Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The end of chocolate, the end of coffee, the end of beer left us unmoved. Even bundling the chocolate, beer and coffee scares into one article didn’t raise a flicker. So desperate alarmists have recycled the ultimate scare story.
Science writer David Auerbach reminds us that in 2010, famous Australian Microbiologist Frank Fenner, who once helped eradicate Smallpox, predicted that climate change would lead to the extinction of mankind.
According to Auerbach;
Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, according to Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He blames overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change.
Fenner’s prediction is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway. When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late.
And no possible treaty that emerges from the current United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn, Germany, in preparation for November’s United Nations climate conference in Paris, will be sufficient. At this point, lowering emissions is just half the story — the easy half. The harder half will be an aggressive effort to find the technologies needed to reverse the climate apocalypse that has already begun.
The end of Mankind has got to be worse than no more beer or chocolate, right? I mean its the most emotive scare story alarmists can imagine, except maybe James Hansen’s excruciating refinement of the extinction scare, that not only will we all die, but we’ll all be boiled to death.
Fenner sadly passed away shortly after presenting his doom laden prophecy. We can only speculate whether he would have maintained such an extreme position, in the face of strong evidence that high climate sensitivity estimates are untenable.
So, the sky is still falling … and in a hundred years, we’ll all be dead … or maybe somebody’s been watching Jupiter Ascending a few too many times.
Once was too many times. 🙂
“There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” — Mark Twain
Religion is an interesting thing. Each religion is a philosophical worldview, a weltanschauung that has man as a central focus. They have for him origin stories and deontological frameworks regarding proper behaviour and thoughts he must have regarding his interactions with fellow man and the environment. They have for him cautionary apocalyptic tale about his final destination if he does not follow the deontological framework. There are usually numerous splinter groups that disagree on this or that point of doctrine, of course. For man, he is a rowdy animal. The each of which is prone to state that they have the one correct answer within their own theology. Which is why the most successful of these philosophical framework manufacture a consensus via the lash or restricting doctrine to a small set of issues that relate to man’s life. The philosophers in charge of these things, the clergy, do not to make things to sell by and large, so they subsist on funding from benefactors that give them money for their work in promoting the philosophy directly by evangelism and teaching or for writing papers about it their theological studies. For whatever reason, it has been historically popular for the clergy to wear long, white coats and vestments. And while it’s not a necessary uniform, it has been so common in the past that it is now an iconic notion of how the clergy dress.
And I’m not terribly certain why it is, but advocates of a given religion have a habit of using dodgy math to score points or make grand statements in support of their doctrine. Some even go so far as to perform forensic tests and observational studies for the same reason. A rather large number of them historically have appealed to experiment to demonstrate the consistency of reality with their doctrine; this used as overstated proof that the evidence shows their doctrine is correct. These notions are largely put to use to win converts as well as to harangue heretics and apostates. A rather interesting consequence of this is that their layfolk busy themselves looking for signs and wonders mentioned in these works as a manner of demonstrating that their eschatological prophecies are occurring ‘now’ or ‘soon.’ This to bolster not only their own belief, but that of possible converts as well.
Though, curiously, whenever inspection and validation of these issues refutes the validity of these works they have a habit of denying the refutation itself. Or calling for the force of law to be entrained to punish those that would have the chutzpah to make an argument against their philosophy. And always, when the signs and wonders do not end up fulfilling the prophecies of the future, they continue to state that nonetheless, it will happen ‘soon.’
It is such a wonderful manner of cultivating attitudes and behaviours in the broad masses of people that it should be unsurprising that governments often adopt one or the other of these philosophies as a State mandated religion. The State then usually partakes in funding the clergy through public monies, punishes those that refuse to convert, and establish inquisitions in to accused false conversions. It becomes a mandatory token of the proper education of children in that society. And the counsel is sought from the clergy when legislation is to be authored by the State. In democratic structures of government, professing belief in doctrine becomes a religious litmus test for those seeking elected office.
It is, on the all, a very curious thing. And it would be endlessly entertaining if only I could find in that anything that distinguishes the modern practice of Science from the historical practices of Religions. But I wish the best of luck to Fenner, and scientists like him, in trying to find their signs and wonders. God bless their little hearts.
