"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."-- H.L. Mencken
As I get older and reflect back on the many decades past I am constantly reminded that much of that history was mired in fear-mongering, fear-mongering by government, by special interest groups and religion, all three often preaching the same apocalyptic dystopian message. This then created a nihilistic outlook for many, a culture that placed less emphasis on developing a secure and properous future and placed more stress on partying tonight for tomorrow we shall die. None of the predictions ever came true, but before we could even stop and reflect on the lie, a new fear du jour was created to replace that one that died. A dizzying array of fears: global cooling, air pollution, DDT, SARS, West Nile Virus, Bird Flu, Y2K, anthrax, Cuban missile crisis, peak oil, swine flu, ebola, e coli, vaccines, the BP oil spill, zika virus etc. In politics never let a crisis go to waste, and in the media, fear sells.
Call me jaded...but I have been thru all of this since the 60's, and I know things are not getting worse, and smarter minds than mine have concluded the same:
"False bad news about population growth, natural resources, and the environment is published widely in the face of contradictory evidence. For example, the world supply of arable land has actually been increasing, the scarcity of natural resources including food and energy has been decreasing, and basic measures of U.S. environmental quality show positive trends. The aggregate data show no long-run negative effect of population growth upon the standard of living. Models that embody forces omitted in the past, especially the influence of population size upon productivity increase, suggest a long-run positive effect of additional people.” – Julian Simon
"Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see--germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion--a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear. Amazing." – Michael Crichton (State of Fear)
"Man's average life span in the Palaeolithic period was about twenty years, in the Neolithic period about 28 years, and in the Middle Ages 32 years. At the turn of the 20th century, AD 1900, the average life span of European women was 44 years, and ninety seven years later 82 years. During the past thousand centuries, man's average life span grew by a factor of four, one-half of this extension occurring over the last century. The length of life is probably one of the best descriptors of the conditions in which we live. If so, the natural paradise of the past is a myth. The Golden Age never existed. In fact, innumerable past generations led short and miserable lives, were tormented by hunger and fear, decimated by tuberculosis, smallpox, pestilence and a host of other diseases which are now curable, and fought perpetual wars, just like a few ancient tribes hiding in the jungles of New Guinea still do. The true Golden Age, the dream of our ancestors, has dawned. Mankind never had it better. At the turn of the new century, personal safety is at its highest." -Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate by M.Mihkel Mathiesen
"The increase in the world's population represents our victory over death. In the 19th Century the earth could sustain only one billion people. Ten thousand years ago, only 1 million could keep themselves alive. Now, 5 billion people are living longer and more healthily than ever before, on average. The current gloom-and-doom about a "crisis" of our environment is all wrong on the scientific facts. Even the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges that U.S. air and our water have been getting cleaner rather than dirtier in the past few decades. Every agricultural economist knows that the world's population has been eating ever-better since World War II, defying simplistic Malthusian reasoning. Every resource economist knows that all natural resources have been getting more available rather than more scarce, as shown by their falling prices over the decades and centuries. And every demographer knows that the death rate has been falling all over the world -life expectancy almost tripling in the rich countries in the past two centuries, and almost doubling in the poor countries in just the past four decades. This is the most important and amazing demographic fact -- the greatest human achievement in history. It took thousands of years to increase life expectancy at birth from just over 20 years to the high '20's about 1750. Then about 1750 life expectancy in the richest countries suddenly rose so that the length of life you could expect for your baby or yourself in the advanced countries jumped from less than 30 years to perhaps 75 years. Then starting well after World War II, the length of life you could expect in the poor countries has leaped upwards by perhaps fifteen or even twenty years since the l950s, caused by advances in agriculture, sanitation, and medicine. It is this decrease in the death rate that is the cause of there being a larger world population nowadays than in former times. The picture also is now clear that population growth does not hinder economic development. All the statistical studies show that faster population growth does not cause slower economic growth. In the 1980s there was a complete reversal in the consensus of thinking of population economists about the effects of more people. In 1986, the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences completely overturned its "official" view away from the earlier worried view expressed in 1971. It noted the absence of any statistical evidence of a negative connection between population increase and economic growth. And it said that "The scarcity of exhaustible resources is at most a minor restraint on economic growth"." -The Hoodwinking of a Nation by Julian Simon
And yet, a newer generation is under a constant state of fear, as indicated by this climate change bingo meme that has been making the rounds lately and much of it has my head scratching. For instance the
Climate Change Refugees square can have some believing that there are people leaving Miami to move to Bangor Maine. I know that many mean here the Syrian refugees, but these people are leaving for political reasons. Those in power in Syria are staying and the neighboring Isrealis aren't going anywhere.
