Malthus is back!

No failure of prediction fazes the believers in too many people and diminishing resources

A couple of weeks ago The Royal Society published a major new report called People and the Planet(pdf),which has drawn a lot of criticism for its apparent commitment to outdated “Limits to Growth” type thinking.

As Tim Worstall points out, while there is much to merit in the nuanced analysis of the main report, in the actual discussions of what we should do about both consumption and population,

it appears that we really are running out of “reserves” and that we should hand out condoms to all and sundry. That last isn’t all that surprising, as Jonathan Porritt is part of the team and he’s incapable of saying anything else on the subject.

Indeed, Porritt is not of course a scientist at all, more an activist, and his presence here which does in itself raise serious questions about the integrity of the study, if it means that the science is being mixed up with ideological interpretations and policy recommendations.

Similarly, Mark Lynas argues

Whilst using a lot of dark language about increasing numbers of humans globally, the report nowhere acknowledges that the current median level of total worldwide fertility has fallen dramatically from 5.6 in the 1970s to only 2.4 today. In other words we are already close to natural replacement levels in terms of total fertility – the reason that the absolute population will continue to grow to 9 billion or more is that more children are living long enough have their own children. To my mind a reduction in infant mortality and an increase in life expectancy are self-evidently good and desirable – and their impact on world population levels should be celebrated, not bemoaned.

Lynas goes onto to explain that the main failing of neo-Malthussianism is that it assumes resource consumption is a “zero-sum game”- that there is a finite pie to be shared by an expanding population, with only one possible outcome- not enough pie to go around. While this might be true in an absolute sense, it ignores technological developments which allow economic growth – “qualitative” rather than just “quantitative” growth to continue even as per capita, and ultimately even total impacts may plateau and even decline.

Chris Goodall at Carbon Commentary picks up on this theme by arguing that more resource consumption and growth need not necessarily result in greater impact. He uses the example of waste and rubbish:

Waste production per person in the UK peaked at around 520 kg a year in the year to March 2002. The latest two quarters figures are fifteen per cent below that level. The latest quarterly figures suggest a figure of about 443 kg. The decline from year to year isn’t smooth but is probably getting steeper.

As societies get richer, they become smarter, more eco-conscious and generally have a tendency to clean up our act. Goodall wryly continues

In contrast to what the Royal Society says, growth may be good for the environment. We waste less and are prepared to devote more cash to ecological protection. Technology improvements mean things last longer and use fewer physical resources to make. Regretfully, I have to say that the world’s most prestigious scientific institution should spend more time checking its facts.

Ben Pile sees the Royal Society’s report in the context of climate change politics, an old story used to bolster the floundering old story of catastrophic climate change:

the Royal Society’s sideways step from climate alarmism to Malthusianism is also a step backwards. Before climate change became the dominant narrative of political environmentalism, the principle issues were ‘limits to growth’ and ‘the population bomb’. Those vehicles failed to give the environmentalists’ political project the profile it needed. Malthusianism was, in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, too easily rebutted. And in the dark days of the cold war, we seemed to have bigger problems to face. The end of the cold war arrived, and the brief era of optimism ended with climate change. It filled the nuclear-winter-shaped hole. But now there is widespread acknowledgement that climate change has been over-stated, the institutions which have sought to attach themselves to the issue have had to find a new story. And the new story is an old story…

Pile is critical of the august scientific institution stepping beyond its role of science into the realm of public policy and lifestyle recommendations- hand out contraception, get the rich world to curtail its consumption.

What caught my eye in particular was Pile’s pointing out that just the week before the publication of the report none other than Paul Ehrlich was made a fellow of the Royal Society.

And in doing so, the Royal Society abandons its claim to be a scientific authority. It has embraced a particular ideology… a nasty, anti-human perspective on the world. It can no longer say Nullius in Verba (on the word of no one). It’s perspective is no longer fixed on the material world. The object of its ‘science’ is now the human world, and control over it.

As it happens, I had just purchased on impulse a copy of a book that has quite a lot to say about Mr. Ehrlich. Future Babble by Dan Gardner is a truly fascinating study of failed predictions of apocalypse, both supernatural and ecological.

