Environmental doomsayers have been predicting . . . uh . . . doom . . . for the past 40 years. I remember in elementary and junior high school, way back in the 1960s, reading and hearing all of the rabid, fear inducing pronouncements on the end of civilization, the end of the human race, the end of all life on Earth, the end of the Earth. And yet, here in the future, in the 21st century, for heaven's sake, the human population of the Earth has doubled. That can only mean that the Earth, civilization, and humanity are still here.
The doomsayers are still crying out with their message of death, doom, and destruction. This time, THIS TIME, they insist, as they've been warning us all along, we really are doomed. Or are we?
Back in the 1968, Paul Ehrlich's predictions of doom and gloom in his book, The Population Bomb never came to pass. Did he recant his obviously mistaken thesis? No, that mode of thought where you admit your mistakes when they are proven wrong, is passe in some circles. Instead, he restated the same thing in a later book, The Population Explosion, which may have come out in 1991. He also had an article in The Atlantic back in 1997, saying much of the same stuff that he claimed in his books. Michael Fumento fisks that article and Mr. Ehrlich here.
Ehrlich, a butterfly specialist, began his spectacular doomsaying career back in 1968 with his best-selling book "The Population Bomb." Among his predictions then and since:
* "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines . . . hundreds of millions of people (including Americans) are going to starve to death." (1968) * "Smog disasters" in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles. (1969) * "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." (1969) * "Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." (1976)
It's not only Paul Ehrlich though. There are websites devoted to predicting the same unfounded Malthusian garbage that Ehrlich has made a career out of. At Culture Change, we are warned that,
The ecosystem's capacity for humans has been exceeded by a factor of ten, according to the logic of Overshoot by William Catton: the amount of stored energy from the sun (including fossil fuels) humans use is the equivalent of ten earths' intake of usable solar energy for photosynthesis.
If one tenth of today's population is what thereby could survive sustainably, that would have to be in a healthy ecosystem. But when the ecosystem has been poisoned, trashed and depleted—e.g., millions of tons of topsoil are lost daily due to modern agricultural practices—then the survival rate would only be perhaps one tenth of the one tenth! Intrinsic is the role of petroleum, which is going to "be history" early this century.
World population growth has slowed down a little in recent years, like a runaway train dropping down to 90 miles per hour from 100 miles per hour. Unfortunately, the world's biggest polluter, the U.S., has a hidden policy for population growth through massive and mostly legal immigration. The U.S. is headed for over 300,000,000 people before 2010. No other industrial nation is growing in population, besides the UK. Perhaps the estimate of 1/3 the world's present waste being generated by the U.S. is too low by now.
And wouldn't you know it, they're fans of Paul Ehrlich. They recommend his latest book on the dangers of overpopulation, written with Anne Ehrlich, One With Nineveh. This guy never gives up. But why should he, when he's got an audience that will lap up every incorrect claim with the same view that even though the reality is the exact opposite of his Ehrlich's predictions, if we just wait long enough-.
On the other hand, along with the afore mentioned Michael Fumento, we have Walter Williams. And Williams says,
For most of mankind's existence, he has been self-sufficient and spent most of his time simply eking out a living. In pre-industrial societies, and in some places today, the most optimistic scenario for the ordinary person was to be able to eke out enough to meet his physical needs for another day. With the rise of industrialization and development of markets, and the concomitant rise in human productivity that yielded seemingly ceaseless economic progress, it was no longer necessary for mankind to spend his entire day to meet his physical needs. People became able to satisfy these needs with less and less time. This made it possible for more people to have the time to read, become educated in the sciences and liberal arts, gain more knowledge and become more productive. The resulting wealth also enabled them the opportunity to develop spiritually and culturally through attending the arts and participate in other life activities that were formerly within the purview of the rich.
Contrary to the myths we hear about how overpopulation causes poverty, poor health, unemployment, malnutrition and overcrowding, human beings are the most valuable resource and the more of them the better. There is absolutely no relationship between high populations and economic despair.
His message is the exact opposite of Ehrlich, Gore, and the other environmental snake oil salesmen. So which one is right?
