Never Trust The Doom-Mongers: Earth Day Predictions That Were All Wrong
The Daily Caller, 22 April 2016
Andrew Follett
Environmentalists truly believed and predicted that the planet was doomed during the first Earth Day in 1970, unless drastic actions were taken to save it. Humanity never quite got around to that drastic action, but environmentalists still recall the first Earth Day fondly and hold many of the predictions in high regard.
So this Earth Day, The Daily Caller News Foundation takes a look at predictions made by environmentalists around the original Earth Day in 1970 to see how they’ve held up.
Have any of these dire predictions come true? No, but that hasn’t stopped environmentalists from worrying. From predicting the end of civilization to classic worries about peak oil, here are seven green predictions that were just flat out wrong.
1: “Civilization Will End Within 15 or 30 Years.”
Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970 that civilization would soon end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Three years before his projection, Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
Wald was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. He even flew to Moscow at one point to advise the leader of the Soviet Union on environmental policy.
Despite his assistance to a communist government, civilization still exists. The percentage of Americans who are concerned about environmental threats has fallen as civilization failed to end by environmental catastrophe.
2: “100-200 Million People Per Year Will Be Starving to Death During the Next Ten Years.”
Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably increased despite increases in population.
Ehrlich is largely responsible for this view, having co-published “The Population Bomb” with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country’s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.
3: “Population Will Inevitably and Completely Outstrip Whatever Small Increases in Food Supplies We Make.”
Paul Ehrlich also made the above claim in 1970, shortly before an agricultural revolution that caused the world’s food supply to rapidly increase.
Ehrlich has consistently failed to revise his predictions when confronted with the fact that they did not occur, stating in 2009 that “perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future.”
4: “Demographers Agree Almost Unanimously … Thirty Years From Now, the Entire World … Will Be in Famine.”
Environmentalists in 1970 truly believed in a scientific consensus predicting global famine due to population growth in the developing world, especially in India.
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions,” Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, said in a 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.”By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
India, where the famines were supposed to begin, recently became one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products and food supply per person in the country has drastically increased in recent years. In fact, the number of people in every country listed by Gunter has risen dramatically since 1970.
5: “In A Decade, Urban Dwellers Will Have to Wear Gas Masks to Survive Air Pollution.”
Life magazine stated in January 1970 that scientist had “solid experimental and theoretical evidence” to believe that “in a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution … by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by one half.”
Despite the prediction, air quality has been improving worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Air pollution has also sharply declined in industrialized countries. Carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas environmentalists are worried about today, is odorless, invisible and harmless to humans in normal amounts.
6: “Childbearing [Will Be] A Punishable Crime Against Society, Unless the Parents Hold a Government License.”
David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club made the above claim and went on to say that “[a]ll potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” Brower was also essential in founding Friends of the Earth and the League Of Conservation Voters and much of the modern environmental movement.
Brower believed that most environmental problems were ultimately attributable to new technology that allowed humans to pass natural limits on population size. He famously stated before his death in 2000 that “all technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent” and repeatedly advocated for mandatory birth control.
Today, the only major government to ever get close to his vision has been China, which ended its one-child policy last October.
7: “By the Year 2000 … There Won’t Be Any More Crude Oil.”
On Earth Day in 1970 ecologist Kenneth Watt famously predicted that the world would run out of oil saying, “You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
Numerous academics like Watt predicted that American oil production peaked in 1970 and would gradually decline, likely causing a global economic meltdown. However, the successful application of massive hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, caused American oil production to come roaring back and there is currently too much oil on the market.
American oil and natural gas reserves are at their highest levels since 1972 and American oil production in 2014 was 80 percent higher than in 2008 thanks to fracking.
Furthermore, the U.S. now controls the world’s largest untapped oil reserve, the Green River Formation in Colorado. This formation alone contains up to 3 trillion barrels of untapped oil shale, half of which may be recoverable. That’s five and a half times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. This single geologic formation could contain more oil than the rest of the world’s proven reserves combined.
Via Benny Peiser. (H/T, Ronald Bailey at Reason and Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute).
I remember those scares. I was in the Cub Scouts and we did these huge ” clean ups” and then got the communist green and white striped flag with the “e” on it to sew on our uniforms. They started the indoctrination early.
I first noticed the indoctrination in high school. We had to read “Fate of the Earth”, and “Entropy”, as well as watch “The Day After”.
