UPDATE: New table added below.
While searching for something else, I came across this entertaining collection of grand predictive failures related to resources and climate change, along with some of the biggest predictive failures of Paul Ehrlich. I thought it worth sharing.
Exhaustion of Resources
“Indeed it is certain, it is clear to see, that the earth itself is currently more cultivated and developed than in earlier times. Now all places are accessible, all are documented, all are full of business. The most charming farms obliterate empty places, ploughed fields vanquish forests, herds drive out wild beasts, sandy places are planted with crops, stones are fixed, swamps drained, and there are such great cities where formerly hardly a hut… everywhere there is a dwelling, everywhere a multitude, everywhere a government, everywhere there is life. The greatest evidence of the large number of people: we are burdensome to the world, the resources are scarcely adequate to us; and our needs straiten us and complaints are everywhere while already nature does not sustain us.”
- In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists) predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s factories would grind to a standstill.
- In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no chance” of oil being discovered in California.
- In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas. (See Osterfeld, David. Prosperity Versus Planning : How Government Stifles Economic Growth. New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.)
- In 1939 the US Department of the Interior said that American oil supplies would last only another 13 years.
- 1944 federal government review predicted that by now the US would have exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese.
- In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was in sight.
Claim: In 1952 the US President’s Materials Policy Commission concluded that by the mid-1970s copper production in the US could not exceed 800,000 tons and that lead production would be at most 300,000 tons per year.
Data: But copper production in 1973 was 1.6 million tons, and by 1974 lead production had reached 614,000 tons – 100% higher than predicted.
Claims: In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb and declared that the battle to feed humanity had been lost and that there would be a major food shortage in the US. “In the 1970s … hundreds of millions are going to starve to death,” and by the 1980s most of the world’s important resources would be depleted. He forecast that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980-1989 and that by 1999, the US population would decline to 22.6 million. The problems in the US would be relatively minor compared to those in the rest of the world. (Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. New York, Ballantine Books, 1968.) New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial titled “In Praise of Prophets.”
Claim: “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971.
Claim: Ehrlich wrote in 1968, “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971, if ever.”
Data: Yet in a only few years India was exporting food and significantly changed its food production capacity. Ehrlich must have noted this because in the 1971 version of his book this comment is deleted (Julian Simon, The Ultimate Resource, Princeton: Princeton Univesity Press, 1981, p. 64).
The Limits to Growth (1972) – projected the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993. It also stated that the world had only 33-49 years of aluminum resources left, which means we should run out sometime between 2005-2021. (See Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: New American Library, 1972.
Claim: In 1974, the US Geological Survey announced “at 1974 technology and 1974 price” the US had only a 10-year supply of natural gas.
Data: The American Gas Association said that gas supplies were sufficient for the next 1,000-2,500 years. (Julian Simon, Population Matters. New Jersey: Transaction Publications, 1990): p. 90.
Population and Poverty
In the mid 1970s the US government sponsored a travelling exhibit for schoolchildren titled, “Population: The Problem is Us.” (Jacqueline Kasun, The War Against Population, San Francisco: CA, Ignatius, 1988, p. 21.)
In 1973, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s vote in Roe v. Wade was influenced by this idea, according to Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong: “As Stewart saw it, abortion was becoming one reasonable solution to population control” (quoted in Newsweek of September 14, 1987, p. 33.).
In 1989, when the US Supreme Court was hearing the Webster case, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor brought the idea of overpopulation into a hypothetical question she asked of Charles Fried, former solicitor-general, “Do you think that the state has the right to, if in a future century we had a serious overpopulation problem, has a right to require women to have abortions after so many children?”
