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I was alive in the 1970s when folks like the Club of Rome declared we'll all be dead form overpopulation and Malthusian collapse by the year 2000. Those self-s

by bregma 7y ago

I was alive in the 1970s when folks like the Club of Rome declared we'll all be dead form overpopulation and Malthusian collapse by the year 2000. Those self-same folks told us this century the arctic will be completely ice free by 2013. In the 1980s, others predicted our total demise due to acid rain and ozone depletion. Mean time, people are making good progress on both feeding the masses and curbing the exponential growth of humanity across the globe. At the same time, clear progress is happening on the reduction-of-greenhouse-gas-emissions front. Acid rain and ozone depletion have been curtailed. We'll always have doomsayers, extremists, and prophets. They're so busy with themselves they rarely get in the way of people who actually get work done.

mola 7y ago
On the other hand, these doomsayers also caused public outcry that changed a few things. We can never know if these changes are the reason doom didn't happen, or because the prospects were imaginary. Anyway, I believe that it'll be very hard to annihilate humanity let alone the planet, but it'll be very easy to lower the living standards slowly enough that we won't notice the reasons for it. If you plan to have children, I think it's something you should thinks of. Ofcourse, I'd prefer a rational discussion regarding the issues. But the powers at be, which usually have what to lose, usually steer the debate to be anti rational. And then you find yourself in a position where you must exaggerate in order to gain attention to your cause. It's a tragedy...
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Club of Rome predictions are pretty much spot on. It's been re-evaluated two or three times recently and each time has held up an amazingly accurate picture of what has happened since. See here for the graphs filled in the intervening years[1]. I don't recall any ice predictions from Club of Rome - do you have a link? In the 1980s the world actually came together to phase out CFCs, and fit sulphur scrubbers on coal power stations. Interestingly the builders of Battersea were the first to fit these - in 1925. They took a while to catch on. The ozone hole has finally stopped increasing only this decade. It's trending to resolve in 50 more years, if and only if, the recent discovery of CFC use in China doesn't grow. So a century to probably solve the man-made problem. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits...
fallingfrog 7y ago
Except the people predicting climate change isn’t the club of Rome, it’s an entire scientific community, who have been double, triple, and quadruple checking every measurement and assumption for 50 years. This is not some hysterical group of panicked hippies. We’re talking about broad consensus among all the most educated and intelligent members of our civilization. Please show a little respect and listen to them.
- spaginal 7y ago
  You are missing the fact that the salesmen of climate change have been politicians, and politicians lie, and politicians propose political solutions, they want more and more of my limited money, and browbeat people who already don’t like or trust them, and frankly that is a bad combination of tactics if the solution is needed that badly across the broad spectrum of the population. If climate change stops being sold as a one sided political problem with one sided political solutions, you may see momentum on it, but speaking as a conservative, when your pitch men and women are Bernie Sanders, Warren, and Cortez, amongst others, people I don’t trust and disagree with already, people who have tried framing me as a stupid person who doesn’t get it, you have already lost me entirely on the pitch before it left their mouths. Change the salesman and the tactic, because the current one doesn’t work, and it is doomed to failure because of that.
  - fallingfrog 7y ago
    The conservatives will never support addressing climate change honestly, because they are getting too much money from the fossil fuel industries. I mean honestly, that’s like saying, I won’t believe that we are spending too much money on the military until I hear it from Northrop Grumman. So you’re going to be waiting a long time if that’s what you’re waiting for. None of those people care at all about you or your kids or the worlds future. Not one single bit. You are literally listening to the people who have the greatest conflict of interest on the subject and the least competence in it. It’s no wonder you’re confused.
    - Junk_Collector 7y ago
gjm11 7y ago
> folks like the Club of Rome declared we'll all be dead from overpopulation and Malthusian collapse by the year 2000 Some of the actual predictions from the CoR's "Limits to Growth", according to the Wikipedia page about that document: > Given business as usual, i.e., no changes to historical growth trends, the limits to growth on earth would become evident by 2072, leading to "sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity". (2072 is quite a long time after 2000. I wonder whether it's a typo for 2027, given what follows, but that too is a long time after 2000.) > Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline ... Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline ... Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline ... Global population reaches a peak in 2030, followed by a rapid decline Those are all well after 2020. (The first of them doesn't seem like it's correct, thankfully. I suspect the others are some way off, too. But I'm not arguing that the CoR were right, only that they didn't say what you say they said.)
jonnypotty 7y ago
Really like that last paragraph, toally agree. I'm not sure I agree about the clear progress on reduction of greenhouse gases thou. Expanding consumerism and population in a carbon economy would seem to preclude this. Can you explain your thinking?