Unfortunately, too many classmates are obviously still drinking the kool-aid, if their FB updates are any indication.
“Ehrlich has consistently failed to revise his predictions when confronted with the fact that they did not occur, stating in 2009 that “perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future.””
“Optimistic”- predicting near-term (a couple of decades) catastrophes and environmental apocalypse.
I suppose the opposite is then…
“Pessimistic”- predicting near-term improvements in societal and environmental well-being.
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
-Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride
Chris, my dim recollection is that the name is Indigo Montoya (?)
“my name is indigo montoya; you killed my father, now prepare to die!”
afonzarelli-
I checked an NPR transcript- “Mandy Patinkin: 25 Years After ‘The Princess Bride,’ He’s Not Tired Of That Line”
8:20, October 5, 2012
The N…P…R states that his name is Inigo Montoya.
And as we know, N…P…R = Q…E…D
Happy EAarth Day 🙂
Sorry, Chris is correct.
Yes, gentlemen, i do stand corrected…
BTW, mark knopfler did the soundtrack for the movie… excellent, worth checking out
I suspect that you could pick any topic, go back 50 years to find the most extreme statements made on the topic, and have a good laugh. But this is useful as an antidote to the extreme claims being made now.
Give me ONE example, extreme or not, of a prediction made by an environmentalist that has actually come true. Just one.
As a Civil Engineer specializing in Water and Pollution, I have always considered myself and environmentalist – just not the raving kind.
In the 1960’s the beaches in Vancouver, BC were often closed. We “predicted” that pollution control would fix it and it did. One of hundreds of examples I could give. Extremism will always be an outlier.
Engineers are often called the “invisible profession” since if the design works properly, you never hear about them. Yet we do water and sewage treatment, roads and bridges that make the lives of millions easier; we save the lives of millions who would otherwise have died from water or air pollution. We build extra habitat for wildlife/fishes when we build roads and bridges. Environmental considerations are always a consideration in every project. When I graduated, there were many beaches in Canada that were often closed due to contamination. That hardly ever happens anymore. Engineers work around the world to make things better for people. I am long retired but the work goes on.
Environmentalism has gotten a bad name from all the eco-loons who are against everything. But good engineering involves environmental considerations, including people, who are also part of the environment.
Thanks to Wayne Delbeke for a calm response. I was about to respond with snark, but I will try to follow Wayne’s example: Pollution controls on cars reducing smog, sewage treatment plants turning virtual open sewers into streams that you can fish in or canoe down, pollution controls on smoke stacks meaning that you can hang your laundry on a clothes line without worrying that it would get filthy, and so on.
The calm “predictions” are self denying, since they lead to action to fix the problem. The rubbish ones just give people something to laugh at a few decades down the road.
We are responsible for the damage we do. One of the things that bothers me most about this topic is the good we could do on real issues with the effort that goes into AGW nonsense and the very real harm that will come from chasing this ghost. It’s sad. Privileged, educated people with mediocre minds and outsized egos who can’t question themselves. In the face of great questions we need learners – not teachers.
Ehrlich and Mann, Schmidt and the Trenberth would never survive a real public debate
Amen brother, amen.
The mega mistake in all this was horribly incorrect population forecasts. Somehow it was imagined that the strange brew of overspill of 19th Century fecundity and 21st Century visions for things like health care, economic growth, etc, which intersected for a brief time mid 20th Century, would continue on and one. But in reality it was a blip. The post war spikes in fecundity died out by the 70s and after that reversed. Meanwhile the hyper growth also ceased, never to be restored. So instead of a population bomb we face a pending population cliff and the economy, already quasi deflationary, is not going to fuel increasing consumption. Of course this is also a type of dark future (but one that Greenies probably hope for).
They should have asked me. I stopped breeding years ago! Lol
I thought there were more than seven …
Green River Oil Shale
For a review see: Coaxing Oil from Shale
Mary Fallin comments on: More Drilling Options
Jeremy Boak commented
Production of syncrude from kerogen shale requires water. There isn’t any to spare in Colorado river basin, of which the Green is a major tributary. You would have to pipe it up over the continental divide from the Mississippi basin. Maybe when oil is over $200/ bbl. Maybe, if the mined rock waste disposal problem can be solved. Or the water table issues with in situ retorting. Shell tried in situ retorting inside a freeze wall. Just a few engineering details with hot thermal catagenesis inside an ice cube. Just a few.
