Posted on 08/09/2002 3:41:38 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The Ehrlichs have a message--simplistic and wrong; the paranoid title of their book pretty much tells the story: They sense a conspiracy by "anti- environmentalists," who have "successfully sowed seeds of doubt among journalists, policy-makers, and the public at large about the reality and importance of such phenomena as overpopulation, global climate change, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity." But there is no conspiracy out there; and if journalists are listening, it may just be that they find scientific facts persuasive.
Paul Ehrlich is a professor of biology at Stanford University, who has specialized in population dynamics of insects. He is best known for his book The Population Bomb, published in 1968, which gained much notoriety when environmental consciousness was raised by Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. These books nurtured organizations like Zero Population Growth and fired up environmental activism, which transformed old-line conservation organizations like the Audubon Society and Sierra Club, and spawned new ones like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace. As Ehrlich’s new book proudly relates, he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and numerous ecology awards--which tells you something about the judgment of the judges.
It is a matter of record that Paul Ehrlich has a consistent history of failed predic- tions; a good source is the book Eco-Scam by Ronald Bailey (St. Martins Press, New York, 1993), with over two dozen references to Ehrlich. In his 1969 article "Eco-Catastrophe!" Ehrlich predicted the following: the oceans dead from DDT poisoning by 1979 and devoid of fish; 200,000 deaths from "smog disasters" in New York and Los Angeles in 1973; U.S. life expectancy dropping to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide-induced cancers, with U.S. population declining to 22.6 million by 1999 (!), and so on.
In a July 1995 article in Contingencies, R. A. Dousette comments trenchantly that one of Ehrlich’s earlier books, The End of Affluence (1974), has "much of the comic quality of an old Marx Brothers film." Ehrlich recommends stockpiling cans of tuna, "because periodic protein shortages...seem certain to occur...", with the President dissolving Congress "during the food riots of the 1980s." These food shortages would drive the United States to using insecticides so damaging to the environment that a horrified world would launch a nuclear attack on our country, in order to forestall environmental despoliation of this magnitude. The book is an endless catalog of failed predictions. Potential problems are treated as certain to occur and then magnified into disasters. There is not even the slightest acknowledgment of the possibilities imminent within human creativity and our problem-solving capacity as antidotes to Ehrlich’s dark and pessimistic vision.
In promoting their new book, the Ehrlichs employed an outfit called Environmental Media Services. EMS appears to be closely tied to Fenton Communications, the folks that brought us the notorious cancer scare about the chemical Alar. More recently, Fenton has been touting other environmental "catastrophes" that seem to have little scientific basis, like the endocrine-disrupter scare featured in the book Our Stolen Future.
EMS/Fenton attempted to gain scientific respectability--and to mislead journalists to boot--by holding a press conference in the offices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and inveigling the current AAAS president, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, to appear on a panel with Paul Ehrlich. It is not clear how the AAAS allowed itself to be used as seeming to endorse Betrayal of Science and Reason. When questioned by reporters, however, Lubchenco had to admit that she was not speaking for the AAAS--but her disclaimer could not erase the impression that the AAAS stood behind the Ehrlichs' thesis.
The press release issued by EMS/Fenton pulls no punches. (They evidently did not employ the services of a libel lawyer, which may have been a mistake on their part.) Under the heading "Scientists hit ‘brownlash’ in new book: Authors of The Population Bomb detail backdoor campaign to derail environmental and health policy," the release describes the strategy of these 'brownlashers' who "have opened a new line of attack...by challenging science upon which environmentalism is based." How dastardly! I am shocked, shocked! How dare anyone question the science of the Ehrlichs and their allies?
Of course, their real problem seems to be that journalists are listening to these challenges, so the press release attacks them all--from Ted Koppel to Rush Limbaugh ... an interesting constellation. Apparently, on ABC-Nightline a few years ago, Koppel opined that scientific critics should be judged on the basis of their science rather than on who supports their work.
The press release then goes on to label as "anti-environmentalists" well-known writers Michael Fumento, author of Science Under Siege, and Gregg Easterbrook, author of A Moment on Earth. I find my name listed alongside of theirs and attacked by patently false smears that are probably actionable.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the book itself refers to me unfavorably but in a reasonably civil manner. The Ehrlichs acknowledge that a specialist in libel law reviewed their manuscript; perhaps that had something to do with it.
Betrayal claims to move the debate on environment "away from politics and polemics into the realm of science." A letter in the Washington Post (Jan.5, 1997) comments: "This is absurd... the book is itself a polemic. It mixes truths, half- truths, quarter-truths, and untruths in whatever proportions are needed to fit the Ehrlichs' beliefs on any issue. It caricatures the arguments of others to make demolition easier. It treats anyone who disagrees with the Ehrlichs as an enemy of the environment."
Perhaps the most amusing part of Betrayal is a listing of so-called "fables" about the atmosphere and climate, every one of which turns out to be true, even though the Ehrlichs state them to be myths. The most obvious one is: "Paul Ehrlich has made incredible claims about the climate before; he is not credible on this subject". This supposed myth, of course, happens to be absolutely correct. Here are some others, taken from the book and the EMS media advisory:
- "Global warming is not a major environmental problem."
Is this statement a myth? Certainly not. Our best estimate is that global average temperatures might increase by no more than a half a degree over the next hundred years as a result of greenhouse warming.
