![disaster_movie06[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/disaster_movie061.jpg?quality=83)
This is funny and sad at the same time. The funny part is the fact that none of Paul Erhlich’s doom and gloom predictions about the human condition from the 70’s on have even come remotely close to true, the sad part is that the Royal Society, whose motto is Nullius in verba, Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it”, is taking the word of this doomer that can’t predict his way out of a paper bag. The focus now? You guessed it: global warming causing “escalating climate disruption”, which is unsupportable when you look at the data. Even the IPCC in their SREX report doesn’t agree with claims of “escalating climate disruption” as Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. pointed out. Plus, Nature recently went on record with an editorial saying Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
These facts seem to make no dent in the doomers thinking, which seems to believe we are as ill equipped as the Mayans to manage ourselves, our resources, and our environment. One wonders about their sanity.
(h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard).
Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
10 January 2013
Title:Perspective: Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
Authors:Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
Journal:Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Throughout our history environmental problems have contributed to collapses of civilizations. A new paper published yesterday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B addresses the likelihood that we are facing a global collapse now. The paper concludes that global society can avoid this and recommends that social and natural scientists collaborate on research to develop ways to stimulate a significant increase in popular support for decisive and immediate action on our predicament.
Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s paper provides a comprehensive description of the damaging effects of escalating climate disruption, overpopulation, overconsumption, pole-to-pole distribution of dangerous toxic chemicals, poor technology choices, depletion of resources including water, soils, and biodiversity essential to food production, and other problems currently threatening global environment and society. The problems are not separate, but are complex, interact, and feed on each other.
The authors say serious environmental problems can only be solved and a collapse avoided with unprecedented levels of international cooperation through multiple civil and political organizations. They conclude that if that does not happen, nature will restructure civilization for us.
In a statement on his website, HRH The Prince of Wales has reacted to the paper, agreeing, “We do, in fact, have all the tools, assets and knowledge to avoid the collapse of which this report warns, but only if we act decisively now. If, though, in our evermore interconnected and complex world, we are to succeed, real leadership and vision is required. It is just possible that we can rise to this challenge, but to do so we will need to adjust our world view in a profound and comprehensive way. We have to see ourselves as utterly embedded in Nature and not somehow separate from those precious systems that sustain all life. I have said it before, and I will say it again – our grandchildren’s future depends entirely on whether we seize the initiative and prevaricate no further.”
Gary Pearse says January 11, 2013 at 4:58 pm
I wish some knowledgeable sceptics would take the initiative and predict the changes we can expect ..
Why, thank you Gary, allow me to oblige:
It will get hotter and colder, wetter and drier, in the future; but the planet will continue to spin out of control.
all the CAGW zealots are out in force at the moment, including Australia’s Minister for Trade & Competitiveness(?), Craig Emerson:
12 Jan: Australian: Craig Emerson: Let’s do the right thing by our kids and our planet
ATTEMPTS to link the frequency of extreme weather events such as this week’s catastrophic bushfire conditions with climate change are usually greeted with derision. But this time it’s highly reputable scientists who are making the link. We should take notice…
Armed with its alarming report, the World Bank embraces the principle of intergenerational equity in calling on the world “to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations, especially the poorest”.
As to the precautionary principle, despite the CSIRO concluding that the projections of climate scientists “have been accurate”, there remains a substantial body of opinion – outside the Australian parliament and within it – that the science is not settled and that Australia should not act on climate change until it is.
On the conservative side of politics, every Liberal leader, including Tony Abbott, has supported putting a price on carbon…
It’s not as if carbon pricing has wrecked the economy or wiped out entire communities. And it’s not as if the climate-change science is highly contested by actual climate scientists. Surely, based on the precautionary principle and intergenerational equity, putting a price on carbon is the least we can do for future generations…
Let’s do the right thing by our children and the planet.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/lets-do-the-right-thing-by-our-kids-and-our-planet/story-e6frgd0x-1226551494224
some possible reasons for the panic!