by bregma 7y ago

mola 7y ago

On the other hand, these doomsayers also caused public outcry that changed a few things. We can never know if these changes are the reason doom didn't happen, or because the prospects were imaginary. Anyway, I believe that it'll be very hard to annihilate humanity let alone the planet, but it'll be very easy to lower the living standards slowly enough that we won't notice the reasons for it. If you plan to have children, I think it's something you should thinks of. Ofcourse, I'd prefer a rational discussion regarding the issues. But the powers at be, which usually have what to lose, usually steer the debate to be anti rational. And then you find yourself in a position where you must exaggerate in order to gain attention to your cause. It's a tragedy...

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Club of Rome predictions are pretty much spot on. It's been re-evaluated two or three times recently and each time has held up an amazingly accurate picture of what has happened since. See here for the graphs filled in the intervening years[1]. I don't recall any ice predictions from Club of Rome - do you have a link? In the 1980s the world actually came together to phase out CFCs, and fit sulphur scrubbers on coal power stations. Interestingly the builders of Battersea were the first to fit these - in 1925. They took a while to catch on. The ozone hole has finally stopped increasing only this decade. It's trending to resolve in 50 more years, if and only if, the recent discovery of CFC use in China doesn't grow. So a century to probably solve the man-made problem. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits...

fallingfrog 7y ago

Except the people predicting climate change isn’t the club of Rome, it’s an entire scientific community, who have been double, triple, and quadruple checking every measurement and assumption for 50 years. This is not some hysterical group of panicked hippies. We’re talking about broad consensus among all the most educated and intelligent members of our civilization. Please show a little respect and listen to them.

spaginal 7y ago
You are missing the fact that the salesmen of climate change have been politicians, and politicians lie, and politicians propose political solutions, they want more and more of my limited money, and browbeat people who already don’t like or trust them, and frankly that is a bad combination of tactics if the solution is needed that badly across the broad spectrum of the population. If climate change stops being sold as a one sided political problem with one sided political solutions, you may see momentum on it, but speaking as a conservative, when your pitch men and women are Bernie Sanders, Warren, and Cortez, amongst others, people I don’t trust and disagree with already, people who have tried framing me as a stupid person who doesn’t get it, you have already lost me entirely on the pitch before it left their mouths. Change the salesman and the tactic, because the current one doesn’t work, and it is doomed to failure because of that.
- fallingfrog 7y ago
  The conservatives will never support addressing climate change honestly, because they are getting too much money from the fossil fuel industries. I mean honestly, that’s like saying, I won’t believe that we are spending too much money on the military until I hear it from Northrop Grumman. So you’re going to be waiting a long time if that’s what you’re waiting for. None of those people care at all about you or your kids or the worlds future. Not one single bit. You are literally listening to the people who have the greatest conflict of interest on the subject and the least competence in it. It’s no wonder you’re confused.
  - Junk_Collector 7y ago

gjm11 7y ago

> folks like the Club of Rome declared we'll all be dead from overpopulation and Malthusian collapse by the year 2000 Some of the actual predictions from the CoR's "Limits to Growth", according to the Wikipedia page about that document: > Given business as usual, i.e., no changes to historical growth trends, the limits to growth on earth would become evident by 2072, leading to "sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity". (2072 is quite a long time after 2000. I wonder whether it's a typo for 2027, given what follows, but that too is a long time after 2000.) > Global Industrial output per capita reaches a peak around 2008, followed by a rapid decline ... Global Food per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline ... Global Services per capita reaches a peak around 2020, followed by a rapid decline ... Global population reaches a peak in 2030, followed by a rapid decline Those are all well after 2020. (The first of them doesn't seem like it's correct, thankfully. I suspect the others are some way off, too. But I'm not arguing that the CoR were right, only that they didn't say what you say they said.)

jonnypotty 7y ago

Really like that last paragraph, toally agree. I'm not sure I agree about the clear progress on reduction of greenhouse gases thou. Expanding consumerism and population in a carbon economy would seem to preclude this. Can you explain your thinking?