Look around you. Compare what humanity has now to what it had 40, or 100, or 1000 years ago, and you can only conclude (if you're being honest and apolitical) that Williams is correct. So why do so many people still accept what Ehrlich says? I don't know, but I have to assume that it has a lot to do with the kind of thinking that still accepts Communism as a viable economic system even though it has a perfect 100% record of failure, the same people that still believe that children don't need explicit phonics instruction in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.
So I will keep hounding my elected representatives to let oil companies drill in ANWR and on the continental shelf, keep taxes low, and stay out of people's business, because, as Walter Williams says,
The greatest threat to mankind's prosperity is government. A recent example is Zimbabwe's increasing misery. Like our country, Zimbabwe had a flourishing agriculture sector, so much so it was called the breadbasket of southern Africa. Today, its people are on the brink of starvation as a result of its government. It's the same story in many countries — government interference with mankind's natural tendency to engage in wealth-producing activities. Blaming poverty on overpopulation not only lets governments off the hook; it encourages the enactment of harmful policies.
UPDATE: I forgot to include this George Carlin video. While I don't agree with all of what he says (But I do agree with a lot on this one), I completely respect his delight in getting as many people angry with him as he can. I found it at American Digest. This is George Carlin, so there is a LANGUAGE WARNING.
I found some others who are going to speak for me. I didn't mean for this to happen, they just happened to say some things that don't need to be rewritten, they only need to be read.
First up is Dr. Sanity presenting valid reasons why there is so little that qualifies as Islamic science. Read the links in her post too.
In October, Malaysia's first astronaut will join a Russian crew and blast off into space. The news of a Muslim astronaut was cause for celebration in the Islamic world, but then certain questions started popping up. How will he face Mecca during his five daily prayers while his space ship is whizzing around the Earth? How can he hold the prayer position in zero gravity? Such concerns may sound absurd to us, but the Malaysian space chief is taking them quite seriously. A team of Muslim scholars and scientists has spent more than a year drawing up an Islamic code of conduct for space travel.
This story illustrates the obstacles that face scientists in Muslim countries. While it's always risky to draw generalizations about Islam, even conservative Muslims admit that the Islamic world lags far behind the West in science and technology. This is a big problem for Muslims who envy the economic and military power of the United States.
What's so striking about the Muslim predicament is that the Islamic world was once the unrivaled center of science and philosophy.
Next we have two articles, one by Thomas Sowell that I linked to previously, but I'm doing it again because it follows the same line of thought from a Walter Williams post on how environmentalism has killed thousands if not millions of human beings over the past 50 - 60 years. Thomas Sowell says,
The other recent tragedy that has held the nation's painful attention — the mine cave-in in Utah — also has implications that few seem to notice.
We could have far fewer men going down into those mines in the first place if we could use other readily available and economically viable substitutes for coal, such as nuclear power or more of our own oil.
Here too, politics is the problem. The only "alternative energy sources" that are on the political agenda are those few very expensive options that environmentalist zealots approve.
Nuclear power is not on the green zealots' approved list, even though nuclear power is widely used in other countries.
Some say nuclear power is not safe. But nothing is categorically "safe." The only serious question is how its safety compares to that of alternative ways of generating energy.
Ask the families of the trapped miners if they think mining is safe. Ask them if they would rather face the grim reality of a death in their family or the hypothetical possibility of inconveniencing some caribou in Alaska.
In the wake of Hurricane Betsy, which struck New Orleans in 1965, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed building flood gates on Lake Pontchartrain, like those in the Netherlands that protect cities from North Sea storms. In 1977, the gates were about to be built, but the Environmental Defense Fund and Save Our Wetlands sought a court injunction to block the project.
According to John Berlau's recent book, "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism is Hazardous to Your Health," U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse told the court that not building the gates could kill thousands of New Orleanians. Judge Charles Schwartz issued the injunction despite the evidence refuting claims of environmental damage.
And even more importantly,
Environmental extremists see DDT in a different light. Alexander King, co-founder of the Club of Rome, said, "In Guyana, within almost two years, it had almost eliminated malaria, but at the same time, the birth rate had doubled. So my chief quarrel with DDT in hindsight is that it greatly added to the population problem." Jeff Hoffman, environmental attorney, wrote on grist.org, "Malaria was actually a natural population control, and DDT has caused a massive population explosion in some places where it has eradicated malaria. More fundamentally, why should humans get priority over other forms of life? . . . I don't see any respect for mosquitoes in these posts."