Amen, Al-a-leulla, and Praise be to Gore! Can I hear an Arctic meltdown?
Let us now bow our heads in prayer for a nice big jump in temperatures the next few months, or at least a Sandy-like disaster or two.
As a (very disappointed) Catholic, I agree in general.
The dog whistling this Pope is engaging in dangerous on so many levels.
Ok so human may vanish. I’m more concerned about Salmon and owls.
Owls? What do they taste like ?
AndyG55, you don’t eat the owls, you keep them for the eggs! However, I would stick with the smoked salmon and salmon caviar. That and some champagne and the end of the world will not be that bad.
Taste like chicken.
The people who write this garbage should never breed. What a load of…
Ironic, that a man that helped save millions would be so pessimistic about the future of humans. Meanwhile, just as the doomsayers are recycling his prediction, we may soon see the single greatest human life saving discovery/invention of all time.
Throughout the course of human history Malaria has killed far more human beings than any other single cause. The deaths from all the wars in human history combined don’t even come close to the toll that Malaria has taken. And now, IF this works out, we may have a simple and effective way of preventing and curing humankinds greatest killer.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2015/06/promising-compound-offers-single-dose-knock-out-malaria
Oh this has already begun indeed. I have evidence.
I had forgotten that cheesy old b movie. Hollywood is so busy mining movie ideas from the past- why has this movie not been recycled yet?
They really do lack a lot in originality these days. There are still many great historical stories from the past. True tales that would make great movies that have not been touched by the film industry. And yet they make sequels to Sharknado and remakes of Plant of the Apes. Humans will probably not be extinct in 100 years but Hollywood sure will be sooner than that unless they go through some kind of Renaissance.
It was, in 2008, with Jason Statham. The story was mostly changed, however, the race was not in public but was a televised prison spectacle.
It was not very good, but probably better than the ratings it got. The director said it wasn’t a remake per se, he thought of it as a prequel in the same setting.
“Humans will be extinct in 100 years”
Then let’s not spend our last 100 years listening to a bunch of climate gloom and doom crap.
And for once they are correct …. but not in the way they think. As our interglacial ends and we descend back into the ice box crops fail and people have to migrate. A lot of countries have nuclear weapons and once the fighting starts nobody stops until they’ve shot all the bullets in their guns.
This interglacial period will end. It is not a matter of if but when. So they may be right that it will end before 2100 or maybe 2200, 2300 ( a moving date in the finest of alarmist traditions). But it will end.
Of course we could open up the Panama-South America channel like it was 3 million years ago and be done with this ice age business. Lets hope that we do something constructive instead of just killing each other off.
So far, based on observations, the main effect of increasing carbon dioxide(besides the slight, mostly beneficial warming from the greenhouse gas warming) has come from this irrefutable law:
Sunshine +H2O +CO2 +Minerals = O2 +Sugars(food)
Life on this planet is thanking us for rescuing it from dangerously low levels of CO2 at 280 parts per million(up to the current 400 ppm)but we are looking the other way, not giving any weight to the booming biosphere, record high vegetative health, plant growth, crop yields and food production. In fact, doing studies that project the opposite of these realities.
Regarding life on this planet, it’s telling us that going to 800 ppm would be even better.
However, we have a large group of humans that have already decided what the perfect temperature of the planet should be and perfect level of CO2 in the atmosphere should be……………..and it’s the level that our planet was at when humans started to burn fossil fuels.
Nothing else matters but this settled science/belief system and all information should be interpreted so that it lines up.
Removing CO2 from the atmosphere isn’t actually that hard. The Navy Research Lab has already developed a technology to remove 90%+ of the CO2 from ocean water. Their intention is to use it to make liquid fuels on board ships. But, take that tech plus sequestration and you’re done. NETL estimates that sequestration costs about $5/ton. The Navy technology claims to be very low cost.
Viola, THROUGH-THE-OCEAN-CCS for probably less than $10/ton. It’s worthless, of course, but at least it doesn’t cost much.
There’s a lot of tons out there . . . .
