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From Malthus through the Club of Rome and now this Chatham House there is an ongoing stream of dire predictions of apocalyptic events, none of which have come t

From Malthus through the Club of Rome and now this Chatham House there is an ongoing stream of dire predictions of apocalyptic events, none of which have come to pass. The same will be true for this report and - and this is the unfortunate part - nothing will be learned from yet another failed prediction of doomsday which evens the path for the next iteration of this cycle. In 20 years the world will mostly look like it does now, give or take the results of a few international conflicts and natural disasters. Some parts will have progressed in some way, other parts will have regressed in some way, the rest will be comparable to the way it looks now. The temperature will be different, possibly somewhat warmer unless an as of yet unknown factor ends up playing a role in the fluctuations of the climate - e.g. an increase in albedo due to an increase in cloud cover, changing ocean currents, etc. Meanwhile the public has to absorb yet another failed prediction of doomsday, leading to an even lower trust in these types of predictions. What was gained, other than giving Chatham House a place at the table? What is to happen if there is some real emergency - an incoming asteroid is detected, there ae real signs of a supervolcano on the verge of eruption - and people ignore it as yet another piece of panic porn?

golemotron 5y ago
> Henny Penny, more commonly known in the United States as Chicken Little and sometimes as Chicken Licken, is a European folk tale with a moral in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes that the world is coming to an end. The phrase "The sky is falling!" features prominently in the story, and has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. Similar stories go back more than 25 centuries; it continues to be referred to in a variety of media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny 25 centuries.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tuatoru 5y ago
IMO the new thing in this report is the emphasis on the likelihood of multi-region simultaneous crop failure - the "expert panel elicitation". That should feed into agricultural policy, and possibly into funding for research on heat-, drought-, and flood-tolerant varieties of key grain crops. More funding might also be put into staying on top of crop disease outbreaks, no matter where they appear in the world. With luck it feeds into funding for artificial meat and dairy, and puts an end to our brutal use of intelligent animals. (Disclosure: I work in the meat industry. Cattle/hogs/chickens are not the only animals brutally used.) I doubt an average member of the public has heard of Chatham House, but they are well known and respected in policy-making circles.
convolvatron 5y ago
I read through through the paper. they do a much better job of substantiating their arguments than you do.
- the_third_wave 5y ago
  The same was said about... - Thomas Malthus' 1798-1826 warnings about population growth leading to mass poverty and societal collapse... - Rachel Carson's 1962 warning about a silent spring as a consequence of the use of pesticides (especially DDT) leading to the extinction of wildlife and cancer in humans... - Paul Ehrlich's 1968 warning about mass starvation, he obviously read Malthus and thought he could do better. He didn't, his report has been widely debunked since the world has shown to be fully capable of producing enough food for the population - the problems lie in corruption and distribution, not production... - The Club of Rome (Meadows, Meadows & Randers) followed Malthus and Ehrlich in 1972 with a twist, ecological instability would lead to an uncontrollable decline in population and industrial capacity... - Norman Myers' 1979 prediction about mass extinction... - Jimmy Carter's (et al) 1977-1981 predictions of oil running out... - Al Gore's 2007 'hockeystick' Nobel Prize with the associated prediction of an ice-free North Pole by 2014... - Greenpeace's 2008 prediction of the oceans being picked clean, GMO foods causing a wave of new food allergies... - The WWF 2012 report predicting the need for at least another planet based on subjective assumptions and unsubstantiated data... Keep in mind that what I'm referring to here is only a small part of the doomsday predictions, there are far more on just about any subject - from climate catastrophe (from ice age to heat death) through nuclear winter past tectonic instability via death by UV due to a lack of ozone to... etcetera. Also keep in mind that it is the doomsday aspect of these predictions which is the problem, not the research (if any) itself. Research is fine, go ahead and publish it, if there are warning signs of some impending catastrophe make sure to verify your model and data by sharing it with the world for verification. What should not be done is the scientific equivalent of tabloid publishing by embellishing the conclusions to attract eyeballs - like the former publications did. Nearly all mentioned doomsday predictions contain a core of truth somewhere but that truth is hidden in the noise when compared to the exaggerated conclusions. When those conclusions turn out to be overblown the core truth also ends up losing credibility. Malthus, Ehrlich, Meadows, Randers et al were not totally wrong in warning about unbridled population growth, Carson was not lying when warning about the dangers of pesticides, Carter et al were right when they pointed out that oil is a finite resource, Greenpeace is not totally off-base in warning about the problems related to overfishing, etc. The problem lies in the exaggerated doomsday predictions they use to attract attention since these (fortunately) never come to fruition. There is a reason tabloids are seen as less trustworthy than traditional broadsheet newspapers - 'EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT, MYSTERIOUS LIGHTS AT DAWN SPOTTED, ALIEN INVASION NIGH?' is the tabloid equivalent of this type of prediction.
hh3k0 5y ago
> What was gained, other than giving Chatham House a place at the table? Chatham House? A place on the table? We're talking about a world-renowned think tank here. > What is to happen if there is some real emergency - an incoming asteroid is detected, there ae real signs of a supervolcano on the verge of eruption - and people ignore it as yet another piece of panic porn? Unlike some phantasy asteroid in your imagination, climate change _is_ a real emergency. That is the consensus among scientists -- but seems to me that you think you know better? On what basis, I wonder? And please cease with your transparent worries about people being blind to future disasters when everyone can see clearly that all you're interested in is justifying being blind to this one.