Who would have thought fracking would produce this much oil? Engineering issues can be resolved – too bad nuclear power was killed by the lunatics. A large number of power plants could fuel electric cars making oil much less important, But we’ll never know now will we?
Ah the Government , that Camelot of superhuman wisdom and righteousness .
Just re-reading Larry Niven’s “Ringworld”. Part of the plot is that there is a government lottery to breed. After 6 generations or so, it turned out that those born through this program are actually genetically “lucky”, in that they are, literally, lucks of the draw.
Weird, but no weirder than what passes for science these days.
But, as they say, the difference between fiction and nonfiction is that fiction has to make sense.
I love that series. Actually I like most of Larry Niven’s and his sometime co-author Jerry Pournelle’s books. Ring world is a great book based on a Freeman Dyson idea.
Haven’t read those … luck as a tangible evolutionary trait 🙂
My parents were lucky enough to find someone to buy them alcohol before they were of age … and I was always lucky enough to find the same sort of person when I was in high school. Maybe there is something to it 🙂
There are several grave factual inaccuracies in point 7.
1. US oil production did peak in 1971 as Hubbert predicted in 1955. Even after the fracking revolution, in 2015 the US imported 2.7Bbbl, 38% of total crude consumption of 7.08Bbbl.
2. Global conventional oil production peaked in 2007 or 2008 depending on whether you leave ~10%NGLs (like butane and propane) in. Properly, they should be excluded since not used for transportation fuels (gasoline, diesel, Jet kerosene) which is ~70% of crude use globally. Conventional is defined as API>10, reservoir porosity >5%, reservoir permeability >10 darcies. That includes everything except the Orinoco extra heavy tar sands in Venezuela, the Athabascan bitumen sands in Canada, and source rock shale oil everywhere.
3. US has the worlds largest oil and natural gas shale reserves. (China is probably second on gas. Russia may be second on oil.) Most recent EIA estimate (2014) is 15-18Bbbl shale oil US TRR. It was a mistake to previously include Calfornia’s Moneterey Shale, since it is folded and cannot be horizontally drilled. By itself ALL US shale oil TRR amounts to less than 2.5 years US consumption.
4. The Green River shale formation has been called oil shale. It isn’t. It is a kerogen shale that has not reached the oil window for catagenesis. It can be mined and cooked, or cooked in situ. But that takes 3-5 barrels of water per barrel of syncrude produced. The Green River is a tributary of the Colorado. There is no extra water in the Colorado watershed. It is all bespoke by the Colorado Compact, and the total flow is now substantially below the Compact estimate. That is why Reagan cancelled US development of kerogen shale production processes. No water.
5. Watt was an idiot. Peak oil is not about running out. It is about maximum annual production. we will be producing oil for at least another 150 years–just at post peak defining rates at ever increasing prices.
Oil yet to be discovered can be estimated using creaming curves or profit transforms. USGS says about ~80% of everything that will ever be discovered (conventional and unconventional) already has been. According to BP, since 1950 recovery factors have improved 25%, 1.25X. For major fields, about 35% today, for all fields, about 26%. (Shale oil is 1.5-3%). Decline rates are known for producing fields. The 2008 IEA survey of 800 fields comprising >65% of all crude production, that rate was -5.1%/year. Those facts and either a logistics function (symmetrical, probably not correct) or a gamma function (long future tail) can be used to estimate global peak for all oil, all types. Gives pretty much the same peak. About 2025.
Many details in my ebooks Gaia’s Limits and Blowing Smoke.
I’ll have to check it out. But, as they say, the stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. I doubt the oil age will end because we ran out of oil.
CJ, researched this since 2010, since family were in oil business and I have a small energy storage business. First book took three years to reseach and write. Stone age gave way to bronze gave way to iron gave way to steel. First shift took millennia, second took hundreds of years, third took Andrew Carnegie most of his adult life.
Unfortunately, electrification (partial, Prius, total Tesla or Europe trains) doesn’t work for planes, trucks, construction and ag and forestry equipment. And there is not enough terrestrial annual biomass even if we had the conversion technology. KiOR has apparently failed. Calculated that in both books. Doesn’t look like genetic engineering of photosynthesis is going to get there. CO2 concentration problem is very fundamental. Dunno the answer. Do know we have maybe 30 years to find it and roll it out before big problems arise.