When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late.
Actually, that’s doable. Even if we don’t make a breakthrough, there will be enough fossil-fueled affluence to swap for nukes. If one must plan, one prefers one’s goals to be rational.
And I don’t think it’s too late. If we can pull it off, we’ll top out at well under +2C (+/- unknowns\natural phenomena).
And if we don’t, we’ll top out at well under +2C.
And if they do reduce all CO2 emissions, and the atmospheric CO2 drops below 300ppm again..
…. then the inhabitants of Earth will be in deep S***,
because there won’t be enough food being produced through photosynthesis to feed the world’s populations.
If there was even a sliver of doubt left that CAGW and modern environmentalism is a religion, predictions of the “end of humanity in 100 years” ought to seal the case.
Yea!….we’ve got more than enough fossil fuels to last 100 years!!
I am spending the summer in Phoenix Arizona, along with about 3 million other people. The high today will likely top 110 degrees, way above the median high temperature for the rest of humanity. There is really no chance that this heat, greatly exceeding even the highest temperatures imagined by the doom-and-gloomers for most of the world, will cause the extinction of humanity in the Valley of the Sun this summer. In fact, there will be more humans here by September than there are now!
There is actually just as much evidence that we will be wiped out by Triffids than succumb to man-made climate change. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the words used by modern fear-mongers sound a lot like a syfy b-movie trailer.
Ah heck, it was 123 F in Death Valley on Saturday. 110 F is just a cool summer breeze.
This is an important warning. It should be broadcast to everyone far and wide.
It’s always good to laugh.
Meteorologists are held accountable for their weather forecasts…………every day, which keeps them honest and grounded to reality.
Climate and other “projections” to the year 2100 go on endlessly as they can never be wrong.
Even projections made 30 years ago for the current time frame are not held accountable, they are just shifted forward.
Since we know that the science is settled, we just fit the observations into the theory and make the right time(or other) adjustments so that everything continues to confirm the belief system.
The core belief of this belief system, always features the same endpoints. Disaster/catastrophe’s and distant time frames.
“all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years”
That would require all countries to stop breathing. Which would bring about the end.
I suppose it could happen, but not from CO2, rather from the efforts to mitigate it.
“Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
And if you don’t have one, manufacture one.
I expect to be extinct in less than 20 years, so:
“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a d—”
I’ll have some chocolate with my coffee.
Extinct in 100 years , humans, interesting, I saw the article on the Yahoo feed the past few days. Here is a good one for yall. Back in 2004 I acquired my first PC. I got ATT dsl dedicated line for my new computer and in great excitement I used the yahoo search engine to look up … anything … regarding these three words Economic Ecologic Sustainability …. righty then, the first hit to pop up was some many pages from deep within some policy framework originating from the United Nations …. with utter astonishment (god I wish I had bookmarked these pages) I proceeded to read some of the most alarming policy position papers, in short I was reading text referring to economic and ecological sustainability equaling mass human depopulation as the only (ONLY) real solution to our earthly population and economic demands balanced with ecologic sustenance…. The methods for said depopulation included but not limited to : war , disease , famine , and , get this … ANY MEANS AVAILABLE to reduce human population. I am not making this up, the text was straight up terrifying… the target date for 87.5% human population reduction is 2050. Thus, this human extinction meme touted now falls right in line with UN policy papers regarding ecologic economic sustainability….. I still have my old computer, I will try to see if there is a way to find those articles.
Of what significance would the extinction of the human race be? To whom? If there is no “whom” to then be significant, of what value can the significance be to us now who then will be extinct. Like a partial rebooting of a computer, might mass extinctions restore earth’s fauna to a base from which evolution could achieve a better state of affairs? What is the value system and knowledge base that provides an answer to this that would warrant policies detrimental to those currently living? (Don’t resort to intelligent design in your answer.)
There is no significance to the extinction of the human race, since the Sun will see to it eventually when it runs out of hydrogen and becomes a red giant frying the innermost 4 planets in the process. So it’s not a case of if but when. And there’s no escape hatch for our descendents, since the nearest star is a binary over 4 light years away. They say the frying date is about 4 billion years away. So why worry about the humans living 100 years from now when we can’t do a thing for our descendents 4 billion years hence?
