Via Richard W. Fulmer – September 13, 2022
“To the extent that the challenges presented by the article are more real than Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 claim that ‘The war to feed all humanity is over,’ the best response is to ignore the scientists’ solution. science.”
In January 2021, Paul and Anne Ehrlich and a host of other prominent scientists published a paper grimly titled, Underestimate the challenge of avoiding a scary future. The excerpt appeared in the online magazine, Frontiers in Conservation Science“Where,” the ad headline tells us, “scientists empower society.”
The heavily annotated paper warns that continued population growth will lead to increased consumption, which in turn will lead to a loss of biodiversity leading to a 6th mass extinction, climate change leading to mass migration , declining child health, water and earth poisoning, more pandemics, increased terrorism, wars over resources and greater material inequality.
The authors also warn about the possibility of “inflation” and “excess”:
A central concept in ecology is density feedback – as a population approaches environmental tolerance, the individual’s average fitness decreases. This tends to… [slow or reverse] population growth. But for most of history, human ingenuity has increased the tolerance of our natural environment for us by developing new ways to increase food production, expanding animal exploitation. wild and enhances the availability of other resources.
This inflation involves temperature regulation through shelter, clothing and microclimate control, transportation of goods from distant locations, and generally reduces the probability of death or injury through the facility. infrastructure and community services. But with the availability of fossil fuels, our species has pushed nature’s consumption of goods and services far beyond the long-term carrying capacity (or more accurately, the biological capacity of the planet). ), making throttling away from the inevitable overload much more catastrophic if not carefully managed.
Although seemingly appalled at the fruits of human ingenuity, the authors seem dimly aware that material wealth is essential to solving the multitude of problems they anticipate, but only to the extent that it is required for “political competence”:
Increased stresses on human health, wealth and well-being will disproportionately reduce our political capacity to mitigate the erosion of ecosystem services that society provides. association depends on.
Their solution, of course, is less freedom and more government:
The gravity of the situation calls for fundamental changes to global capitalism, education and equality, including the permanent eradication of economic growth, rapid and rational external pricing. get rid of fossil fuels, tightly regulate markets and buy back assets, reign In [sic] corporate lobbying and women’s empowerment.
While we were told that government solutions were needed, sadly the focus of the government was misplaced:
Preventing biodiversity loss is not a top priority for any country, far ahead of other concerns such as jobs, health care, economic growth or monetary stability. .
Moreover,
Countries as a whole have fallen short of the goals of the five-year-old Paris Agreement (United Nations, 2016), and while global awareness and concern has grown, and scientists have suggested, major transformational changes (in energy production, pollution reduction, nature monitoring, food production, economics, population policy, etc.), an effective international response has yet to emerge presently.
For what? Scientists (who “empower society”) must step up and be scary:
While there have been recent calls for the scientific community in particular to be more vocal about their warnings to humanity, these warnings are still not sufficiently predictive in keeping with the scale. of the crisis. Since the existence of a human “optimism bias” causes some to underestimate the severity of a crisis and ignore expert warnings, a good communication strategy must cut ideally reduce this bias without causing asymmetry feelings of fear and despair. Therefore, experts in any field concerned with the future of the biosphere and human welfare must avoid caution, avoid roadblocks in the face of overwhelming challenges ahead, and “speak like it is so.”
To the extent the challenges presented by the article were more real than Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 declaration that “The war to feed all mankind is over,” the best response is to ignore the solutions of the scientist. Instead, I suggest we:
- Stop attacking the free market. Capitalism promotes growth and prosperity, reduces population growth and promotes a cleaner environment.
- Stop subsidizing “green” power sources. Governments around the world have focused on impractical alternatives to fossil fuels:
- Biomass generator, okay more pollution than coal and requires forests to be cleared for fuel.
- Wind turbines have unreliable This has increased costs and prompted homeowners and businesses to install backup generators.
- Solar farm, also unreliable.
- Biofuels such as ethanol from corn, are Dirty than gasoline and possibly (depending on the study) contains less energy than required to produce it.
- End vandalism laws (e.g. the Jones Act), lead to the use of less efficient modes of transport.
- End of farm subsidies, What results? deforestation, overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, overproduction of goods and unnecessary CO22 emissions and air pollution.
- Allows burns to be controlled prevent word jungle becomes tinder box.
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