This con is not new. Yet we continue to fall for it.
Michael Crichton’s speech “The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming” reported :
In the first Earth Day in 1970, UC Davis’s Kenneth Watt said, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.” International Wildlife warned “a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war” as a threat to mankind. Science Digest said “we must prepare for the next ice age.” The Christian Science Monitor noted that armadillos had moved out of Nebraska because it was too cold, glaciers had begun to advance, and growing seasons had shortened around the world. Newsweek reported “ominous signs” of a “fundamental change in the world’s weather.”
But in fact, every one of these statements was wrong.
In “Complexity Theory and Environmental Management” Crichton shared these dire predictions:
1972, Meadows et al, The Limits of Growth: “We are unanimously convinced that rapid, radical redressment of the present unbalanced and dangerously detriorating world situation is the primary task facing mankind… Concerted international measures and joint long-term planning will be necessary on a scale and scope without precedent… This supreme effort is… founded on a basic change in values and goals at individual, national, and world levels…”
1968, Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb: “The operation will demand many apparently brutal and heartless decisions. The pain may be intense. But the disease is so far advanced that only with radical surgery does the patient have a chance of survivial.”
Please note that pattern. Dire predictions are asserted as a pretext for the massive accumulation of centralized power at the expense of individual liberty. That is always the trade advanced by such cons: give me power and I will give you security; give me power or you face impending disaster arising from capitalism (always scapegoated for government-generated economic calamity), global warming, global cooling, population growth, or technological issues like, e.g., Y2K (per Crichton again):
- 1998, UN Working Group on Informatics: “History offers no example of a parallel threat on a global, national, or even a local scale. To ‘wait and see’ invites only disaster. Only the long-term threats of global warming, oxygen loss, exhaustion of other basic resources in the oceans and continents as well as the eventual possibility of an earth-asteroid collision demand worldwide action on a similar scale… A worldwide strategic mobilization… similar to the effort required by World War II must be developed in the weeks ahead.”
As Crichton elaborates:
“What actually happened on January 1, 2000? Essentially, nothing.
“But once again, notice the urgent language. The situation is desperate, unprecedented action is necessary, ordinary values must be pushed aside, anyone who disagrees is dangerous and reactionary. Terror, fear, and the end of civilization.
“Now you may be thinking, wait a minute, Y2K was a real problem and the concerns, even if exaggerated, nevertheless mobilized people and led to success. This is a common but erroneous view. Here is the UN again: ‘During the first months of the new century only minor problems were reported… The governments… can congratulate themselves for passing the Y2K challenge.’ (UN website).
“So governments can congratulate themselves! The only problem is, they have no reason to congratulate themselves, because governments didn’t solve this problem. The US government spent 6 billion dollars. But Citibank alone spent nearly 1 billion. And total US expenditures were on the order of 100 billion, which means the government spent 6% of the total needed to fix the problem.
“Would Citibank have spent the money to fix its Y2K problem without government urging? Of course, because not to do so would have put them out of business. The same is true of other banks and businesses around the world. Yet government takes the credit. To encourage what is happening anyway is a common procedure in many areas of advocacy.”
I highly recommend Crichton’s speeches as a small antidote to the constant shilling that characterizes major media, a key perpetrator of this long con. His talks are great stuff.