- "There is no evidence that global warming is real."
A myth? No. Plenty of natural fluctuations in the climate record, but no evidence yet of any warming trend.
- "The atmosphere has actually cooled since 1979, according to accurate satellite- based measurements."
A myth? Not at all; the statement is absolutely correct. Just check the scientific publications.
- "The less than one-half degree of temperature rise – all that global warming enthusiasts can find – is probably part of the slow recovery from the ‘Little Ice Age’."
A myth? Hardly. This is considered the most likely interpretation of why the temperature increased between 1900 and 1940, well before industrial activity and population grew.
- "Even if global warming does occur, any necessary adjustments would be small compared to the adjustments we make to temperature differences over the course of a year."
A myth? No. Just compare a half-a-degree increase to a summer-winter difference of as much as fifty degrees Celsius (in Minnesota).
- "If global warming is occurring, there’s probably not much we can do about it anyway."
Even without the benefit of modern technology, humanity has adjusted to much larger changes in the past millennia than we anticipate to happen in the next centuries.
- "Just a few decades ago, climatologists were concerned about global cooling. Scientists are obviously confused about the issue."
The first part of the statement is absolutely correct. And some scientists--like the Ehrlichs--are still confused.
In the Appendix, the Ehrlichs attack popular books that throw doubt on environmentalist claims. They stay away from the carefully researched The Resourceful Earth, edited by Julian Simon and the late Herman Kahn. It is interesting that they do not mention the widely publicized 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicts an exhaustion of all mineral resources in the 1980s and of oil soon thereafter. It would be too embarrassing to remind people of such failed predictions.
The same selective treatment is given to the so-called "scientific consensus" about global disasters. They quote a statement by scientific academies, concerned mainly with population growth, and the "World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity," put out by the activist Union of Concerned Scientists. They carefully avoid mentioning the "Heidelberg Appeal," which cautions against hasty policies based on shaky science and was signed by over 4000 scientists worldwide, including some 70 Nobel laureates. Nor do they mention the "Leipzig Declaration," specifi- cally concerned with the global warming scare, signed by nearly 100 atmospheric specialists.
I also note the absence of any mention of the "Morelia Declaration," a 1992 document signed by scientists that include some of the icons mentioned by the Ehrlichs in their acknowledgments--specifically, Thomas Lovejoy and Sherwood Rowland. Morelia calls for equal treatment of all species, including not only animals but also plants. So stinkweed should have the same rights as a human being? That notion might have been a bit too radical, even for the Ehrlichs.
S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, is the founding president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, and emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He was the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. In early publications, he predicted the increase of atmospheric methane, an important greenhouse gas, and devised the instrument used to measure stratospheric ozone from satellites.
"The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..." (p.xi.)
"A minimum of ten million people, most of them children, will starve to death during each year of the 1970s. But this is a mere handful compared to the numbers that will be starving before the end of the century" (p.3)
"Our position requires that we take immediate action at home and promote effective action worldwide. We must have population control at home, hopefully through changes in our value system, but by compulsion if voluntary methods fail." (pp.xi-xii)
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies -- often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survival." (p.152)
Ehrlich and his ilk are nothing more than Nazi scum. These are the people who think that humanity is a parasite, a disease, a cancer to be cut out. Environmentalism is a sick delusion and a form of totalitarianism.
In fairmess, he did (finally, years later) pay off the wager. Look for his picture in the dictionary next to the definition of 'loser'.
"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. Treating only the symptoms of cancer may make the victim more comfortable at first, but eventually he dies -- often horribly. A similar fate awaits a world with a population explosion if only the symptoms are treated. We must shift our efforts from treatment of the symptoms to the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survival." (p.152)
Well, Mr. Ehrlich, what's it going to be? Are there too many people and we need to kill them all off, or are there too FEW because they're starving to death?? Seems like a non-problem to me.
Someone needs to begin a drive in that state to change the name of these parks. They need to know that because of the unfounded predictions in that book, millions of people have died from malaria because of the ban on DDT. Rachel Carson has a worse record at killing people than Adolf himself.
Too bad it doesn't happen enough and 98% of mainstream report still reports the doom and gloom of global warmers are fact. It is should be embarrassing how bias and uninformed the reporting is.
As the economic collapse due to environmental regulations continues there will be less money available to fund environmentalists. Every time you meet someone recently put out of work, point out that it is environmental regulations that cost them their job. They might not get the connection right away, but since they are out of work, they will have time to listen to your explanation and perhaps a light will go on for them.
I say, break out the DDT. If any wacktovists show up to protest, we can use the for golf practice ala Bruce Willis in Armaggedon.
It hasn't happened yet. Once they have been thoroughly proven wrong, usually after a ton of regualtions have been passed and class action lawsuits won, they move on to their next looney theory and the cycle starts all over again. There is a sucker born every minute with no end in sight.
Julian Simon
... Julian Simon. 1932 - 1998.
Environmental scams:
That's true, it hasn't happened. It might not happen, either, but it could. Was thinking of the forest fires in the West in those very forests that some environmentalists are trying to preserve as pristine, and how environmentalists might increasingly not be considered as visionary by others, even though they themselves think they are.
Certainly deserves highlighting and repeating. ;^)
I have had several conversations with him since and even though he knows he can't convince the self-anointed, he continues to publish and to speak publically in that same sane, rational way.
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