I don’t fear the red giant. I’m hoping that by 4 billion years out, the sun will have lost enough mass, hence gravity, that earth’s orbit will have degraded out to Pluto, so the red giant will miss us. Nanny nanny boo-boo.
To quote one of the great philosophers, Gomer Pyle: “Gollleeee”
We humans are hard wired to believe scare stories.
If a man mistakes a bush for a lion, he may make an unnecessary, time-consuming detour.
If he mistakes a lion for a bush, he may become a source of protein for a human-consuming lion.
True dat. However, in the old days we weren’t so much worried about what was down range as long as WE were not down range. So we would shoot the bush or the lion, either way one’s family was safe. Now a-days, we can’t even have ants downrange cuz they may be endangered ants.
Pamela,
When we evolved our present behaviour patterns, we didn’t have guns.
I did! I guess I haven’t evolved.
Give ’em lead poisoning.
It’s a good point, but crowd behavior is not governed solely by scare stories. To find the good stuff, people learn to follow the crowd. We are social animals because two heads are better than one, and 20 may be better than 2.
Also, there is safety in numbers, especially for anybody who can’t tell a bush from a lion, or in case somebody like that gets eaten by the lion, there may be those who’d claim that there must have been a bush involved…
Survival these days seems to be to stay away from crowds. Too many humans going off the deep end these times.
Safety in numbers applies for at least one other very important reason: You do not need to be able to outrun a lion to escape from a lion attack.
You only need to be able to run faster than the poor slob standing next to you.
The more people standing next to you, the greater the odds you can outrun at least one of them.
I’d suggest that any tribe with a strategy of outrunning lions probably did not contribute to the modern gene pool, but then one looks around…
I’d offer that surviving tribes would avoid lions, but be prepared to kill lions if they approach. No man can really outrun any large carnivore, certainly not a cat, nor a wolf, bear, or hyena. To survive when attacked by these beasts, man must stand and fight, hopefully with others at his side, for there is not only safety in numbers, but also strength.
And that strength may ensure the survival of those who can’t tell a lion from a bush, where wiser heads would avoid both.
Tunnel Vision. Just think of all the things that could end the human race. You have still missed all those you know nothing of.
So, do we have time to terraform Mars and build enough space ships to get everyone there? If not, and if there’s no solution, I guess we have to party like it’s 2115!!
We can write songs and epic poems about the 100 year going out with a bang party.
Any takers?
I’m up for that, Glen. Just give me a dig (up) when you’re ready.
False profits of the end of mankind have existed forever in society. What makes this nutcase any different?
Oops, prophets, not profits. Though false profits are being made these days…
The apparently intense need in many individuals to believe in prophets and prophecies manifests itself as one of the outstanding screwball characteristics of H. sapiens.
“When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years,”
Of course, we all know that the reason for the G 7 to pick a date so far into the future is to allow time for all of this stuff to sort itself out. Over then next couple of decades the whole AGW thing will have arrived at the point where the science will clearly indicate that we still can’t figure out what is happening to any degree of confidence or accuracy. In the meantime, all of the people who talked world leaders into embarking on this quixotic effort to save the planet will be dead. The long time allotted to fix the problems means that if we do nothing over the next couple of decades then there will still be most of a century to fix it.
In the meantime…hey! If it is too late, it is too late. Guess we’re screwed. Crack open a cold one and turn up the air conditioning.
Fait accompli. Nothing to do.
Proud Skeptic
You say
Actually, I don’t “know” that, and I don’t believe it. Furthermore, I think it important to recognise what is really happening.
Politicians never admit they were wrong and have decided to abandon a policy.
Instead, they establish targets so far in the future that no real action is required, and they establish bureaucracies to pretend they are still continuing with the abandoned policy.
The AGW-scare was killed at the failed 2009 IPCC Conference in Copenhagen. I said then that the scare would continue to move as though alive in similar manner to a beheaded chicken running around a farmyard. It continues to provide the movements of life but it is already dead. And its deathly movements provide an especial problem.