11 Jan: ICIS: Vote to ban Russian carbon emission reduction units from EU ETS set for 23 January
The EU’s Climate Change Committee is set to vote on 23 January on the European Commission’s proposal to restrict rules regarding the use of emission reduction units (ERUs) in Phase III (2013-2020) of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS)…
http://www.icis.com/heren/articles/2013/01/11/9631170/vote-to-ban-russian-carbon-emission-reduction-units-from-eu-ets-set-for-23.html
11 Jan: Reuters Point Carbon: ERUs plummet 61 pct on commission ban plans
LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Emission Reduction Units (ERUs) plummeted as much as 60 percent on Friday on news the EU had watered down its proposal to restrict the use of some types of U.N. carbon credits from the bloc’s emissions trading scheme, traders said…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2134315?&ref=searchlist
10 Jan: Reuters Point Carbon: California to net less than planned from carbon market
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Weaker-than-anticipated demand for permits at California’s inaugural carbon auction has caused the state to lower its forecast for expected cap-and-trade revenue from $1 billion to $200 million for the year, dealing a blow to the governor’s plans to use the money to fund a costly high-speed rail project…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2132722?&ref=searchlist
My ol’ ma used to say:
Whether its cold or whether its hot –
There is going to be weather, whether or not.
re:
Title: Perspective: Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
Authors:Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
What a great gig.
One can be dead wrong about the future for decades and still be considered insightful.
Am I in the wrong business . . .
I think HRH means “procrastinate” not “prevaricate” – someone needs to remind HRH of the Queens English. HRH would make Mrs. Malaprop proud.
As for the Ehrlich’s they are simply “pawns” in the political game to reduce freedoms, enslave the people and grab more and more power for the elite (bankers/politicians and aristocracy). A pity that the Ehrlich’s egos are so big that they cannot see how they are being used.
Stupidity annoys me. Unfortunately scientists are not immune to it as James Watson points out in the Double Helix: “One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.” Fifty years on we see the Royal Society boosting the Ehrlich’s stupidity, evidently approved by its president, Sir Paul Nurse.
In the light of the Royal Society position, a collapse of the no-more-so-global British civilization seems unavoidable.
The Future King of Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Great Britain, would-be Defender of the Faith & Commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces is determined to seize the initiative and prevaricate no further. Am I surprised?
“…our grandchildren’s future depends entirely on whether we seize the initiative and prevaricate no further.” Surely he meant “procrastinate” not “prevaricate”?
We know that David Cameron’s father-in-law makes £1,000 per day from his small wind farm.
Prince Chuckles (and the’family’) owns vast swathes of the UK, including (through the Crown Estates) the Rights to the entire coast below low tide. Much of the Royal land holdings include areas that are being developed by BigWind. Chuckles must be trousering Millions per day from the wind scam.
Is this a clue as to why he is so keen on cAGW lies? I doubt that any individual in the UK has abigger direct financial interest in this scam.
Bad King John was a philanthropist compared with this guy.
I disagree, Global Warming is very likely to create a collapse of civilization, not because it is true, but because it is false (and proven false by more than 15 years of no warming).
It goes like this:
The warmistas gain control, and bring about their agenda.
Result, a collapse of the global economy, a complete loss of all freedoms and associated government corruption, etc.
(Absolute power corrupting absolutly).
Starvation, plague, people freezing to death in the dark, etc.
Desperate people revolt, or are close to doing so.
The ‘great leaders’ take the traditional remedy, find someone else to blame.
(Blame the Jews, that always works).
Result, war, probably a world war, now in a world with nuclear weapons.
You will know it is about to happen when universal prosperity and peace is declared.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling (excerpt)
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
I’ve just looking at a program on National Geographic about the greatest threat against Britain during the 17th century, witchcraft and the increasing influence of the devil, which greatly worried the royals at the time!
Nothing really changes. Human nature stays the same.
“We have to see ourselves as utterly embedded in Nature and not somehow separate from those precious systems that sustain all life.”