It would be more scholarly, Mr. Ristvan, for you to cite an authoritative source for each of your oil reserves assertions. Not only that, but it would be helpful for you to cite references to give the full and complete picture. For instance, re: your assertion about the USGS: USGS says about ~80% of everything that will ever be discovered (conventional and unconventional) already has been. Does NO one dispute this? A good attorney anticipates the other sides’ arguments and cites authority to counter it in advance.
I have not been researching this since 2010 as you have and I do not have the time right now, but, I recall reading petroleum industry facts within the past 2 years which counter some (if not most) of what you wrote above.
I am not writing this to simply be picky — I am interested in the WHOLE truth about petroleum reserves. Mainly, because the “sustainability” sc@mmers regularly use “peak oil” or like arguments to try to prematurely cripple the U.S. (and other lands’) economy and, thus, endanger our freedom (“peace through strength” depends on a strong economy).
Thanks!
Janice, the references are in my books and their footnotes. I cannot reproduce hundreds of pages of text and footnotes in a blog comment. Thats why I wrote the books.
Lest you doubt, the USGS ‘to be discovered ~20% more’ is sum of: conventional USGS fact sheet 2012-3024, unconventional USGS fact sheet 2009-3028 plus EIA global shale oil TRR 6/10/2013 (cause at the time of publication, EIA had but USGS had not corrected the Monterey shale goof). Total Summarized and confirmed by EIA, Today in Energy, 1/2/2014. Just checked and report to you four footnotes to just one paragraph in essay Peeking at Peaks in ebook Blowing Smoke. All 4 references are available on line via google should you wish to verify them.
Janice, a step further back to a gentler, bigger picture.
Fossil fuels are just that, so finite. The question is only, when does that finiteness begin to bite our modern civilization and economy? The biggest issue is crude oil because of its importance for liquid transportation fuels.
Trees do not grow to the sky, any more than humans can expand population ad litem. There is some human carrying capacity to planet Earth. Not a precise number, but certainly some soft limit bound. (Carrying capacity is a well understood ecological concept. Deserts have less, jungles have more. See Desmond Morris’ book book Guns, Germs, and Steel for some historical regional human examples worked in depth both positive and negative.) Gaia’s Limits covers global human carrying capacity for three biggies: water, food, and fuel, in the context of modern society. No Club of Rome computer models. (Ancillary chapter on climate change mainly works AR4 impacts on water and food, shows they are piddling, and uncovers much CAGW dishonesty. How I originally got into climate change stuff. Was offended by the lies. My first post here and at Judith Curry’s, back in 2011.) Concludes food calories and transportation fuels are the carrying capacity pinch points. Blowing Smoke addressed just energy and climate, more topical to WUWT readers.
I would think, dear Mr. Ristvan, that if the research is at your fingertips, one link per assertion would not be too difficult. Well, until I can do my own research, I will just assume you are mistaken, but not conclude that. The sources I read were very good ones.
Thank you for directing me to your fine book to do my own study of the matter.
Just FYI: to some (many?) of us your conclusory statements are just not persuasive (if that matters to you).
*********************************
Thinking out loud…
You are clearly “making the case” for the anti-oil crowd. I wonder why… . Why, I mean, it is of such importance to you that you write at length and repeatedly here to support the “peak oil”-type view.
For me, freedom is a great motivator. What is motivating you? We have plenty of oil, per many industry analysts (and for decades — long enough for it to be highly likely that technology will take care of the problem). …………. Ah, ha! I just figured it out! (maybe — just a guess, I realize)
You said that your family is in the oil business. A resource that is on its last legs …….. will have a price increase! It’s about oil being priced high. Got it!
That’s why oil co.’s often do not tell what they know about their likely reserves. Gotta keep supply low so price is high. And that’s okay! Free market competition will make it all even out. There are always, ALWAYS, defectors in any cartel (formal or informal).
Best wishes making money. (seriously — I think that is a great thing)
#(:))
Mr. Istvan — the carrying capacity of the earth (and remember, no elements, no resources are ever “lost”) is SO GREAT that, given the current leveling off of the population of the earth, it is highly unlikely that we humans will ever come even CLOSE to reaching that far, far, far off boundary condition.
