One of my favorite movie scenes is from the 1984 Bill Murray classic Ghostbusters.
Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies. Rivers and seas boiling.
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness. Earthquakes, volcanoes…
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria.
I frequently think of this scene whenever I hear climate change activists in the popular media: half the earth turned to 
deserts; sea levels rising twenty feet; a cataclysmic rise in both the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. (Note the iconic hurricane coming from the smokestack on the cover of Al Gore’s documentary.) In reality, some scenarios suggest rising temperatures will evaporate more ocean water causing more rainfall in arid parts of the world. Contrary to Mr. Gore, the much-vaunted UN International Panel on Climate Change suggests a maximum rise in sea levels of about two feet over the next century. And there has been no change in the intensity or frequency of cyclical hurricane activity over the past 150 years as CO2 has increased, and recently published research in conjunction with the NOAA disputes that there is any reason to expect any change. (See here, here, and here).
Not that this kind of alarmism is particularly new. Don Bosch recently resurrected these choice quotes in a post:
“Hundreds of millions will soon perish in smog disasters in New York and Los Angeles…the oceans will die of DDT poisoning by 1979…the U.S. life expectancy will drop to 42 years by 1980 due to cancer epidemics.” – Paul Ehrlich, 1969.
“The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” – Nigel Calder, 1975.
“To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.” – Lamont Cole in Toxic Terror.
Of course, let us not forget the Club of Rome Limits to Growth report in 1972:
Relying on a computer model developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Limits to Growth predicted that world population would hit 7 billion by 2000 and set into effect a deadly chain reaction. The world would begin to run out of farm land in a mad scramble to feed everyone. The price of natural resources such as copper, tin, silver and oil would climb through the roof as the world began using them up.
Inevitably, no matter what sort of technological innovations or changes in the rate of population growth were made to the MIT model the result was always the same — the collapse of industrial civilization sometime in the 21st century.
The only solution to avoid this horrible outcome? Strict government-imposed controls on just about everything and a restriction of "average industrial output per capita at about the 1975 level." Failing to act immediately would result in disaster. "Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits to that growth," the report claimed. "A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse." (Overpopulation.com)
This is the kind of stuff I was reading as I was coming of age in the 1970s, and it is part of what sparked my interest in sociology and demography. And speaking of demography, let us not forget the patron saint of demography, Thomas Malthus, who wrote in 1798:
“The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race. The vices of mankind are active and able ministers of depopulation. They are the precursors in the great army of destruction, and often finish the dreadful work themselves. But should they fail in this war of extermination, sickly seasons, epidemics, pestilence, and plague advance in terrific array, and sweep off their thousands and tens of thousands. Should success be still incomplete, gigantic inevitable famine stalks in the rear, and with one mighty blow levels the population with the food of the world.” – Thomas Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population
With all this in mind, here comes an interesting story from Canada. Canada’s environment minister, John Baird, is warning that attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions to a level 6% below 1990 levels could have some serious economic consequences. He believes it will impose huge costs on businesses and could raise unemployment rates by 25%. The article closes with this priceless statement:
“Some opposition MPs and environmentalists countered that Mr Baird's findings were based on assumptions chosen for their frightening conclusions.”
Turns out, identifying any negative consequences of attempting to influence the climate makes you the real climate change alarmist. 🙂
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