Screw that. Being utterly embedded in nature was really unpleasant before we had mosquito repellant, soap instead of natural filth, chlorinated water, and air conditioning instead of disgusting sweatiness. We need to advance further. Once mankind used just natural enclosures (caves); now we make our own (buildings). Once mankind depended on natural aeration of soil alone; now we have plows (and optionally soil-free hydroponics). Once mankind depended on natural nitrogen fixation alone; now we don’t. Once and presently mankind depends on one planet with pre-existing life; if advancing properly, in time we (or cool cybernetic descendants) won’t. Et cetera. That doesn’t mean to destroy nature but to expand capabilities, include natural beauty (houseplants, gardens, etc.) when appropriate, and eventually spread life to other worlds.
“Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s paper provides a comprehensive description of the damaging effects of escalating climate disruption,
CAGW falsehoods.
“overpopulation”
The world population growth rate as an annual percentage rate has halved in the past several decades and continues to decline due to the demographic transition, projected to drop to 0% and negative later this century. Some countries like Japan have already started declining.
“overconsumption,”
From human energy usage of 2 terawatts electrical power plus several terawatts other, tiny compared to 200000 terawatts of sunlight hitting Earth, tiny compared to the energy reserves in billions of tons of uranium in seawater and thorium on land (quite affordably extractable especially if breeder reactors were used)?
From human material usage of the equivalent of several cubic kilometers or less of material per year on a planet where the crust is hundreds of millions of cubic kilometers?
There isn’t a single element which is the grand disaster of running out that activists claim. Aluminum, iron, and a number of others are high percentages of the crust with quadrillions of tons available. Elements which are less common are needed in around proportionately lesser quantities anyway; for instance, while phosphorus is only 0.1% or so (IIRC) of the average rock by mass, it is also a comparably low percentage of vegetation by mass, and mankind will never run out of phosphorus affordable to extract relative to the amount needed for fertilizer. Hydrocarbons, including plastics as well as fuels, can be synthesized by Fischer-Tropsch methods using any hydrogen source, any carbon source, and any energy source (though the amount of fossil fuels is vastly more than common false claims imply anyway).
Sometimes there can be trouble like too many people littering in a locale, but there is no intrinsic problem with current and future consumption, rather great benefits compared to how much life sucked for the average peasant or slave of past ages. In fact, increasing consumption, production, and industrial & economic capabilities is the proper destiny of mankind. Although obviously not done overnight, there is enough material in the solar system for millions of times Earth’s surface area in artificial worlds, space habitats (with pseudogravity by rotation, radiation shielding from local extraterrestrial material or magnetic shields, and original launch of immigrants by options including http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram where each $70 billion generation 2 installation could send up 4 million people per decade).
“pole-to-pole distribution of dangerous toxic chemicals”
Predominately vastly overrated.
On the whole, people are living longer and healthier than ever before. With something like 99% of cancer mortality occuring to people over age 50, cancer is primarily a subdisease of aging (senescence) effectively. While cancer existed eons before technological civilization (as can be seen in old fossils), more people are living long enough to encounter cancer now, but that is better than how in the old days people died of other causes at earlier ages.
“poor technology choices,”
Economics is a valid consideration. Poverty sucks (and statistically kills).
“depletion of resources including water”
Mankind couldn’t use up the oceans if we tried; desalination is quite affordable now if needed, only a few hundred dollars per acre-foot; and water goes in a cycle. There are some local cases of underground fresh water which can be depleted, leading to a need to switch to other sources, but no show-stopper for mankind as a whole.
“soils”
More mathematical illiteracy on the whole.
“biodiversity essential to food production,”
There are only a moderate number of thousands of vertebrate species. Saving them (and bringing back some cool extinct species like mammoths by cloning) is desirable but does not require the demands of Ehrlich-type people. Most total biodiversity, as in figures like millions of species in press releases, consists of the number of invertebrates (such as insects). Such as the number of different types of bugs in a jungle in South America has little to do with such as the yield of growing corn in Iowa. Increasing CO2 greatly aids food production, though.
