![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.”
It’s too bad that Julian Simon is no longer around to deflate Ehrlich.
What an idiot, more a leech. I think the prince needs to labor for a day, no, a year. That poor fellow couldn’t last month as a laborer espousing his views. I contend he would need counseling after the experience if he couldn’t fly away.
Boys will be boys ya know.
Why do my grandson’s grand children deserve something we deny to folks right now by trying to control the weather?
I think Ehrlich’s name would make a good synonym for wrong.
Ehrlich (ar’likh)
-n. A spectacularly wrong prediction. (e.g. The tabloid’s year end psychic predictions all turned out to be Ehrlichs.)
-v. To not pan out. (e.g. The ponzi scheme started out fine, but then it Ehrliched.)
-adj. Wrong, incorrect. (e.g. The Mayan Calendar end of the world prediction turned out to be Ehrlich.)
Tiburon: Considering how DULL the AWG people are, in general, HOW could the be part of the ILLUMINATI?
I don’t believe Ehrlich has ever acknowledged he was wrong about anything. The timing just required adjusting. In the same sense, I suppose, that Harold Camping’s predictions about the end of the world weren’t wrong per se, just the timing was an issue…
Well I suppose that is why the monarchy no longer runs things.
Ditto Canman,
Great idea. That is sooo Ehrlich. Really?
Really?
tgmccoy says:
January 11, 2013 at 6:27 pm
______________________________________
It’s one of the greatest ironies of all time – that the ignoramus, first in line to the monarchy has to join with the neomonarchists as his only chance.
God save the Queen.
Every evening the Queen prays, dear lord, please one more day, to keep that …… of mine off of the throne.
But the Brits still have one claim to fame, the Royal Family is the longest ongoing soap-opera in the english speaking world,the above; its the Arslick episode.
Prince Charles’s grandchildren will be supported by the English taxpayers just like their twit of a grandfather. No one needs to worry about their future unless the stupid Prince gets us to go along with this insanity, then there will be no British economy to support the future royal grand-twits.
Oh great, now we have to wait a whole month for the next issue.
Will Big Marriage and proCREATIONIST Lovemaking interests deploy well-funded bloggers and scientists to cleverly re-frame the incontrovertible science of human overpopulation as merely a theory?! Will scientists successfully model how females choose males based on traits that indicate the male’s genetic quality in terms of disease resistance thus verifying through “experiment” immunocompetence in female mate choice?! What a cliff hanger.
“””””……Let me, however, make this clear, in case there should be any mistake about it in any quarter: we mean to hold our own. I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. For that task, if ever it were prescribed, some one else would have to be found, and under a democracy I suppose the nation would have to be consulted……””””””
This appears to be the exact wording; in a speech given in London, Nov 10 1942. One of the best known speeches, it is generally known as “The end of the beginning speech” given after the battle of El Alemain; the defeat of Erwin Rommel.
You wouldn’t believe the crap versions of this statement; even referring to him becoming “her” majesty’s first minister. Obviously, King George VI was the monarch in 1942. QE II and Charlie had nothing to do with the demise of the British Nation; the people brought it on themselves.
The speech is often quite erroneously attributed to the Churchill Ghandi clash over India; which was many years later. And the word “liquidation” is often misquoted as “dissol;ution” as I did above.
You wouldn’t believe the crap that is erroneously attributed to Churchill. A dire warning of the complete garbage available on the web in the guise of fact.
We should heed the Churchill quote phenomenon, as infecting the whole web, and surely alive and well in the field of climate “science”.
I saw this post over at AmericanDigest a few days ago and, after reading this post about the Ehrlichs and the Prince, I thought it might provide some needed perspective to all those folks who are so confident in and attached to, their own prognostications.
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/american_studies/1910.php
JANUARY 8, 2013
1910: Car and Nation
[Note: Item received in email this morning.]
This car was assembled on November 11th of 1910. Normally, 1909/1910 style bodies were wooden, but this 1910 style body is partially steel, the only one known; presumably a transition to the use of all steel bodies in 1911. It was originally delivered to R.E. Lawrence in Astoria, IL. Vernon Jarvis of Decatur, IL, purchased the car in 1951 and later displayed it in his Early American Museum at Silver Springs, FL, until in 1967, when the current owner bought it. After 30 years in storage, restoration was completed in March, 2007.
The year is 1910, over one hundred years ago.
The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!
The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME.
Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press AND the government as ‘substandard.’
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
The five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2, Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars.
The population of Las Vegas Nevada was only 30!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn’t been invented yet.
There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write and only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
I am now going to forward this to someone else without typing it myself.
From there, it will be sent to others all over the WORLD… all in a matter of seconds!
Posted by gerardvanderleun at January 8, 2013 11:00 PM
Does anyone really suspect that the changes the world will experience between now and the end of this century will actually be less dramatic than those that have occurred over the last hundred years? I have no idea what the world of 2100 will look like and, since I won’t be here to see it, I can’t say that I am much bothered by that. What does bother me is the growing flock of morons who, having firmly established that they are entirely oblivious to what is actually going on in the present moment, nevertheless cling like barnacles to the notion that they can know the limitless future with such rock solid certainty that anyone who challenges their Malthusian visions is committing a crime against humanity which merits a capital sentence.