Nobody will declare the AGW-scare dead: it will slowly fade away. This is similar to the ‘acid rain’ scare of the 1980s. Few remember that scare unless reminded of it but its effects still have effects; e.g. the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) exists. Importantly, the bureaucracy which the EU established to operate the LCPD still exists. And those bureaucrats justify their jobs by imposing ever more stringent, always more pointless, and extremely expensive emission limits which are causing enforced closure of UK power stations.
Bureaucracies are difficult to eradicate and impossible to nullify.
As the AGW-scare fades away those in ‘prime positions’ will attempt to establish rules and bureaucracies to impose those rules which provide immortality to their objectives. Guarding against those attempts now needs to be a serious activity.
The decision at the G7 is completely consistent with that need.
Richard
Well said, Richard.
And, as you say, while they have decided to abandon AGW (they aren’t so stupid to continue with a failing idea) they know that they need to use the political hiatus (how ironic is that?) to allow them time for the next big thing.
I can remember Wilson’s government (in the ’60s) removing mortgage tax relief for properties over £25k when most of us were buying at £4k and thought that only toffs could afford £25k. But we lacked the vision of the politician’s long-term plan: it took 25 years for the policy to bite and now we think it a joke when most properties in the UK are above £250k.
You’re right. AGW, as a political strategy may well have played out, politically, but the polis know that they still have time in reserve to allow them the ‘next big idea’. They’re just waiting for the UN to tell them what it is.
“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.” — Laurence J. Peter (1977) Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time ISBN 0-688-03217-6 p. 83
I guess I’m having a hard time understanding the significance of the difference between what you said and what I said. Bottom line they are buying time. They are buying time because to take this thing to the next level is going to hurt like nothing that has been tried before and they don’t want to be the ones to do it. So they will let it churn for a while.
I see way too much optimism on this website regarding the “death” of AGW. As of this moment in time it as politically strong as ever. The Obama administration has come out solidly behind it and is pushing it like crazy. The Pope is in on it now.
A lot of the folks on this website seem to get too comfortable with the strength of the scientific arguments against AGW…as if they will be the primary force in turning the tide on this. The science has tipped against the Warmists but that isn’t where the threat lies right now. It lies in the politics.
Here is how I would summarize it…
1. The science is going against the Warmists. That is the least influential of the forces at play here.
2. Many of the countries who have been pushing the switch to renewables are burning out and realizing the technology isn’t even close to being ready. Those leaders will pull back from forcing more renewables on their citizens because of the political risks. Australia seems to be leading the pack on this but there is no way of knowing if it will catch on and spread. It is likely that this 85 year target is intended to stall and allow the current batch of politicians to coast until they retire. This was my point.
3. The poor countries are (and have been) trying to cash in on this by demanding wealth transfers. The recent position taken by the Pope will reinforce this. This effort will have legs for quite some time and will help keep this whole thing alive.
4. The Obama administration’s push on this is going to have some effect, though it isn’t possible to tell how big. It may be a case of too little too late. If Hillary Clinton is elected president then we can expect it to become a bigger part of our day to day life here in the US for quite a few years.
Bottom line for me…I wouldn’t be too optimistic that the political push for renewables is likely to subside soon. But in the meantime, our country will change for the worse in many ways while this stuff sorts itself out.
Proud Skeptic:
Thankyou for your reply that requests clarification by saying to me
The great and very important difference is the meaning of your phrase “buying time”.
Your first post said
I disagreed that the politicians intend to “do nothing” and I said
Your post I am now answering concludes
.
Bureaucracies don’t allow things to sort themselves out. And I am warning about the bureaucracies (e.g your EPA) and the Rules politicians will require them to implement.
I hope the great difference between our views is now clear.
Richard
They also need a few more years to control the Internet. The voices calling for an end to free speech and freedom of association are growing more shrill. In their dream world, the Internet will be replaced with the Governet, in which it will be illegal to login without permission and authentication, only government approved information will be allowed, and all social media will be moderated by government minders.
Dystopian science fiction is coming true in HD.
Watch out! “How To Serve Scientists” is a cookbook!!!