Posted on 06/18/2010 11:45:44 AM PDT by marthemaria
FRANK Fenner doesn't engage in the skirmishes of the climate wars. To him, the evidence of global warming is in. Our fate is sealed.
"We're going to become extinct," the eminent scientist says. "Whatever we do now is too late."
Fenner is an authority on extinction. The emeritus professor in microbiology at the Australian National University played a leading role in sending one species into oblivion: the variola virus that causes smallpox. .
Fenner, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and of the Royal Society, has received many awards and honours. He has published hundreds of scientific papers and written or co-written 22 books.
Fenner says the real trouble is the population explosion and "unbridled consumption".
The number of Homo sapiens is projected to exceed 6.9 billion this year, according to the UN. With delays in firm action on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, Fenner is pessimistic.
"We'll undergo the same fate as the people on Easter Island," he says. "Climate change is just at the very beginning. But we're seeing remarkable changes in the weather already.
"The Aborigines showed that without science and the production of carbon dioxide and global warming, they could survive for 40,000 or 50,000 years. But the world can't. The human species is likely to go the same way as many of the species that we've seen disappear.
"Homo sapiens will become extinct, perhaps within 100 years," he says. "A lot of other animals will, too. It's an irreversible situation. I think it's too late. I try not to express that because people are trying to do something, but they keep putting it off.
"Mitigation would slow things down a bit, but there are too many people here already."
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.com.au ...
"Listen to me, I'm the expert so I'm 'credible'... my doomsday scenario is better than all of the previous prophecies of the end of the world..."
Since it’s too late to do anything and we’re all going to die anyway he can just relax and enjoy his idiot life.
As a mysanthrope, this is good news.
“”Listen to me, I’m the expert so I’m ‘credible’.”
Fenner is an expert on microbiology.
About climate he knows nothing.
We're all going to die of smallpox?
Does this mean the Cubs will win the Series?
I’ve noticed other biologists on the global warming bandwagon. Part of it is political activism, but part of it seems to be these people never took physics I or flunked out.
He’s also 96 years old.
Wasn’t there a panic in the 70s that the world was going to have overpopulated itself to death by now?
However, this chap may have a point. Between then and now, we mostly had the benefit of conservative policies in the mover and shaker nations. Now we may only get liberal throw-up-your-hands-in-despair la la land. And man will be back to living in caves.
I would think that this gloomy-gus would be happy with the knowledge that the world is ending on Dec. 12, 2012. Don’t fret Doc.......we’re all gonna die anyway. /s
This learned pessimism is abhorrent.
The kids of today will figure out solutions to the problems.
Chinese, Americans, Europeans and Indians, the aggregate brainpower of the world is greater than it ever was.
He is even gloomier than AL Gore. Were all gonna die,we are domed etc.We *are* going to die. That part is assured. The real question is when. Dinosaurs lasted millions of years, humans have been around 50,000-250,000 years or so. Rediscovering the fact that species go extinct is nothing "new".
El Cid sees no hope for humans (majority voted for Obama in 2008)...
(I'll work on the rest of the article 'later' -- but it ought to be self-evident)
Yes, there was clearly going to be mass starvation by the 1980s according to Paul Ehrlich(sp?) in his book The Population Bomb. (He was spectacularly wrong in his projections, every one of them if I'm not mistaken.)
**** The emeritus professor in microbiology at the Australian National University played a leading role in sending one species into oblivion: the variola virus that causes smallpox.***
I bet there is more than one vial floating around that has not been destroyed, possibly “enhanced” for military purposes.
Chinese, Americans, Europeans and Indians, the aggregate brainpower of the world is greater than it ever was.There's a certain amount of hubris in that statement. If you watch the amazing ability of the Chinese to "#$"#$ in their own bed you'll have a pretty negative view of their "brainpower".
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