golemotron 5y ago

> Henny Penny, more commonly known in the United States as Chicken Little and sometimes as Chicken Licken, is a European folk tale with a moral in the form of a cumulative tale about a chicken who believes that the world is coming to an end. The phrase "The sky is falling!" features prominently in the story, and has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. Similar stories go back more than 25 centuries; it continues to be referred to in a variety of media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Penny 25 centuries.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tuatoru 5y ago

IMO the new thing in this report is the emphasis on the likelihood of multi-region simultaneous crop failure - the "expert panel elicitation". That should feed into agricultural policy, and possibly into funding for research on heat-, drought-, and flood-tolerant varieties of key grain crops. More funding might also be put into staying on top of crop disease outbreaks, no matter where they appear in the world. With luck it feeds into funding for artificial meat and dairy, and puts an end to our brutal use of intelligent animals. (Disclosure: I work in the meat industry. Cattle/hogs/chickens are not the only animals brutally used.) I doubt an average member of the public has heard of Chatham House, but they are well known and respected in policy-making circles.

convolvatron 5y ago

I read through through the paper. they do a much better job of substantiating their arguments than you do.

the_third_wave 5y ago
The same was said about... - Thomas Malthus' 1798-1826 warnings about population growth leading to mass poverty and societal collapse... - Rachel Carson's 1962 warning about a silent spring as a consequence of the use of pesticides (especially DDT) leading to the extinction of wildlife and cancer in humans... - Paul Ehrlich's 1968 warning about mass starvation, he obviously read Malthus and thought he could do better. He didn't, his report has been widely debunked since the world has shown to be fully capable of producing enough food for the population - the problems lie in corruption and distribution, not production... - The Club of Rome (Meadows, Meadows & Randers) followed Malthus and Ehrlich in 1972 with a twist, ecological instability would lead to an uncontrollable decline in population and industrial capacity... - Norman Myers' 1979 prediction about mass extinction... - Jimmy Carter's (et al) 1977-1981 predictions of oil running out... - Al Gore's 2007 'hockeystick' Nobel Prize with the associated prediction of an ice-free North Pole by 2014... - Greenpeace's 2008 prediction of the oceans being picked clean, GMO foods causing a wave of new food allergies... - The WWF 2012 report predicting the need for at least another planet based on subjective assumptions and unsubstantiated data... Keep in mind that what I'm referring to here is only a small part of the doomsday predictions, there are far more on just about any subject - from climate catastrophe (from ice age to heat death) through nuclear winter past tectonic instability via death by UV due to a lack of ozone to... etcetera. Also keep in mind that it is the doomsday aspect of these predictions which is the problem, not the research (if any) itself. Research is fine, go ahead and publish it, if there are warning signs of some impending catastrophe make sure to verify your model and data by sharing it with the world for verification. What should not be done is the scientific equivalent of tabloid publishing by embellishing the conclusions to attract eyeballs - like the former publications did. Nearly all mentioned doomsday predictions contain a core of truth somewhere but that truth is hidden in the noise when compared to the exaggerated conclusions. When those conclusions turn out to be overblown the core truth also ends up losing credibility. Malthus, Ehrlich, Meadows, Randers et al were not totally wrong in warning about unbridled population growth, Carson was not lying when warning about the dangers of pesticides, Carter et al were right when they pointed out that oil is a finite resource, Greenpeace is not totally off-base in warning about the problems related to overfishing, etc. The problem lies in the exaggerated doomsday predictions they use to attract attention since these (fortunately) never come to fruition. There is a reason tabloids are seen as less trustworthy than traditional broadsheet newspapers - 'EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT, MYSTERIOUS LIGHTS AT DAWN SPOTTED, ALIEN INVASION NIGH?' is the tabloid equivalent of this type of prediction.

hh3k0 5y ago

> What was gained, other than giving Chatham House a place at the table? Chatham House? A place on the table? We're talking about a world-renowned think tank here. > What is to happen if there is some real emergency - an incoming asteroid is detected, there ae real signs of a supervolcano on the verge of eruption - and people ignore it as yet another piece of panic porn? Unlike some phantasy asteroid in your imagination, climate change _is_ a real emergency. That is the consensus among scientists -- but seems to me that you think you know better? On what basis, I wonder? And please cease with your transparent worries about people being blind to future disasters when everyone can see clearly that all you're interested in is justifying being blind to this one.