The earth is a very large place.
Malthusianism was disproven long ago. (production per acre figures, etc…)
Re: “Gaia” (lol) — water-food-fuel are virtually ENDLESS in supply. I think you may need to read Peter Hubers, Hard Green. You sound very much like you have fallen victim to “soft greens” un-science assertions.
Why do you even assert such a far-fetched idea? (that we might possibly reach the carrying capacity of the earth)
Really — why?
Janice, I am very much NOT anti-oil. I am simply worried there won’t be enough around in a few decades, and literally all hell will break loose. I drive a hybrid car already since 2007. Trying to be a realist, very pro modern civilization, very pro my grandkids (2, third on the way) having a better life than I did. But above all, I try to be a realist and invest/proact where realism suggests. Oil is a looming future problem, IMO. Climate is not. Have made both clear in now three ebooks.
BTW, my sister on Medicaid because of lupus and an unfortunate divorce owns all the residual oil interests in the family. Helps her scrape by.
Janice, invest $9 in Gaia’s Limits. Read chapters 1 and 3 (Carrying capacity and food). Nuff said.
I know that probably offends your and James Inhofe’s beliefs. At least ponder it. I give lots and lots of illustrated examples. Anybody can follow the arithmetic. No fancy models at all. Just lots of illustrated facts you can go check for yourself. The copious illustrations are why it could only be published as an ebook. Print with color, just print on demand, would have been over $80/copy.
We can turn coal into oil at about five bucks a gallon. We have enough coal for thousands of years. This process has been known for more than 100 years.
This fact alone destroys the peak oil myth since the price of oil can only rise above five bucks a gallon for a short period of time before we start burning coal in our gas tanks.
now oil Barron’s love to talk about peak oil all the time because they wrongly believe that they are the only game in town. That will only be true while it’s cheaper than other options
But shouldn’t natural gas be included in this computation since technology is apparently coming round to producing gasoline &derivatives more cheaply?
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Natural-gas-to-1-gasoline-5701521.php
Yes BFL, IF the Siluria Technologies nano catalysts for OCM and then ETF prove out. OCM is looking very promising in the industrial scale pilot plant in Texas. ETF is looking good at lab scale so far. The horizontal drilling/fracking of natural gas shales, plus Siluria, would be a very welcome development. Not postponing peak oil, but definitely postponing its consequences for several decades. My fingers are crossed that this proves out. If Siluria ever goes public, I am in.
The FT process (PEARL in Qatar) is simply too expensive and inefficient to be realistic. Discussed in the books.
Forgive me if in a simple blog comment about a wrong point 7 I did not cover the entire oil waterfront in detail.
Janice, one last late friday night factual reply to your beliefs.
Water. Yup, effectively limitless thanks to the sun. I completely agree
Food, nope, because of arable land limitations given irrigation and best practices and yield improvements. Did you know (its in the book) that arable land per capita declined from 0.42 hectares per capita in 1961 to 0.2 in 2009? Or that FAO considers 0.25H/capita the absolute minimum for a healthy diverse diet? All in the book.
Fossil fuels plus annual biomass. You have to be joking, or are unaware of energy density. Sorry. We humans are presently consuming roughly 2 million years of photosynthetic biomass insolation per year. Your math just does not work. Earth took about 400 million years to deposit what remains of fossil fuels (a lot got lost in translation). Lets see, 400/2 means we will (rough approximation) use it all up in something about 200 years (at current average annual consumption). We have been pecking away at fossil fuels at an increasing rate since about 1800. There is not another 200 years to keep pecking away. They are fossils. They are finite. Period. And modern society depends utterly on them.
Greens are dead wrong about global warming. They latched onto the wrong problem in the wrong time frame. Nuclear (gen 4 fission is my preference) is a partial energy solution. Hybrid vehicles (partial electrification) are a partial energy solution. (I have driven a full hybrid car since 2007. Paid for itself with the initial subsidy, and then about twice since on fuel economy.) Conservation is a partial solution. (My farm house is now mostly R40. We cannot redo the old 1880s log cabin part. Chicago R35 town home is now a 90% efficient new gas furnace–could not go to 95% without rebuilding the chimney thanks to condensation. The new farm propane furnace is 95%.) Biofuels are a partial solution. (We heat my farm with a wood fired double walled furnace, intra wall heat electrically blown into the propane furnace plenum, whenever possible. Lots of oak and maple deadfall to cut, and the diesel 4WD tractor snakes it all out of the woodlots easily with professional grade logging chains. Problem for the world is that most people do not have 3 woodlots equalling 100 acres per family/house, or a diesel tractor, or gas powered chain saws.)