Speaking of placing ideology over human life here is another one by Williams on the stifling of dissenting opinions on the global cooling - I mean global warming - I mean climate change front.
Finally, here is the story, in three parts of a Montana woman who hunts Islamic terrorists on the Internet. She's worked with the FBI to help capture and prosecute some of these clowns. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.
It's 3 a.m., early May 2002. By now, she is continuing physical therapy, but she's done with the pain pills and the cane. The jihadists, though, have become central in her life.
Go on, I dare you, she murmurs as she finds her way to a new Web site, The Arab Castle. OK, she says. Watch this.
"Death to America," she types in Arabic, a phrase now as familiar as "Good morning."
It has been eight months since 9/11, and Rossmiller is well on her way toward completing online Arabic courses from the Arab Academy in Cairo and from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She waits for a reply.
An answer comes quickly enough: "I wish someone would blow up the American base in Afghanistan," a person writes in Arabic.
"It would be great," another responds.
No one corrects her, which must mean Rossmiller has said it right, in the right spot. She's elated. They're buying me as one of them.
Having digested a clutch of Arab novels, Rossmiller uses the devices of fiction to invent characters she can be on the Web.
She must be specific and nuanced to be believed, she thinks, but one persona is not enough.
It's a control thing, she decides. If I can have an effect on them, then maybe I can stop the evil they do.
Rossmiller begins to fill notebooks with detailed aspects of her made-up characters - names, photos, occupations. Some are good at bomb-making. Others are facile with small weapons.
I've got some real doozies here, Rossmiller says to herself as she reviews her ensemble of grim operators, her own fictional collection of serial killers.
Soon Rossmiller has created around three dozen "people." She searches Web sites for obituaries with pictures, then alters the images so relatives wouldn't recognize them.
The photos are mostly for herself, to keep a picture in her head of whom she's supposed to be, a sense of her character. Once in a while, someone asks to see whom he's talking to, and Rossmiller can oblige.
She researches mosques in Jordan and Pakistan to learn their street locations and the names of their imams. This way, she can make authentic references during online chats.
After several months, she has developed quite a correspondence with dozens of people who seem to believe she is whoever she says she is.
I like Walter William. He, like Thomas Sowell, is an economist who looks at some of the issues that drive today's hysteria and explains them in ecomomic terms that the rest of us can understand. Here is his column on the current spike in gasoline prices.
Few people realize that the U.S. is also a major oil-producing country. After Saudi Arabia, producing 10.4 million barrels a day, then Russia with 9.4 million barrels, the U.S. with 8.7 million barrels a day is the third-largest producer of oil. But we could produce more. Why aren't we? Producers have a variety of techniques to win monopoly power and higher profits that come with that power. What's a way for OPEC to gain more power? I have a hypothesis, for which I have no evidence, but it ought to be tested. If I were an OPEC big cheese, I'd easily conclude that I could restrict output and charge higher oil prices if somehow U.S. oil drilling were restricted. I'd see U.S. environmental groups as allies, and I would make "charitable" contributions to assist their efforts to reduce U.S. output
Following unusually large and sudden increases in the price of gasoline throughout Michigan and other Midwestern states in the spring of 2000 and again in 2001, in May, 2001, Senator Levin directed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to determine the causes of these spikes in gasoline prices, and what actions could be taken to stabilize gasoline prices.
In April 2002, Senator Levin issued a report entitled Gas Prices: How Are They Really Set? [download file] One of the major findings of this report is that the decline in the number of refineries and increasing concentration within the refining industry are major reasons prices have become so volatile.
On April 30 and May 2, 2002, Senator Levin held hearings on this subject, with testimony from oil industry executives, economists, and state officials, including then-Attorney General of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm. [download large pdf file] At this hearing Senator Levin expressed his concern to the oil companies that some refiners have limited the supply of gasoline in order to boost prices. He has also urged the Federal Trade Commission to more closely review proposed mergers to ensure that mergers do not reduce supplies or increase prices.
Huh? Oil Companies? Hasn't he been paying attention? In the entire report there is not a single mention of OPEC or any of the Muslim oil-producing nations. I hope someone on his staff reads Walter Williams' column to him before he does some serious damage to the economy.
"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises
War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. Flavius Vegitius Renatus
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CHALLAH AKBAR