I don't even know what to make of the
Seasonal Changes square. Seasons have always changed. Many places tend have 4 of them every year. If the square means to imply that summers are becoming winters and vice versa, then this has not been my experience. Winters still tend to stay cold and summers are still warm. People have always feared fluctuations in temperature from year to year. Take for example this blurb written in the year 1855 by the Reverend Casper Schaeffer, M.D in his, "Memoirs and Reminiscences:"
"Formerly the snows fell much deeper and the winters were more severe in this country than in late years. I have heard my father say that in the winter of 1780-81 that the depth of snow was such that in traveling they did not confine themselves to the road, but drove over fences and across fields, the snow being sufficiently hard to bear them, since which period the weather at that season has been gradually growing milder; so much so that some winders will pass with scarcely snow enough for any sleighing. Is is now a very rare thing for the Delaware to be frozen over, whereas formerly this was an ordinary occurrence. Evidently our climate is ameliorating and becoming similar in temperature to the same degree of latitude on the European continent. Now as to the cause of this change various opinions are entertained, some assigning one cause and some another. My own long-cherished opinion is that it is owing principally to two things: first, to the clearing away the forests and opening up the swamps, whereby the surface of the ground being exposed to the action of the sun and the accumulated moisture being evaporated, the ground becomes dryer and consequently warmer. A second cause contributing, I think, in no small degree to the same effect, is the cultivation of the soil; the action of the plow, in turning up the sub-soil, thus loosening the ground and exposing a greater surface to the action of the sun, consequently also producing increased dryness and warmth. With the increased heat of the ground, the temperature of the atmosphere is likewise increased, consequently less snow falls and is sooner melted. These several causes continuing to act, the probability is that in the course of time, our climate will assimilate to the mildness of the same latitudes in wester Europe. The gulf stream, however, exercises a benign influence upon that country which is experienced in a much less degree in our own country."
Moving on to
Deadly Heatwaves. Deadly heatwaves have always happened. There is nothing new here. There is the 1896 Eastern North America heat wave (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Eastern_North_America_heat_wave) and the 1901 eastern United States heat wave (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1901_eastern_United_States_heat_wave) and the 1936 North American heat wave (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_North_American_heat_wave). Now you may see a lot of high temperatures being recorded constantly, but that's only because no one was doing any similar recording during the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age that followed. People back then led short brutish lives and they were more concerned with survival than climate propaganda. As much as people complain presently about temperatures, we are living in the best time to be alive in human history. People in the past could never dream of our air conditioning units or the central heating units that add to the quality of our lives.
Heat-Related Violence. This is a new one on me. Violent crime has famously dropped, and dramatically so, since the early 1990's. This has led to many speculations as to why this is so, dealt with popularly in the best-selling book, Freakonomics.
Oceans Acidifying: A conclusion, apparently, that can only be arrived at by omitting data. See
http://bit.ly/1WW9E4C
Strongest Storms Ever Seen: This is starting to sound like some religious cults that will point me to Matthew 24 and 2 Timothy 3 which contain bullet lists of signs pointing to the Last Days. Many besides myself have often seen too many parallels between these groups and the Apocalyptic Left. I will come back to this religious point from time to time. As for storms though, hurricane activity has been relatively quiet since 2005. How many of us were alive in 1900 when a deadly storm ripped through Galveston, in what Wikipedia calls, "the deadliest hurricane in US history." [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane] Just because the present generation has seen deadly storms, this feeling does not dwarf the strongest storms previous generations have seen. It is a very human trait to see their own time as unique, which is what has made the apocalyptic vision of the world ever-present throughout history.
The late 1800 have had some of the strongest storm activity in recent history. See
http://www3.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/J/noaa257.html
Massive flooding: Nothing Biblical to see here folks, (I say sarcastically). Massive floods have been a constant occurrence since Noah and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Flood lore in the ancient world is quite common, because floods have been so common-place. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
Severe droughts and crop failures: Severe drought and crop failures are not unique to this time, or any other time in history. What is unique to this time is that we now produce more food than we need. The only reason there is famine at all is that governments in famine-ridden countries, (and leftist Governments at that), prevent their people from accessing this food.
