The further to the left or the right you move, the more your lens on life distorts.

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

An Apocalyptic Fantasy

Fantasy thinkers are fascinating to observe. When they take a position on a topic—any topic—they don't allow facts to get in the way. If verified and irrefutable facts invalidate their fantasy,  they are discounted as "disinformation" [a relatively new term (accusation) that allows fantasy thinkers to see only what they want to see and hear only what they want to hear]. Alternatively, inconvenient facts that can't be labeled "disinformation" are censored (social media is a prime example) so that only "approved" narratives reach a fantasy thinker's consciousness.

And when this approved information leads to policies that inevitably result in bad outcomes, fantasy thinkers demand more of the same, much more. They reject any suggestion that failed policies are problematic and refuse to learn from their own glaring mistakes. It's only their messaging that needs to be tweaked, not their ideas.

I mention this because a few days after Earth Day (and prior to Elon Musk's proposed purchase of the social media platform), the Associated Press reported that "Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google."

Now, let me be clear—I and tens of millions of citizens want a clean planet—clean air, clean water, and a stable environment. I am an active proponent of sustainable energy usage, own EVs exclusively, have a solar array on the roof of my house, thereby reducing my carbon footprint dramatically. I don't fly private like many, many hypocritical "save the earth" advocates—Hollywood glitterati, many corporate executives, and government functionaries like John Kerry come to mind.

But I am not a fantasy thinker, and therefore, I reject the notion that the apocalyptic predictions of climate change activists (and the destructive policies that many of them propose) are to be taken seriously. As Stuart Kirk, the person who headed up HBSC's  responsible investing stated in a presentation that almost got him fired and cancelled by his more woke colleagues,

“Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong.” 

But, but, but, say the fantasy thinkers, that means you're rejecting 'scientific consensus.' You're a "climate denier!"

Let's examine that "consensus" over the years and determine just who the real "deniers" are.

But first a few questions. Would any rational person continue to believe the projections and reports developed by activist scientists when past apocalyptic projections in those reports have never come to pass? Wouldn't a continuing stream of erroneous claims by the media be a reason to discount current claims by the same media? 

Nope, not if you're a fantasy thinker. After all, some people get off on being catastrophists. Think: the insanity we've just been through with the COVID virus—purposeful data misinterpretation, mainstream media manipulation, politicization of scientific studies, censorship of legitimate scientific questions, and bastardization of statistics, demonization of alternative strategies. All led to public policies that did far more harm than good, generating unintended consequences for adults and children that may be with us for years, if not decades. There are eerie similarities between the treatment of COVID and the decades-long hysteria surrounding global warming and climate change.

But back to the "consensus" on climate change. Since the 1960s, climate activists have presented the public with an apocalyptic vision of the future (first it was "cooling," then "warming," and finally a more amorphous "change"), going so far as to make predictions—lots of them. That was their fatal flaw, given that few of their predictions have come to pass.

Mark J. Perry provides a list of predictions that go back to the 1960s (with appropriate links):

Below are the 41 failed doomsday, eco-pocalyptic predictions (with links):

1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph)
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!
37. 2005: Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41. 1970s: Killer Bees!

Update: I’ve added 9 additional failed predictions (via Real Climate Science) below to make it an even 50 for the number of failed eco-pocalyptic doomsday predictions over the last 50 years.

42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter

But somehow this time will be different, and the ‘experts’ and 16-year olds of today will suddenly be correct in their new predictions of eco-doom and eco-disaster? Not.

Just as there were those who became hysterical as predictions of widespread COVID deaths among pre-K to 12th grade children (statistics indicate that serious cases were exceptionally rare, so rare in fact, that a child's likelihood of dying from COVID was significantly lower than their likelihood of dying in an auto accident), there were those who truly believed the climate predictions noted above. None of these predictions came to pass—not one—but fantasy thinkers continue to believe every new one that is foisted on the public today.

Is the climate warming? Probably, but even that is uncertain and may be part of a natural cycle of climate change that has been observed for millions of years. We do not understand the extremely complex, multivariate system that effects climate. We do not fully understand the impact of sun spots, ocean currents, cloud cover, the earth's magnetic field and dozens of other variables. We rely on "climate models" that cannot predict current conditions given past historical data, making them hardly trustworthy.  

Just this month, Nature, that among many other well-respected scientific publications has published dozens of articles and report summaries that can only be characterized as 'climate alarmist' writes:

Users beware: a subset of the newest generation of [climate] models are ‘too hot’ and project climate warming in response to carbon dioxide emissions that might be larger than that supported by other evidence.

Earth is a complicated system of interconnected oceans, land, ice and atmosphere, and no computer model could ever simulate every aspect of it exactly.

Many of us who aren't "climate scientists" have been saying that for the past decade or so. It's nice to see that Nature and others are finally rejecting fantasy thinking and being a bit more real.

The bottom line is this: we have no precise quantitative measures of humankind's contribution to a changing climate, and yet—we want to enact policies that would have a profound impact of the global economy and on people's lives and livelihoods. Sound familiar?

Apocalyptic predictions (the "orthodoxy") are a tool used by activists and their media allies in an effort to control the narrative and enact national/global policies that are near-dictatorial. Few of their dire predictions have come to pass, but they don't care. Fantasy thinkers might want to look in the mirror to see who the real "deniers" actually are.

UPDATE:

As if to put an exclamation point on forward-looking, apocalyptic predictions that address the environment, the New York Times recently reported on a study that suggested that a mass extinction would occur in the world's oceans in the year 2300 due to continuing use of fossil fuels. Yup, the authors of the study claim that about 280 years from now, the oceans will be barren of most life. This crazy prediction is a worst-worst case scenario, yet the NYT thought it important enough to feature in their "newspaper of record." Other supposedly reputable news sources followed suit. Why?

First, it fits the preferred environmental narrative. Second, it predicts an apocalyptic future that dovetails nicely with the fear-driven narrative that has been effectively used for all climate change. Third, it cannot be verified by any living human, so the authors and the NYT can't be fact-checked—ever. And wow, it's really scary (if you're a fantasy thinker).

No matter that attempts to predict climate 28 years out have been weak at best (see the body of this post). Any attempt to predict ocean status 280 years out is hubris to the max—worst case or not.