————————————
The BSing debunked above is among the real roots of the CAGW movement, part of why it is an excuse for the cuts to mankind’s consumption, production, and capabilities that they want anyway. Rarely does direct argument on CAGW touch on these, but that is partially why such argument is so rarely effective, because someone believing the quotes above tends to want CAGW to be believed by others (regardless of the actual facts of climate and not really caring that much about them).
As an English friend now -deceased used to say: “I think Elizabeth is hoping the Winsor male genes kick in and Charles is found face down in his wheatabix..” “I know she is hoping to out live him..”
The Alarmists seem incapable of facing the major contradiction in their position.
On the one hand, they see mankind as so powerful as to be radically changing the planet and its climate, and on the other hand, so puny that it cannot successfully adapt to changes like it has always done in the past.
This is why they are always wrong.
The Royal Society, I expect no standards from, given that they are siding with 1950’s science fiction (apocalypse movies) and asking questions from them as though they wre not fantasy, though I wouldn’t expect a Prince to be down at the level of the schoolboy fantasy
Perhaps i’m wrong then – Per Strandberg, and have it in reverse. A Prince might be worried about schoolroom fantasy, but a Scientific academy ought to have better standards
Based on the Nov 2012 US elections, I would say that the collapse of global civilisation has already occurred.
“””””…..Vinceo says:
January 11, 2013 at 6:06 pm
“…our grandchildren’s future depends entirely on whether we seize the initiative and prevaricate no further.” Surely he meant “procrastinate” not “prevaricate”? “””””
No you have it completely wrong; he said prevaricate, and that is what he means. This prevarification has gone on long enough; time for some truth to shine through.
“Typhoon says:
January 11, 2013 at 5:47 pm
re:
Title: Perspective: Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
Authors:Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
What a great gig.
One can be dead wrong about the future for decades and still be considered insightful.
Am I in the wrong business . . .”
Seems so. What you need is an impressive name and titles, like maybe 10. So
L. Typhoon BSc, MBA, PhD (atmospherics), PhD(environment), F.A.R.T
RE: DirkH says:
January 11, 2013 at 4:50 pm
OK DirkH, you have me curious, and I’ll look into the “Fabians” a bit. However if it turns out that some group of people have once again decided they ought to be the “elite,” and rule over the “masses,” it is just the same old mistake: Absolute power never works.
What made England great was not its royalty hoarding power, but rather the fact they had the brains to share power. (Or maybe they had their arms twisted, but in any case the Magna Carta did share power in a way the Czar of Russia didn’t share power.)
In England a person such as Francis Drake could hope to rise from humble beginnings and be Knighted. Such a society is able to use “lower class” genius which more rigid societies prevent from rising into prominence.
Of course, it is not always the cream that rises to the top. When refining gold, it is the crud and slag that rises to the top. Perhaps we are living in a time when a lot of slag is rising to the top, where it will eventually be skimmed off.
At what point does someone become notorious (in that notoriety is bad) and is shunned? How many times does one get to be wrong?
Just askin…..
“””””…..Caleb says:
January 11, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Don’t be such a dunderhead, Paul Erhlich. China will not collapse. India will not collapse. It is WESTERN civilization that is likely to fall apart.
As for Prince Charles….he and his mother have overseen the collapse of a great world power. In our lifetimes we may see England basically vanish from the map, leaving only the legacy of its language (and its thought), and the mystery of how such a great nation could have fallen so far so swiftly……”””””
Perhaps you don’t understand the role (actually lack of a role) of the British Monarchy.
The people and the governments they elected are entirely responsible for the “collapse of a great world power.” QE II had nowt to do with it.
What was it Sir Winston Churchill said: “I am not come to power to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire.” or words to that effect.
Then of course he did just that. The Royal Family simply looks on; they play no part in the politics of the country.