Wind and solar are NOT solutions because of cost and intermittency.
Regards.
And we definitely do not live on your budget but we live on a small acreage barter with neighbors for goods and services and so on, the acreage? it is .5 of an acre, large garden, fruit trees and so on, oh we also still know how to preserve our own stuff something of a lost art these days.
From what I have read recently materials science is steadily and substantially improving catalysts to make methanol from CO2 and H from water. Our knowledge of chemistry is enhanced by our knowledge of physics and is presently in a phase of revolutionary advancement. I appreciate your scholarly approach Ristvan but you are in the mindset of Malthus or pre 1905 physics. Have you read “The Singularity is Near”? Slightly optimistic I grant but I believe correct on a slightly longer time frame.
You’re welcome (although I wasn’t really asked nicely to contribute to your transportation needs).
“issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
Leftwingers have always been closet totalitarians.
And often, they don’t bother staying in that closet.
Nasty, creepy control freaks. They keep piling straws on the camel’s back…
To be more precise, they pile loads onto other people’s backs. Never their own.
Boo. All from 1970. All from the same magazine article? If so, pretty lazy. What about the predictions of sinking islands since then? Al Gore’s BS. Lazy, lazy.
And one that always comes true:
Earth Day rallies will result in millions of taxpayer dollars spent on cleaning up trash, removing graffiti and repairing vandalism.
And in police investigations of drug use, sexual assault and theft!
Earth Day is a stupid “holiday” invented by a bunch of smelly, draft-dodging hippies. Nobody cares about it but them.
Other than the usual media propaganda, I never hear anyone mention it. The pot smokers 4/20 holiday invokes a lot more banter.
There is no such thing as “earth day” moron!
Famous Quotations Made Throughout World History:
Global Warming is real. The science is settled.
Phrenology is real. The science is settled.
Drapetomania is real. The science is settled.
Alchemy is real. The science is settled.
Astrology is real. The science is settled.
The studies done by alchemists lead directly to the modern science of chemistry.
They were doing the best that they could with what was known back in the day.
At least when they did an experiment, they took sufficient notes that they, or their students could repeat those experiments and get the same results.
You forgot:
The science is settled on the issue of dietary fats.
It’s amazing how many people believe these doomsday predictions. A couple of interesting trends that occur should be noted:
A. In the US, we reached peak oil consumption 20 years ago. Deceases have occurred not just to greater fuel efficiency, but also technology. The information revolution has cut down on the aggregate need for travel – including to work (it’s easy to work from home), to documentation (emails, texting, chat, etc. don’t need a person to deliver them) to buying (one FedEx or UPS van delivering Amazon-purchased products uses a lot less fuel than having all those customers going to the mall or big box store) to some products themselves (people can get the material from a book via download, and don’t need the physical item shipped). Also, better transit systems have helped cut down on individuals commuting. And companies can open small satellite offices, cost effectively, for shorter commute times (which will be necessary to obtain good employees, who cannot afford to live near code downtown areas and will choose jobs closer to home. This trend is likely to improve if 3D printers take off – a large amount of plastic to “print” a lot of items requires a lot less trips than the purchase of those small items.
2) The demographic problems won’t be an increasing population, it will be a shrinking population. Developed countries have long had birth rates below replacement levels, and those governments are very concerned about population declines – like Japan (exacerbated by the fact that their society doesn’t permit immigration).Now, two of the regions that once had the largest source of population increases are near or below replacement levels – east Asia and Latin America (this is why Mexican immigration has almost ground to a halt, as there are fewer people to send since their birth rate is just above replacement levels, and the economy has improved to the point where there is little difference in standard of living if they stay, or come here). Kids are costly, especially for urbanites, and as societies urbanize the population have less kids. The only two regions left with population rates above replacement rates – Africa and the Middle East. And even there those are declining, due again to urbanization. In the largest countries there there are demographic problems – in Iran, the population replacement rate is below 2.0. Even in India, the rate is just barely above replacement levels.
