not about misery or love just an awareness of the reality and trying to have some empathy for those that are suffering that part of their lives. But, the whole world is not crashing down all at once. I personally believe everyone is terrified of: for example, another WWI type situation . . . and blood did run like a river during those “terrible terrible times”. Even the whole world did not come crashing down all at once . . . just parts of Europe. If one was living somewhere in rural S. America they probably were not even aware there was a war . . . an hopefully lived a full and happy life! The best term I have heard used for this concept is Balanced.
Don’t want to be gullible or [manipulable], but I don’t want to be calloused, unempathetic or unconstructive either!
As for the economics of the “Global Climate” debate . . I readily recall the story about Huck Finn getting Tom Sawyer to paint a fence for an old Lady! Huck Finn did very little work but took the lions share of the compensation . . . For me, I neither want to be like Huck Finn or gullible like Tom Sawyer, heck I don’t even want that kind of Huck Finn types around me. There must be a better balance and I think that is what Samuel [Clements] was talking about by telling the cautionary tail.
Michael Tremblay:
You support an apocalyptic myth (viz. ‘peak oil’) when you write at August 18, 2012 at 11:30 pm
Firstly, for all practical purposes all resources can be considered to be infinite. We did not run out of flint antler bone, bronze, etc., and we will not run out of anything else for the same reason.
When a resource is plentiful it is cheap (in money and effort) to obtain so nobody bothers to look for alternatives. As it becomes exhausted it becomes more expensive (‘low hanging fruit’ are picked first) so it becomes worthwhile to look for alternatives. Two possible alternatives exist
(a) Other places from which the resource can be obtained
And
(b) Other things which can be used instead of the resource.
Often other things which are found turn out to have advantages over the resource they displace.
Both types of alternative exist in the case of oil. Oil is now often obtained from below the sea when previously it was only obtained from below land. Synthetic crude oil (i.e. syncrude) can be obtained by converting other materials.
Since 1994 it has been possible to obtain syncrude at competitive cost with crude oil. This is provided by converting coal to syncrude by use of the Liquid Solvent Extraction (LSE) process. (I was part of a team that invented LSE, developed LSE, and operated a demonstration plant which proved the economic and technical abilities of LSE). The LSE technology is owned by UK government.
The existence of LSE sets a limit to maximum cost of crude oil. If crude cost rose too high then it would be economic to utilise LSE technology to manufacture syncrude instead of drilling for crude.
There is sufficient coal to last for at least 600 years (some estimate 1,000 years). Nobody can know how much – if any – oil will be needed 600 years in the future.
If we do need oil many centuries in the future then that problem will need to be addressed, but it is not now a threat except in imagination. Similarly, the Sun will expand to destroy the Earth billions of years in the future, and that too is not now a threat except in imagination.
Richard
This may be slightly apocalyptic.
[snip – Elmer, we don’t discuss Chemtrails here, humorous or otherwise. It is listed on the policy page – Anthony]
The best one so far: “There is no Hansen in China.- There is no Hansen in China.”
He he he. Thanks Contrari –
Matt Ridley is the man. Get his book, the Rational Optimist
Got to meet him, break bread with him, and the event grows greater in my mind every day
Richard, I think you misunderstood what I was trying to establish, which was to show that the actual truth in most of these arguments lies between the two extremes.
First, ‘Peak Oil’ is not a myth, but the apocalyptic version of it is. The fundamental reasoning for resource consumption peaks such as ‘Peak Oil’ is well established and is based on mechanisms such as supply and demand as well as the likelihood of new sources and alternatives. I should have pointed out that the main driver of such consumption curves is economics IE Supply and Demand. You pointed out as much with your example of LSE.
Next, the mythical apocalyptic version of ‘Peak Oil’ is that when peak oil is reached we will suddenly find that we have no oil and we will be faced with the world as depicted in “Road Warrior”, “Thunderdome”, and other such fictions. This is not reality, it is Science Fiction – they ignore that the onset of their version of ‘Peak Oil’ would mean that we would experience a series of shortages and price increases and that alternative sources for energy would become more economic and ultimately replace oil as a source of energy, just as oil replaced coal as the main source of energy in the early 20th century.
Finally, the opposite extreme version of ‘Peak Oil’ is that it does not exist, it never existed, and will never exist. The absoluteness of the refusal to acknowledge even the possibility of ‘Peak Oil’ makes this position entirely unsupportable since it ignores the evidence of consumption peaks, IE Supply and Demand.
I do not support the apocalyptic version of ‘Peak Oil’, nor do I support the opposite viewpoint. The actual condition will be somewhere in between. It may mean that we end up using coal, nuclear power, solar power, wind power, tidal power – – – name your source of hypothetical power, but at some point it will become uneconomical to use oil for energy.
Michael Tremblay:
I apologise if I misunderstood anything you wrote.
There seems to be very little difference between us, and that slight difference is shown by the final paragraphs of your post at August 19, 2012 at 10:17 pm and my post at August 19, 2012 at 7:32 am.
You say;
But I say
Richard
I don’t know whether the following crazyness was added to the list of the recent alarmism. In case you’ve never known be prepared for the Apocalyptic Global Blackout: “Within a few months, the crisis has deepened. In many areas, food shortages are rampant, drinking water has become a precious commodity, and patients in need of blood transfusions, insulin, or critical prescription drugs die waiting. Normal commerce has ground to a halt, replaced by black markets and violent crime. As fatalities climb into the millions, the fabric of society starts to unravel.” (J. Kappenman) You can prepare yourself by reading here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/a-perfect-storm-of-planetary-proportions/
But this is not all. We may die by a massive radioactive leak from “hundreds of Fukushimas”: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/a-perfect-storm-of-planetary-proportions/5/hundreds-of-fukushimas
Nice article. This is the things I like to read in a technical magazine like IEEE Spectrum…