As a whole, the death-rates from storms, floods and droughts have decreased 98% since the 1920's.
Dramatic increase in wildfires: And yet, there are more trees than there were 100 years ago. See
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true . Also, the same climate models which predict global warming also predict it will make many areas a lot more moist. Global warming should also make forests grow faster and more healthy, making them less vulnerable to fire.
Shrinking Polar Ice: It is a well known fact that Antarctic ice is actually expanding. See
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=antarctic+ice+expanding
Vanishing glaciers: Even this is not true. See
http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/nasa-satellite-debunks-melting-glacier-myth and
http://www.iceagenow.com/List_of_Expanding_Glaciers.htm
Species changing migration patterns: Animals and humans have always done this. See
http://www.livescience.com/10235-animals-migrate.html and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_migration
Species extinctions: Again...quite normal. 98 percent of all animal species went extinct thousands and millions of years ago...long before humans arrived on the scene, This is normal. Much of that was due to climate change...which is also normal.
Spreading tropical diseases: This one is on the Green Movement who banned the use of DDT, the most effective repellent against malaria.
Severe economic impacts: I know, it's called Cap and Trade legislation, which will punish business and retard economic growth. Taxing the coal industry out of business isn't helping either.
Predictions of science coming true: I laughed out loud when I read that. The failed predictions of environmental science are so numerous, there are many websites devoted to this:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/the-big-list-of-failed-climate-predictions/
http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-apocalyptic-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-2/
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/earth-day-13-failed-predictions-environmental-catastrophe
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/climate-change-predictions-incorrect.html
http://anodtothegods.com/?p=9061
Heck, failed predictions are Paul Ehrlich's entire resume.
Scientists attacked, denial well-funded: The reverse is actually truer. Catastrophic AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is the prevailing theology, and anyone that denies this theology is labelled a heretic. This makes environmental science no different from religion. The Climate Change Industrial Complex is now a 1.5 TRILLION dollar industry, and that makes holding fast to this theology a necessity. Al Gore is actually poised to be the world's first Climate Billionaire, and with that money he bought an ocean front mansion. Since he preaches massive sea-level rise, this is proof that even he doesn't believe what he promotes.
Academies of science all agree: Isn't this an Argument from Authority, which is a logical fallacy? Also, do ALL scientists really agree? No! No one has ever said that. The popular argument is that 97 percent of all scientists agree, but even when we look closer at that, this also falls apart. The 97 percent argument comes from a study by John Cook in Australia that examined 12,000 or 13,000 papers that simply mentioned global warming/climate change. Of those 12 to 13,000 papers, in reality only 41 actually claimed that humans were the cause of global warming....so 0.3 percent.
See also
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/97-articles-refuting-the-97-percent-consensus.html
Insurance industries all agree: Insurance companies are there to make money, and if they can charge extra and attribute that extra cost to GW/CC they probably will.
The world's militaries all agree: What is government but a monopoly of force within a certain geographic area. How they enact that force is through the military. The government is also very interested in GW/CC (Global Warming/Climate Change) because they see this is as major revenue enhancement, so it is important that the military fall in line.
Rising public concern: "What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There's no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told-and become upset if they are exposed to any different view. The characteristic human trait is not awareness but conformity..." ~Michael Chrichton
Woefully inadequate political action: THANK GOD!
...............................................................................................
Who says the climate we have right now is the optimal one for humans anyways? Perhaps we might even benefit from a warmer world. A warming may lead to lower energy costs, greater crop yields...(CO2 is a plant food, so it is actually a good thing), fewer winter deaths (presently more people die from cold weather than they do warm weather.) Both Britain and Greece see mortality rates rise by 18 per cent each winter. Especially cold winters cause a rise in heart failures far greater than the rise in deaths during heatwaves. Cold, not the heat, is the bigger killer of humankind.
-Heinz Schmitz
"...it is advisable to sift the merits of knowledge, and clear it of the disgrace brought upon it by ignorance, whether disguised (1) in the zeal of divines, (2) the arrogance of politicians, or (3) the errors of men of letters." Francis Bacon
by Julian Simon
by Larry Bell
by Mark Steyn