World Bank president Barber Conable calls for population control because “poverty and rapid population growth reinforce each other” (Washington Post, July 16, 1990, p. A13)
Prince Philip advises us that “It must be obvious by now that further population growth in any country is undesirable” (Washington Post, May 8, 1990, p. A26)
37 Senators wrote President Bush in support of funding for population control (Washington Post, April 1, 1990, p. H1)
The Trilateral Commission and the American Assembly call for reduction in population growth (U. S. News and World Report, May 7, 1990)
Newsweek‘s year-ending cover story concluded that “Foremost of the new realities is the world’s population problem” (December 25, 1990, p.44)
The president of NOW warns that continued population growth would be a “catastrophe” (Nat Hentoff in the Washington Post, July 29, 1989, p. A17)
Ted Turner (Atlanta Journal Constitution, Wed. Dec. 2, 1998) in an address to the Society of Environmental Journalists in Chattanooga – blamed Christianity for overpopulation and environmental degradation, and argued that the people who disagree with him are “dummies.” He stated in part, “The Judeo-Christian religion says man was given dominion over everything, and his salvation was that he was to go out and increase and multiply. Well, we have done that … to the point where in Calcutta, it’s a hellhole. So it’s not an environmentally friendly religion.”
Ellen Goodman laments “People Pollution” (Washington Post, March 3, 1990, p. A25)
Herblock cartoon shows that the U. S. neglecting the “world population explosion” (Washington Post, July 19, 1990, p. A22)
Hobart Rowen likens population growth to “the pond weed [which] grows in huge leaps” (Washington Post, April 1, 1990, p. H8).
A Newsweek “My Turn” suggests giving every teen-age girl a check for up to $1200 each year that she does not have a baby “in order to stop the relentless increase of humanity” (Noel Perrin. “A Nonbearing Account”, April 2, 1990, p. 9).
Climate Change
Claim Jan. 1970: “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” Life Magazine, January 1970. Life Magazine also noted that some people disagree, “but scientists have solid experimental and historical evidence to support each of the predictions.”
Data: Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over the period in question.
Claim April 1970: “If present trends continue, the world will be … eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.” Kenneth E.F. Watt, in Earth Day, 1970.
Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1970.
Claim 1970: “In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” Paul Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970.
Claim 1972: “Artic specialist Bernt Balchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000.” Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1972.
Data: Ice coverage has fallen, though as of last month, the Arctic Ocean had 3.82 million square miles of ice cover — an area larger than the continental United States — according to The National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Claims 1974: “… when metereologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age. Telltale signs are everywhere–from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice int eh waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data fro the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadia Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round.”
Later in the article, “Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth’s surface could tip teh climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.”
Source: “Another Ice Age,” Time Magazine, June 24, 1974.
Claim 1989: “Using computer models, researchers concluded that global warming would raise average annual temperatures nationwide two degrees by 2010.” Associated Press, May 15, 1989.
Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit since 1989. And U.S. temperature has increased even less over the same period.
Claims: “Britain’s winter ends tomorrow with further indications of a striking environmental change: snow is starting to disappear from our lives.”
“Sledges, snowmen, snowballs and … are all a rapidly diminishing part of Britain’s culture, as warmer winters–which scientists are attributing to global climate change–produce not only fewer white Christmases, but fewer white Januaries and Februaries.”
“London’s last substantial snowfall was in February 1991.” “Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community.”
According to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years “children just aren’t going to know what snow is” and winter snowfall will be “a very rare and exciting event.” Interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.
“David Parker, at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Berkshire, says ultimately, British children could have only virtual experience of snow.”
See “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.” The Independent. March 20, 2000.
Data: “Coldest December Since records began as temperatures plummet to minus 10 C bringing travel chaos across Britain.” Mailonline. Dec. 18, 2010.
Claim: “[By] 1995, the greenhouse effect would be desolating the heartlands of North America and Eurasia with horrific drought, causing crop failures and food riots … [By 1996] The Platte River of Nebraska would be dry, while a continent-wide black blizzard of prairie topsoil will stop traffic on interstates, strip paint from houses and shut down computers.” Michel Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, Dead Heat, St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Oppenheimer is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School and the Department of Geosciences at Princeton University. He is the Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the Wilson School. He was formerly a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, the largest non-governmental organization in the U.S. that examines problems and solutions to greenhouse gases.
Data: When asked about these old predictions Oppenheimer stated, “On the whole I would stand by these predictions — not predictions, sorry, scenarios — as having at least in a general way actually come true,” he said. “There’s been extensive drought, devastating drought, in significant parts of the world. The fraction of the world that’s in drought has increased over that period.”