Gardner adopts Philip Tetler’s classification, after Isaiah Berlin, of experts as either “Hedgehogs” or “Foxes”

“The fox knows many things,” the warrior-poet Archilochus wrote, “but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

Tetlock was involved in a committee brought together by the National Research Council in 1984, at the height of the Cold War, to examine the success or failure of expert opinions. In an extensive study involving 284 experts in many different fields, Tetlock compared predictions with reality, and found that the foxes- who tended to make much more cautious and contingent predictions, scored much more highly than the over-confident hedgehogs.

“On both calibration and discrimination, complex and cautious thinking trounced simple and confident.”

Ehrlich provides a spectacular example of a hedgehog, having founded a career spanning several decades on failed predictions.

“In the early 1970s, the leading edge of the age of scarcity has arrived,” he wrote in 1974′s The End of Affluence. With it came a clearer look at the future, revealing more of the nature of the dark age to come.” Of course there would be mass starvation in the 1970s- “or, at least, the 1980s.” Shortages “will become more frequent and more severe”, he wrote. “We are facing, within the next three decades, the disintegration of nation-states infected with growthmania.”…The mere continuation of current trends will ensure that “by the year 2000 the United Kingdom wil simply be a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70million hungry people, of little or no concern to the other 5-7billion of a sick world.”

Despite these outrageously wide-of-the-mark predictions, Ehrlich’s appointment to the Royal Society is only the latest in a long string of top awards, including the Gold Medal Award of the World Wildlife Fund International; the John Muir Award of the Sierra Club; the MacArthur Fellowship, nicknamed the “Genius Award”; and the Crafoord Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, widely considered the Nobel of environmentalism. Many of these awards were for his work as a biologist, but they were often given for his popular books like The Population Bomb.

Gardner notes that “the Crafoord Prize citation specifically noted Ehrlich’s ‘numerous books on global environmental problems, such as overpopulation, resource depletion nuclear winter, and greenhouse effects. It has been said that with Rachel Carson he is the one person with the greatest importance for present-day awareness of the imminent global catastrophe.’”

No matter what global catastrophe, Gardner wryly points out- on a survey of Cambridge University alumni in 2009 producing a list of the most important 50 books ever on sustainability, representing “the wisdom of our age” The Population Bomb came in at number four…

Another doomer who has made a career from predicting collapse is peak-oil pundit James Howard Kunstler. Well known in the peak oil community for his role in the documentary The End of Suburbia and his 2005 book The Long Emergency, Kunstler is lesser-known, or perhaps forgotten as “one of the most extreme voices in the Y2K fiasco.”

“If nothing else, I expect Y2K to destablize world petroleum markets”, Kunstler wrote, and the effects of that wil be as bad as, or worse than, those of the 1973 oil embargo. Industrial agriculture will collapse. “Spectacular dysfunction” will plague car-dependent cities. Supply chains will crumble. “I doubt that the WalMarts and the K-Marts of the land will survive Y2K.” That was the minimum-damage outcome. He actually expected things to get much worse…

Failure- even repeated failure over decades- does not seem to be a hindrance for these hedgehogs. “One might think that after Kunstler’s Y2K pratfall people wouldn’t pay for him to be their tour guide to the future, but The Long Emergency was a best-seller and Kunstler- a wildly entertaining speaker- became a fixture on the lecture circuit, where he is paid significant amounts of money to tell audiences they are doomed”- while “for experts who want the public’s attention” Gardner observes, “Ehrlich is the gold standard. Be articulate, enthusiastic, and authoritative. Be likeable. See things through a single analytical lens and craft an explanatory story that is clear, conclusive, and compelling. Do not doubt yourself. Do not acknowledge mistakes. And never, ever say ‘I don’t know’.”

What is fascinating is that retrospect does not seem to make these predictors of doom any the wiser. Rather than admit failure and revise their approach- turning as it were from Hedgehog to Fox- both Ehrlich and Kunstler played down the gaps between forecast and reality: for Ehrlich, the expected population collapse may not have happened on the timescale expected, but it is bound to come sometime- all the signs are still there; while Kunstler tended to exaggerate the actual effects and downplay the extremity of his own predictions. And anyway, even if Y2K didn’t do for America, the whole place is on the way down anyway- which makes him nearly right in any case.

