Article

2012-08-19 Economy

Why Hasn't Environmental Doom Materialised?

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Posted by Bobby 2012-08-19 07:43|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 Because it was always bullshit?

Posted by NCMike 2012-08-19 08:29|| 2012-08-19 08:29|| Front Page Top

#2 See - chicken little.

Yes, but we're so modern, hip, and sophisticated, that simple homilies that address well known human behavior are only for the unwashed, fly over, bible thumping, gun toting rubes.

Posted by Procopius2k 2012-08-19 08:42|| 2012-08-19 08:42|| Front Page Top

#3 Malthus ver. 72.

The Malthusians are ever with us. My sister as a late teen went on a great rant to my father about all the typical '60s crap how the middle class suburbia was so terrible.

He simply quoted some of the same type of thing from the '20s and said how people always wanted to a) be scared and b) think themselves the saviors of man kind. SSDD.

Posted by AlanC 2012-08-19 09:14|| 2012-08-19 09:14|| Front Page Top

#4 we're so modern, hip, and sophisticated, that simple homilies that address well known human behavior are only for the unwashed, fly over, bible thumping, gun toting rubes.

Hardly something new (e.g. The Gods of the Copybook Headings)

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2012-08-19 09:17|| 2012-08-19 09:17|| Front Page Top

#5 Because environmental doom was always BS... leftist politics doom has become the real threat?

Posted by JohnQC 2012-08-19 10:37|| 2012-08-19 10:37|| Front Page Top

#6 re No 5; Yes, leftist politics has a long history of fatal results for non-believers (and some believers). And they have taken over the environmental doom thing as well.

Posted by tipover 2012-08-19 12:11|| 2012-08-19 12:11|| Front Page Top

#7 The modelers missed something -- human ingenuity...

An important factor, but it was more than that. Being interested in apocalypses and computer modeling, I actually read the Club of Rome report. One intriguing bit was that after predicting doom, they ran the models with different parameters looking for a way to save humanity. No dice. Everything they tried ran to the same outcome. This suggested either our fate was sealed (apparently not!) OR that the model was in an attractor basin and basically 'stuck' on a particular outcome.

The map is not the territory, the model is not the thing.

Also, I'd like to nominate Paul Erlich for the Nobel Prize for Being Wrong About Everything. He has sold a lot of books, though.

Posted by SteveS 2012-08-19 12:51|| 2012-08-19 12:51|| Front Page Top

#8 So well put P2K, dismissing the wisdom of the past because they didn't have our technology is foolish. Most core insights into human behavior and organization are not new....and dismissing the wisdom of the past is often a huge mistake, witness the education debacle for example.

Posted by NoMoreBS 2012-08-19 12:53|| 2012-08-19 12:53|| Front Page Top

#9 Conceptually the left cannot believe capitalism can solve the environmental issues; while trying to leverage the environmental issue as reasons to destroy capitalism.

Their goals and facts get in the way of their agenda.

Posted by Airandee 2012-08-19 13:03|| 2012-08-19 13:03|| Front Page Top

#10 I too read the CoR report. As a computer geek with a Poli Sci degree I agree with Steve S.

That model was as bogus as the models relied upon by the gerbil worming fanatics. Aside from the logical fallacies modeling always obeys the first law of computers...garbage in, garbage out.

It's very easy to play with the data to get the results you want.

These people don't care about the environment or the population, they only care about power; how to get it and how to keep it. Doomsaying is just one of their tools.

Posted by AlanC 2012-08-19 13:13|| 2012-08-19 13:13|| Front Page Top

#11 steve S #7-

Also, I'd like to nominate Paul Erlich for the Nobel Prize for Being Wrong About Everything. He has sold a lot of books, though.

To my way of seeing things, someone like Ehrlich should be tried and hanged for treason.

Of course, I'm just a neanderthal, according to the beautiful people.

Posted by no mo uro 2012-08-19 13:18|| 2012-08-19 13:18|| Front Page Top

#12 For all the people who believe that the problem with the world is there are too many people: Why are you still alive? If you truly believe that there are too many people, why haven't you committed suicide to help the problem?

The real problem for people who believe that there are too many people is that there are too many OTHER people. They of course think that they will be among the few survivors.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2012-08-19 13:42|| 2012-08-19 13:42|| Front Page Top

#13 RiV,
why haven't you committed suicide to help the problem?

Now wait a minute here. First they should all become mass murderers, after all, why kill the one when you can kill the many?

Do I need a sarc tag?

Posted by AlanC 2012-08-19 14:22|| 2012-08-19 14:22|| Front Page Top

#14 Holdren also worked for Romney in MA, so either way the environment wins!

Posted by Iblis 2012-08-19 15:17|| 2012-08-19 15:17|| Front Page Top

#15 if a certain predictor class has been wrong every single time in the last 40 years and their current predictions are based on models that don't even predict the present with any accuracy given data of the past then rationality would reject them out of hand. seriously folks, chicken poop bingo gives a better probability of accuracy than these 'experts' have.

Posted by abu do you love 2012-08-19 16:25|| 2012-08-19 16:25|| Front Page Top

#16 Without doom and death the Aasvoëls (vultures) have no meat.

Posted by Besoeker 2012-08-19 18:25|| 2012-08-19 18:25|| Front Page Top

#17 >Aside from the logical fallacies modeling always obeys the first law of computers...garbage in, garbage out.

Google "exponential error".
Good in, garbage out. Even if the model and the data are all really quite good (and they're not).

AGW models are the most expense random number generators in the history of the planet.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2012-08-19 19:58|| 2012-08-19 19:58|| Front Page Top

#18 "build a fire for a man and he's warm all night. Set a man on fire and he's warm all his life"

/never gets old

Posted by Frank G 2012-08-19 20:12|| 2012-08-19 20:12|| Front Page Top

#19 oops - wrong thread?

Posted by Frank G 2012-08-19 20:15|| 2012-08-19 20:15|| Front Page Top

#20 no idea how that happened...didn't have multiple tabs open for the Burg

Posted by Frank G 2012-08-19 20:16|| 2012-08-19 20:16|| Front Page Top

22:43 canalzone
22:21 Rambler in Virginia
21:59 Besoeker
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19:58 Bright Pebbles