However, that claim is not obviously true. Data from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center show that precipitation — rain and snow — has increased slightly over the century.
—
How could scientists have made such off-base claims? Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb” and president of Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology, told FoxNews.com that ideas about climate science changed a great deal in the the ’70s and ’80s.
Ehrlich told FoxNews.com that the consequences of future warming could be dire.
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Source: University of Georgia, Terry College of Business. Economics 2200, Economic Development of the US, David B. Mustard
http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/courses/e2200/pop.htm
UPDATE: reader Dennis Wingo writes in with this table:
Great article. I went into this myself in my book “Moonrush“, I took all of the predictions for the depletion of resources from the book and marked in red the deadlines that had already passed. All of the predictions failed.
Sam Norton (@Elizaphanian) says:
January 19, 2013 at 2:03 am
“I’m normally a fan, but knocking Limits to Growth for saying that it “projected the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993″ is simply false.”
Actually at least one edition ( the first published in 1972 , I think ), did state exactly that, but as a quote from a prior report the U.S. Bureau of mines. So your mr. Simmons is only half right, the statment had a prior origin, but it surely appered in the pages of the book, and his claim that it its nowhere to be seen in the book is false, unless perhance it disapperead from later editions and mr. Simmons never read the orginal one.
Roger Sowell says:
January 19, 2013 at 5:46 pm
AMEN
Meanwhile I wonder where the Administration is headed with this guy as Science Advisor
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
jmorpuss says:January 19, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Robert Only 20% of a barrel of oil goes towardes fuel production and here’s a list of what the rest goes towardes List of 144 of about 6000 http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm .
===============================
Your source way off; my source:
typical bbl US petroleum: 46% gasoline (19 gal.), 38% other fuel (diesel, jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, etc.), rest lubricants, asphalt, other; so ~84% of oil —> fuel
Neil Jordan says (January 19, 2013 at 10:29 am): “• If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”
Um, if men could get pregnant, they’d be women. 🙂
Willis Eschenbach says (January 19, 2013 at 10:58 am): “Humans don’t work that way. For example, when the Dutch ran out of room, they pushed the sea back, made some more land, and reduced their population growth rate. When the world ran out of magnesium, DuPont chemists invented a way to extract it from sea water.”
From Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996:
“As Henry George said a century ago, an increase in the population of chicken hawks leads to fewer chickens, but an increase in the population of humans leads to more chickens.”
Holy smoke, Simon’s book is online! The above quote came from Chapter 20:
http://www.juliansimon.com/writings/Ultimate_Resource/TCHAR20.txt
Pamela,
I enjoy all your thoughtful posts.
Food for thought, look at the following post which I have just found on Huffington of all places. It describes the miracle of the development of the human Fetus via modern scientific imiging and helps one realize how little we know about the science behind the entire process of childbirth.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexander-tsiaras/pregnancy-anatomy_b_2499945.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing10%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D259377
This is a stage of life that my wife and I never experienced directly as a parent since both of our children were adopted.
Willis, and many others above.
As much as I admire most of your posts, you are sadly fact deficient. Willis, especially about your remaining petroleum TRR. Read my books, read the references therein, then up your game.
I hope you are right, but all the scientific research says you are not on fossil fuels. As you have not posted data on creaming curves, or probit transforms, or known TRR, or even the IEAs 2008 analysis for over 700 fields comprising over 60% of all oil production, you have not made your case. Not even close. But you have demonstrated the fault we all have (proven in Arts of Truth) about the comprehension of Bayes theorem. This is a Classic example.
Even though our research completely agrees about CAWG, I maintain, as do my books, that you are wrong about fossil fuel energy in the future. As requested before, please raise the level of your very eloquent game. The more you dig into it, the grimmer it will become. Bring more geophysics facts than posted above, please. With more references than your own spreadsheets. As WUWT usually does. Game on?
Access to resources is directly related to population.
mpainter says:
January 19, 2013 at 7:51 pm
jmorpuss says:January 19, 2013 at 3:53 pm
Robert Only 20% of a barrel of oil goes towardes fuel production and here’s a list of what the rest goes towardes List of 144 of about 6000 http://www.ranken-energy.com/Products%20from%20Petroleum.htm .