Max Hugoson: – Good point (in general), but must say that “some of my best friends”, quite intelligent, have been hypnotized by the relentless fact-free barrage of emotional appeals our G-d Given sense of responsibility to others, and to more than our narrow self-interests. I do my best to suggest to them they check the data and sources, and develop discernment in regards what they take as “truth”.
Further, I think CAWG is certainly a central battleground for hearts and minds, and in the spirit of ‘follow-the-money’ it always seems to lead to vast corporate empires, and beyond to “elites” in the Maurice Strong model, making plans for us and our nations and families. It is really the ‘perfect excuse’ for policing the world’s economies, and thus control of our communities, inspiration and aspirations, and creativity to respond to challenges with our own resources (and His Mercy).
I really ought to tender an apology to all for posting that vile bit of, likely, agiprop (is that the term?). Yet behind the twisted anti-Jew pseudo-history, and feverish and internally contradictory ramblings, there’s enough bits of information to give one pause. I guess what I take away from stuff like this (after a shower and eye-wash) is how important it is to really do the work, study and research, and never let anyone do the thinking for you. At the same time, it brings home to me that there are, in a world as vast and varied as ours, groups and individuals whose grasp of what most of us take from our fore-bearers as a hard-fought but now basic morality, is damaged to non-existent, and that unfortunately many of these have money far beyond their personal needs, “desiring only power”, to paraphrase LOTR (Lord of the Rings).
A far more interesting and somewhat more intellectual defensible version of how we’ve arrived where we are, leastways in the latter half of 20th Century till now, dealing with computer models, objectivism, and the like, can be found in this shorter documentary “All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace”, by Adam Curtis, out of the BBC: –
http://thoughtmaybe.com/all-watched-over-by-machines-of-loving-grace/
It’s easy to see how the hubris of the technological elite can lead us, all by itself, to where we are now with ‘climate change’ politics, without positing a ‘hidden hand’.
RE: george e. smith says:
January 11, 2013 at 6:51 pm
“……The Royal Family simply looks on; they play no part in the politics of the country.”
In which case Charles would have no more influence, when he shares his ideas, than you and I have, when we share ours.
When I attended school in Scotland in the early 1970’s I learned, as an American teenager, that it wasn’t entirely wise to refer to the English queen as “Queenie Baby.” The power royalty had over the English psyche, at that time, was much like power a Hollywood star has over some Americans, only greater. Very smart people were reduced to gibbering idiots, if the royalty walked into the room. It didn’t seem to matter if the royalty had an IQ of 79, the very smart person abruptly behaved as if they had an IQ of 60.
That is (or was) power. However that was over 40 years ago. (There were still some older teachers back then who had a world view that saw the English as world leaders, and taught an attitude that now seems forgotten. They most especially hadn’t forgotten the terrible sacrifices of two horrible World Wars.)
Heh. The Mayans must have been a canny bunch. They closed their calendar at (almost) the end of last year and are now out of it. The rest of us have to continue to suffer the nonsense …
perhaps, they saw AR5 coming! …
Perhaps the Royal Society has a point. What they have gotten wrong is the cause of the collapse for those which did fail and dis: the return of the cold.
Selection of completely inappropriate tools will just make an even bigger mess.
I have one book in my collection which I especially treasure, a signed copy of “How to Know the Butterflies”, authored by Paul and Anne Ehrlich which was published in 1961. At that time Paul was curator of the Entomological Collections at Stanford and shortly thereafter began to study populations of the Bay Checkerspot butterfly (Euphydryas editha) in the Jasper Ridge Preserve of the campus. It must have been there, as he tracked and counted these butterflies amidst the oak studded hills and dales, that he eventually considered the fate of the human population, and, as they say, the rest is history.
Here is something I posted on tips and notes but seems more appropriate here.
Counter argument with a response from the author of the above.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/11/why_the_world_population_will_not_decline.html
The graph Ehrlich probably doesn’t want you to see.
http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldgrgraph.php
“If the world goes green, then organic farmers will do well.
I run a big organic farming business, so I’ll be all right Jack.”
That would sum up the economics of it.
I don’t doubt that HRH fervently believes what he believes though.
Caleb, Richard K et al,
A nit-pick I know, but as an independent country England did in fact disappear from the map in 1707 when it joined with Scotland to form a new country, Great Britain. England now is one of four “states” which make up the country of GB.
And while I hold no brief to defend Prince Charles, I would point out that for a time as a regular Officer in the Royal Navy, he commanded a warship, and my understanding is that he did it very well.
And in an earlier speech we have the following:
You first your highness. 😉
If Prince Charles was concerned about the environment he wouldn’t insist on being driven everywhere in his Bentley that does an environment saving 18 mpg. Not that that kind of hypocricy will come as a surprise to readers here.
He is a deluded fool.
oldseadog says:
January 12, 2013 at 1:34 am
If I could be permitted a nit-pick. The four countries of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales make up the UK = The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Also, I have been in the UK military for a few decades and my Royal Navy colleagues who are in the know would argue with our assessment of his seamanship. He meant well though and tried his best.