I suspect we could very well see a worldwide population decline in out lifetimes, simply due to the fact that people won’t have kids. China dumped it’s one-child policy because couples happily follow the principle without coercion, and China is now concerned about a population crash. Same goes for much of the world.
A fact correction to your point A. 20 full years ago was 1995. According to EIA, 1995 US consumption of crude oil was 6.47Bbbl. In 2015 it was 7.08Bbbl. You are correct it has declined since the peak in 2005 at 7.59Bbbl. Main factors are more efficient vehicles, closure of old resid fueled electric power plants, and offshoring to Middle East of petrochemicals. FPL shut its last two oil generating stations in Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale in 2013 (total almost 4 GW) in favor of CCGT at same locations fed from a new Florida pipeline. Oil at $100/bbl, gas at $2.50/mbtu made that a no brainer. Good for a maybe a hundred thousand barrels/yr all by itself. ~20% of the swing since 2005.
I remember my science teacher (the cool one that everyone loved) parroting these predictions back in 1970 when I was in the 10th grade and it had a devastating effect on me and my classmates. We had private discussions about why even bother going to college and thinking about the families we were(n’t) going to raise. Some of my classmates became very despondent … some suicidal. I was freaked out and frightened for what lay ahead. It wasn’t until almost a year later, while working on a summer construction job that a construction worker set me straight — something I will ever be thankful for.
I have nothing but contempt for these idiots who briefly stole our optimism for the future. May they rest in hell.
So, you let a construction worker ‘set you straight’ from the predictions of a science teacher….? OK.
Apparently the Construction worker was right! Truth is not a respecter of title.
Ristvan may be right on some of his assertions, but likely not correct on others, (I respect his research) For a review on why we will not run out of energy, stuff, and food (except for political social caused crisis) read these…
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/05/08/there-is-no-shortage-of-stuff/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/there-is-no-energy-shortage/
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/grains-and-why-food-will-stay-plentiful/
RISTVAN, I particularly recommend you read the post about food, but I think that all of them will somewhat balance your perspective, which IMV is as I say while not wrong, I think it not quite correct either. In particular I think you underestimate the capacity to change and adapt. You will find the thoughts in the “no-shortage-of-stuff” post provocative I think,
While infinite growth with finite resources is impossible, the current consumer society isn’t going anywhere for a while.
Knowledge is the ultimate resource, and if it isn’t infinite, it’s pretty close.
MarkW. You are correct. But knowledge also constrains. So far as we know, nothing can go faster than the speed of light, even though sicfi disagrees. So far as we know, natural photosynthetic efficiency is about 1% in the tropics, and about 1/3 to 1/2 less in temperate zones except where crops are optimally spaced (a shade thing). (See book references.) So far as we know, the laws of thermodynamics govern heat to electricity/motive power conversion efficiency.
Magic thinking is interesting, but not knowledge. And energy physics is not internet/Moores Law physics. You are hopeful. I am less so. An energy crunch is coming, followed by a food crunch. Around 2050 plus or minus a decade or so. Regards.
Experts of all types should have to take an ethics exam like the one that engineers take. One of the most important things is that engineers must restrict their work to areas where they have actual expertise. For instance, civil engineers should not design Wheatstone bridges. 🙂
Experts must be made to understand their limitations. To that end, they should have to pass an exam proving that they understand “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” by Philip E. Tetlock. In it, Tetlock demonstrates that a dart-throwing monkey is better at predicting the outcome of chaotic situations than are experts. They should also be held liable for inaccurate predictions.
The media should also be held responsible for publishing predictions that don’t come true.
It won’t happen … but it should.
‘In the year 2525, if man is still alive/ if woman can survive/they may find
There’s a 47 year-old prediction.
Do not confuse meteorology with climatology. The former is a true science of predicting near-term weather patterns and has a success rate of well over 50%. Climatology on the other hand is a semi-religion and overt political movement with zero scientific underpinning. As a religion, it is akin to Astrology except Astrology has a vastly better prediction record. As a political movement, it is a constant stream of outright lies, all aimed at bolstering the anti-Capitalist, pro-Marxist agenda.
Meteorology also has a clear track record of improvement over time.
Keep saying astrology, I dare you!
Well over 50%? Spoken like a true disciple of the cult of channel 7.
And snow will soon be a thing of the past.