===============================
“Your source way off; my source:
typical bbl US petroleum: 46% gasoline (19 gal.), 38% other fuel (diesel, jet fuel, heavy fuel oil, etc.), rest lubricants, asphalt, other; so ~84% of oil —> fuel”
I think there is a typo in jmorpuss post since the link indicates for US refineries that circa 20 gal per 42 gallon/bbl goes to gasoline. It says the rest goes to other which includes diesel, etc.
While I am not by any measure a worldwide expert in the logistics of Refining, it is well known that the US transportation system is significantly dependent on gasoline, while for example Europe uses much more diesel in their cars. Very few diesel engines meet the US EPA restrictions for autos.
The other point is that every refinery is designed for the particular market and crude slate and not every refinery tries to maximize gasoline production as the US does. There are a lot of options in the logistics/planning of what a Refinery does with a barrel of crude and probably the US produces a higher % of gasoline than most. Also the products achieveable varies considerably depending on where the crude comes from. There is a big difference between a light sweet crude and a heavy sour crude and the ability of a refinery to run a particular crude varies considerably. Other refineries may be configured to produce more chemical feedstock or diesel. Obviously it is a lot more complex than my simple understanding.
Auto, it’s those damn projections, they have everyone fooled
Rud Istvan says:
January 19, 2013 at 8:54 pm
Thank you for the offer and the invitation, Rud, but absolutely not. I am not interested in the slightest in debating the peak oil question. I have done my research, a small bit of which I posted above. Let me repeat the key graph:
Yes, there are issues with the reserves, many of them. And I am quite familiar with the issues, the Mexican revision of reserves, the whole ugly thing. Your assumption that I am a naif in these matters is as bad as the rest of your assumptions. I know the problems with the reserve estimates, after all they are estimates.
But overall, the pattern is clear—there is no evidence of any peak, either now or in the foreseeable future. I used to work in the industry, I’ve looked hard at the projections and the production figures. To date, we have lots and lots of theories … but we have no evidence that we are anywhere near peak production.
As far as I’m concerned, it is pretty much a closed issue. I’m not putting more time into it unless some huge change in the facts occurs. I have much more important fish to fry.
In addition, I’m a cynical bugger these days. You see, Rud, I’ve been listening to folks just like you issue dire warnings about the end of fossil fuels for the last fifty years … and to date, despite all of the hoopla, we see no reduction in either production or reserves. Call me crazy, but after what I’ve seen, when somebody tells me that the rate of X is going to fall with dire consequences, these days my response is “get back to me when the rate of X actually starts to fall”.
So no, Rud, at present I’m not interested in “upping my game”. I have far too many more fascinating pursuits. You seem to think that you are brining some kind of news, telling me to read King Hubbert. I’ve been watching folks like you pop up every few year for fifty years, Rud, issuing the exact same dire warnings you seem to think are so fresh and novel. Peak oil, future shortages, must act now, urgent, blah, blah, blah. I’ve heard it all, from more convincing folks that you. You should have seen it in the early eighties, when it looked like the global production actually had peaked, and the peak oil folks were crowing about their victory, and proclaiming Hubbert as a genius. So you’ll pardon me if at this point I’m roundly bored with the whole peak oil schtick, and have absolutely no interest in pursuing it.
But in the coming years, whenever it may come to pass that the production rate actually starts to fall, please come back and we can talk about it then. I suspect, however, that by the time that day arrives I’ll be long gone …
w.
Sam Says
I’m normally a fan, but knocking Limits to Growth for saying that it “projected the world would run out of gold by 1981, mercury and silver by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead and natural gas by 1993″ is simply false.
I challenge you to prove me wrong on this. My table comes from Limits to Growth Table 4: Nonrenewable Resources, page 64-67. One page 68 the provide the formula for the exponential index.
You might want to actually check the original source before declaring something false.
up your game Rud, Tell me, what are “the five tight oil formations” in the US. Bring some data to the discussion.