More HERE



Warmist attention-seekers die

Had they stuck to science they might still be alive

Eco Everest tragedy: Attempt to raise climate change awareness ends in deaths

Congratulations !!! Eco Everest Expedition Spring 2012

[April 20, 2012] Eco Everest Expedition is a program organized in 2008 as a platform to attract maximum global attention. The main objective of this expedition is to raise awareness about the impact of climate change and glacier melting in the mountain leading to high risk of GLOF affecting the lives of the local people. The expedition organized by Asian Trekking focuses on climbing in an eco-sensitive manner and field testing different eco-sensitive methods to be adopted while climbing in the Himalaya.

Three climbers killed on Mount Everest - Telegraph

Officials in Nepal last night confirmed a German doctor, a Nepalese-Canadian businesswoman, and a Chinese man had died on May 19th as they descended the peak as part of the Eco Everest Expedition to clean debris from the mountain. ..This particular expedition was aimed at raising awareness of climate change on glaciers and testing new eco-sensitive techniques to climb the mountain without damaging its environment.

More HERE (See the original for links)





Comprehensive Alps Study Clearly Refutes Humans Are Causing More Weather Variability And Extremes!

A new paper authored by Reinhard Böhm of the Austrian Central Administration For Meteorology (ZAMG) refutes the notion that anthropogenic warming is causing an increase of climate extremes and making weather more variable and extreme.

The paper uses the monthly resolved data of the HISTALP data collection, which provides 58 single series for three climate elements: air pressure, air temperature and precipitation, which start earlier than 1831 and extend back to 1760 in some cases.

The paper’s abstract writes:

"The main goal is the analysis of trends or changes of high frequent interannual and interseasonal variability. In other words, it is features like extremely hot summers, very cold winters, excessively dry or wet seasons which the study aims at.”

The paper also concentrates on the recent three decades because “they are the first 30 years with dominating anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing”.

Conclusion? No change! The author of the warmist ZAMG doesn’t mince his words:

"We can show that also this recent anthropogenic normal period shows no widening of the PDF (probability density function) compared to the preceding ones.”

Not only did the author find no change in variability, but he also detected a ”centennial oscillating structure”.

The abstract continues:

"It shows that interannual variability changes show a clear centennial oscillating structure for all three climate elements in the region. For the time being we have no explanation for this empirical evidence.”

Please allow me to suggest one: take a look at the sun! As it stands, only an absolute moron can now remain oblivious to the huge, growing body of evidence pointing to solar activity cycles.

Böhm continues, reluctantly admitting there may be other mysterious factors out there playing a role:

"We argue that it should not be an artifact of any remaining data problems, but of course a centennial cyclic effect based on 250 years of data only is not really well consolidated in terms of sample length. But it is at least an interesting new feature and the subject is open for scientific discussion and for further studies dealing with circulation effects, long-term memories in the oceans etc.”

Hooray! It seems they are beginning to acknowledge the oceans as a possible factor in climate change! Thus there’s hope that one day they’ll realize the sun may be involved as well.

Finally, CO2 Handel here writes:

"Neither during the last 250 years nor the last 30 years, which have been strongly impacted by man, has the seasonal and annual fluctuation range hot-cold and dry-wet become greater.”

And

"The results are certainly surprising for many,’ explains climatologist and study-author Reinhard Böhm. We often hear there are no longer any transitions between seasons and that spring and autumn, as well as winter and summer, are increasingly characterized by extreme cold-warm fluctuations. ‘Our study clearly shows that this is not the case.’”

That is quite an admission for an author from a warmist outfit like the ZAMG.

SOURCE (See the original for links and graphics)





Obama Blocks Uranium Mining without the Support of Science

The news came out today that the administration imposed its 20 year ban on uranium mining on federal land in Arizona with no scientific basis to support the move. In fact, an email from a National Park Service hydrologist states that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement fails to establish links between impacts on water and uranium mining. The leaked email states in part:

This is obviously a touchy case where the hard science doesn’t strongly support a policy position. Probably the best way to ‘finesse’ this would be fall back on the ‘precautionary principle’ and take the position that in absence of even more complete certainty that there is no connection between uranium mines and regional ground water, we need to be cautions[sic]??

