Global Warming
Another in a long list of environmentalist hobgoblins
By Robert Harrington
Global warming is being debated as a question of science, but it is far more a matter of faith and ideology. That is clear from a devastating critique of environmentalism in the December 20 issue of The Economist.
Putting the current debate in perspective, it recounts many pathetically mistaken forecasts by doomsayers in the past, beginning with Thomas Malthus' famous and widely believed warning in 1798 that starvation in Great Britain was imminent. Other equally flawed environmentalist forecasts were:
The Club of Rome also made dire predictions about supplies of natural gas and minerals that proved to be wildly exaggerated. Paul Ehrlich, famous for his gloomy prediction of a "population explosion," made a widely publicized wager with Julian Simon in 1980 concerning the change in prices of a group of metals in ten years. Ehrlich lost badly because by 1990 the combined prices actually fell by 57 percent. In fact, of 35 minerals, all but two (manganese and zinc) fell in price.
Gloomy forecasts for food production have been equally mistaken. Although world population has doubled since 1961, per capita food production has actually increased by 20 percent. "Global 2000," a report to President Carter in 1980, forecast increases in food prices of 35 to 115 percent by the year 2000; the actual today, with two years to go, is a decrease of 50 percent.
The rage in the early 1980s was acid rain, which was said to be damaging forests in Europe and the United States. Forests on both sides of the Atlantic thrived.
Concerning global warming, which The Economist calls "the mother of all environmentalist scares," it says the jury is still out but juxtaposes these two quotes:
The Economist describes the typical evolution of an environmental scare, beginning with discovery of a threat by a scientist and ending with a "quiet climbdown." The latter appears to be under way for global warming with the retreat in the forecast of rises in global temperatures from "uncontrolled," to 2.5-4 degrees, to the most recent 1.5-3 degrees in 100 years.
A common rejoinder by environmentalists is that we should take action even though their theories are not proven, a "better safe than sorry" argument. The trouble is that many such actions have serious costs that are unnecessary if the theories prove wrong, as they almost invariably have in the past. Some policies recommended by alarmists are downright misanthropic, such as coerced family planning pushed by Dr. Ehrlich.
The only environmental scare in the past 30 years that was borne out was the effects of DDT on certain animals. All others were either grossly exaggerated or simply wrong.
Environmentalists make no apology for their dismal record and are hypocritical to boot, accusing opponents of having vested interests. That may be true, but many environmentalists' careers would evaporate if their predictions of doom were rejected. The same is true of many politicians who promote themselves by scaring people. This practice was noted famously by H. L. Mencken, whom The Economist quoted as follows: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and hence clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
Gilroy Dispatch, December 30, 1997