Willis understands peak oil very well. It has been just a few more years away for the entire century
Here is the money quote from Limits to Growth:
We have felt it necessary to dwell so long on an analysis of technology here because we have found that technological optimism is the most common and the most dangerous reaction to our findings from the world model. Technology can relieve the symptoms of a problem without affecting the underlying causes. Faith in technology as the ultimate solution to all problems can thus divert our attention from the most fundamental problem – the problem of growth in a finite system – and prevent us from taking effective actions to solve it……..
…….The hopes of the technological optimists center on the ability of technology to remove or extend the limits to growth of population and capital. We have shown that in the world model the application of technology to apparent problems of resource depletion or pollution or food shortage has no impact on the essential problem, which is exponential growth in a finite and complex system. Our attempts to use even the most optimistic estimates of the benefits of technology in the model did not prevent the ultimate decline of population and industry, and in fact did not in any case postpone the collapse beyond the year 2100.
There is an inherent conflict between the mindset represented in the LTG book and those of us who are actually technologists. A good friend of mine (Dr. David Webb) was on the committee that funded the study that formed the basis of the book Limits to Growth. You have to understand that this study came out and this book was written right in the middle of the greatest technological triumphs of the Apollo program. When Dr. Webb asked the LTG group why they did not consider the economic development of space as a means to escape the limits to growth they simply refused to consider it. Dr. Webb after that dedicated his life to educating people about space, being the founder of the graduate studies on space at the University of North Dakota and at Embry Riddle University in Florida. Dr. Webb was also on the founding board of directors of the International Space University.
The problem that we have manifested today is that the heirs of the LTG mindset have taken over the democratic party in the United States as well as in the rest of the Western World. The techological optimists of which many of us are a part, were defunded and thus we start to get a self fulfilling prophecy. I recently did an article on the Apollo program. The budget started to be cut in 1967 ostensibly to balance the budget and cut the deficit. However, at the same time some social program funding increased by more than twice the amount of the cut at NASA. The techological pessimists have taken over our government and our progress has been in spite of them for the most part in the last 30 years.
For mine, economic output is something like natural resources x productivity, and productivity is not subject to any Malthusian constraints. Eventually, world population will stabilize, then population decline will become an issue.
The oil market is hopelessly corrupted. The producers formed a cartel which will deliberately lower prices to bankrupt any reasonable competitor. To stop the flow of funds into the cartel, governments impose taxes on oil to dampen demand and ensure a large fraction of the money stays in the developed countries concerned. To use it as an example of Malthusian resource exhaustion is a joke.
Given any natural resource, the amount available increases exponentially with price. Once thirty years worth of a mined commodity at current prices is available, exploration tends to be minimal.
This point has been made by Erhlicht critiques, don’t have the book to hand.
RE: Sam & the tripiling of oil prices.
That’s easy, it’s called currency devaluation.
If the Federal Reserve were not hell bent on devaluing our currency, prices would have fallen.
But the FED hates the spectre of deflation more than people paying a day’s wages for a loaf of bread.
In his paper on the 1930’s depression, Bernanke suggested that they didn’t pump enough money in to the economy. He referenced dropping money from helicopers, hence, the “Helicopter Ben” nickname he has been dubbed.
Yes, most predictions of disaster will fail because us humans are a clever lot. Maybe we’ll even avoid AGW through some cleverness.
But one thing needs to be said, and that is that shortages of any commodity won’t result in its absence in your supermarket. It will just be more expensive than it used to be. And while that is fine for those in affluent countries, it won’t be for the poorer nations.
How about this for irony, “ehrlich” is German for “honest”….
omnologos says: “Does anybody know of a collection of predictions that turned out right?”
Well, there are those which relate to a certain “middle eastern” people and nation over the last 4000ish years, particularly since 1948 …
If the past and present is anything to go by in that regard then some predicted or promised future, uh, “interesting times” seem somewhat certain, yes ?