You can read more here.

One thousand jobs and $29 million in revenue are on the block in this situation.

Utah Congressman Rob Bishop who is the chairman of the House, National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee released this statement.

“I am concerned and troubled by the Department of Interior’s decision to proceed with the ban despite the fact their own experts cautioned that scientific evidence was lacking. It is now increasingly apparent that the decision was motivated by politics rather than science as the Administration would have us believe. We feared this was the case when the DOI announced its intentions in January, and it is unfortunate that it has proven to be true…These emails illustrate that Secretary Salazar blatantly ignored the scientific analysis in order to advance the Administration’s narrow-minded political agenda. The Administration is working hard to protect certain interests, but just not those of the American people.”

Bishop and House Natural Resources Chair Doc Hastings are requesting all of the documents in the matter. Given the forthcoming nature of the administration, I suspect their grandchildren might receive them. Unless they get lucky and someone leaks something else.

It’s one thing to oppose nuclear energy. It is another thing to curtail it without scientific evidence.

Those of you east of the Mighty Mississippi might be surprised at this, but energy advocates in the West are merely shaking their heads and recalling the immortal words of Captain Renault from Casablanca : I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”

SOURCE





It's All Over: EU Carbon Trading "Plunges To Practically Zero"

Bavaria's stock exchange will abandon its carbon emissions certificate trading operations in the EU-traded CO2 market on June 30 after volumes in Europe "plunged to practically zero" in recent months, it said on Tuesday.

The EU's emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) limits the carbon dioxide emissions of the 27-nation bloc's factories and power plants and covers nearly half of EU emissions.

Prices in the ETS have shed around 60 percent of their value over the past year due to market worries about the growing supply glut and weak demand.

"Emissions trading will never find its feet again without radical political action," said Christine Bortenlaenger, the head of the exchange, in a statement.

"To actually achieve the original goal of reducing carbon emissions, trading prices must be boosted by drastically reducing the number of certificates. Only then will companies perceive investment in carbon reduction technologies as worthwhile," she added.

The bourse cited the uncertainty caused by the euro zone debt crisis which hampers industrial activity and hence the need to hedge or bring down carbon emissions output.

SOURCE




Australia's chief climate commissioner Tim Flannery calls for the removal of toxic teeth from dead people

Mercury in teeth is bad but mercury in CFL light bulbs is OK??

CLIMATE change campaigner Tim Flannery says mercury tooth fillings should be removed from corpses before they are cremated.

The practice should be made law, Australia's chief climate commissioner said.

"You don't want to poison people when you are cremated," Prof Flannery said. "No one would want that."

Addressing the Australian Medical Association's national conference in Melbourne yesterday, he said an awareness campaign was needed.

"I think people would be comfortable with removing the fillings, it is just a matter of awareness," he said.

Prof Flannery said undertakers should be required to remove the fillings and families also could request it.

"You just need a pair of pliers," he said. "It is a $2 solution."

He said the mercury in teeth fillings was not a problem in people alive because it was not in a methylated form.

"For mercury to become dangerous, it has to get into the atmosphere, which happens when we are cremated, then blow over the oceans (and) go into the ocean depths, where there is very low oxygen, and then transform by bacteria into a methylated form of mercury," Prof Flannery said.

"This is then ingested by fish and the fish get put on the dinner plate."

He said he had not raised the issue with the Federal Government, but he felt it was significant and could be dealt with easily.

While talking about health and environment at the AMA conference, he also raised concerns about a lack of readiness for extreme weather events.

Prof Flannery said deaths from heat were increasing and the community needed to be better educated about the health risks.

"Deaths from heat is a silent killer that is increasing around the world," he said. "The most vulnerable in our community are most at risk."

Prof Flannery said the loss of respect for science in the climate debate had been "one of the most damaging aspects".

SOURCE

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