To be fair:
1) They still had lead in gasoline
2)Population growth was on a steep curve
3) Pollution was being emitted without scrubbers
So, these people made us change our ways. They were not idiots.
They were indeed idiots.
Reasonable identify and fix problems. For example the worst air pollution was caused by heating with coal.
Of course there was a time when only rich enjoyed central heating with a coal furnace.
In some places the worst air pollution still comes from combusting coal, not because it is coal but because it is not combusted properly. In other places they solved the coal combustion problem and the worst air pollution comes from biomass combustion. In yet other places they burn the biomass properly so the worst air pollution is from vehicles. At least in the case of ‘vehicles’ we correctly blame the combustor and not the fuel. So in further places they burn the vehicle fuels properly and the worst air pollution comes from road dust, farms and desert winds. There is always something that is a source of ‘air pollution’. The Sahara Desert is a massive source of PM2.5 air pollution. Without it there would be a lot less rain west of Dakar. If the EPA ran the world there would be a lot less rain. Fact.
For those worrying about inherent emissions from fuels consider that sulphur-free liquid fuels are made from coal! And who leads that technology? Little South Africa. Necessity is a mother. Oh yeah, of invention. South African coals are really rubbish for the most part but they have enough to last for several millennia. The coal belt from Tajikistan to Mongolia has hardly been touched, trillions of tons of it. In a thousand years we will still be mining these resources to fashion the materials and fuels needed to sustain life.
We have no clue as to the inventions that will occur in the coming millennia, particularly regarding energy. We know darned well that the transmutation of elements is a limitless source of energy. Plug ‘limitless energy’ into the ‘sustainability equation’ and see what changes in the prophecies. It completely overturns the doomcaster’s eschatological fantasies.
The biggest threats to peace, security and life on Earth are the false gods of nationalism, communism and materialism. Catastrophic climatism is a form of materialism that uses the false flag of ‘custodianship’ as an excuse to devalue human existence.
If you shake hands with a climate catastrophist count your fingers afterwards. The Paris Accord is going to cost us $15 trillion. Follow the money to find out who is behind it. Some of them really do believe in the creation of a ‘fiat climate’, fiat currencies and fiat ethics. Fiat ethics of course leads to fiat morality and the fiat authority necessary to enforce it. The Copenhagen Agreement outlines that fiat authority. The Paris Accord prescribes the fiat morality. As was the case in the USSR, they will work out an ethical foundation upon which it is based, later. The short term plan is more practical and material: grab the fiat currency and run.
Even if nothing had been done, none of the catastrophies they predicted would have come about.
PS, assuming that what is happening today will continue unchanged forever is the ultimate idiocy.
PS: Nobody did anything to reduce the population growth rate. It did so on it’s own as prosperity spread around the world. Something these idiots wanted to stop. (and still do)
Don’t forget how many regulations have required that we improve the environment since 1970. We now have the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, emission standards for vehicles, and on and on – yet still we have incidents like Flint Michigan that should embarrass us beyond measure. In 2016 we are still poisoning our children.
We are not poisoning our children. Please go to the CDC website and show me where were we are poisoning out children.
I suspect that Susan is clueless about regulations and a drama major at her junior college. Save levels are several orders of magnitude below the level where and adverse affect is detected and many more levels below what would be considered a poison.
I’m willing to bet that Susan is one of those people who thinks any radiation, no matter how little, will result in death.
Er, Flint in Michigan.
Stop beating up Susan. We are poisoning our children, with their minds being the major affected organ. The food supply is full of junk. The world of medicine, for all it could and should do, has gone berserk. The spiritual foundations of society are askew. We are being reduced to ‘consumer units’, a modern, less rebellious version of the ‘worker unit’. Children are the victims of everything from Ritalin to ‘Your father’s car kills polar bears.’ Oh yeah, there’s plenty of poison about.
The problems at Flint were because the govt holds itself above the law and wasn’t following the regulations that were in place.
The legislative acts that you mention were the equivalent of killing flies with sledgehammers, causing way more damage than the prevented.
And let’s not forget about the contribution of Ira Einhorn to the Philly earth day 1970:
http://iceagenow.info/earth-days-dirty-secret-ira-einhorn/
Earth is unforgiving, it will take everyone you love, give you hope and take it from you, Earth will consume you just to let you know there is an “earth day” or something! Ironic!