The funny thing about these predictions is their limitations and end game scenarios. I am not a scientists, but I do observe our world. I do small research in my job everyday to see cause and effect, so I can open our operation up to new possibilities of doing business. Wouldn’t a scientist doing research on any topic observe real world data and see the possibilities of their data and not the limitations? I understand that with any data’s results that we don’t understand or we aren’t prepared for could be scary, but I sure am glad that we figured out how to harness the power of electricity rather than outlaw it due to it’s dangers. Just think if Ben Franklin had been electrocuted as others had who performed the kite experiment were. Or if we hadn’t had Tesla’s AC power. These guys didn’t look at the limitations or fear their results could produce, they looked at the possibilities for future generations. Entire industries were born. Limitations in the climate,such as “tipping points,” which state that once the data goes to this point we’re screwed, really piss me off, because rather than see the possibilities of a warming world(no changing climate), it’s always doom and gloom destruction(or as I believe limitations of narrow minded individuals trying to pander and control to an ignorant public with their authority). Limitations might as well be called control. At least now, when my wife and I watch the news and they talk hottest this or wettest or driest, etc., she just looks at the TV, shakes her head and says “whatever”. After time, that’s the public sentiment to any warned crisis that doesn’t ever rear it ugly head. If the wolf doesn’t finally come, the townspeople just look at the boy and say “whatever.” By the way, Anthony, day in day out, best blog I’ve seen.
PS, I guess many of the people pushing doom and gloom are actually seeing the possibilities. Al Gore seems to have found the possibilities endless with his recent transactions. Unfortunately, that’s how most of these people are making money, by their doom and gloom scenarios. Not many are working on technologically innovative, COST EFFECTIVE ways to deal the crisis they say is coming! Maybe that says it all right there?
Sorry about the grammatical errors, sometimes my typing doesn’t catch up to my brain.
“The Earth’s crust has barely been scratched”
Yup, and yet folk are still referring to oil as being a FOSSIL fuel. Not hard to see how the catastrophic man made climate change scam artists reckon they can get away with their particular scam. After all, those of similar ilk have already gotten away with similar before when they managed to link the word “fossil” to oil and trick people into thinking it was something rarer and more hard come by, etc, than it actually is.
When I feel sick I go to a doctor. Based on quite a few hundreds of billions of dollars of research into various diseases, the doctor collects some data, makes a prognosis and prescribes some medicine.
So, what do I do? Based on the failure of numerous predictions, I ingore him, of course.
You know it makes sense.
Hear are some prediction that you all appear to be addicted to, although you do not appear to want to confront these predictions:
Infinite economic growth is necessary, desirable and possible and inevitable.
The environment is infinite source and infinite sump.
Human ingenuity will alwaystriumph over nature.
BAU will make things better and better for everyone all the time.
Hello Climate Ace,
I have read all of your contributions so far along with those of your tag-team mate Phillip Shehan, and whilst I greatly admire Richard S Courtney I think he has misdiagnosed you. You are not a bot and you are not here for payment. In fact you seem to honestly think you are revealing things to us that we simply were unaware of previously. You underestimate us, we are voracious in our pursuit of information on this and many other topics.
Having realised that you have been mistaken and had opposing arguments of various levels of sophistication and content levelled back at you you can see that you were wrong. The denizens of WUWT are , in the main, true skeptics and base their skepticism on the information they get , and continue to find your approach risible.
Yes we can see that you live in Australia and you have found the recent past hot and fiery which may well be the reason you cling to your idea that this is unusual and unprecedented but as we have had pointed out , it isn’t.
Now you have finally capitulated with your last two posts descending into the farcical. You ascribe opinions to us that you assume to be the characteristics of the skeptical character here and then condemn us. I presume you will shortly flounce off in high dudgeon, back to the more welcoming AGW blog sites and if that is the case be sure to tell them that every single post you put up here was published, without alteration.
You see , that is what WUWT is about. It is honest, tolerant and inclusive. That is why WUWT is so popular. Anyone with an opinion can post and enjoy the full flow of debate here as long as the very generous site rules are adhered to. You may not like some of the comments as they can be harsh, sometimes uninformed and dull, but many are informative and enlightening. So don’t sulk, as you now seem to be doing, give it some thought and then come back You can only add to what you know and , hell, you might even convince some of us of the righteousness of your arguments.
Warm Regards