Ehrlich is remembered most thoroughly for being spectacularly wrong—no matter what ecological time filter he employs, nor whether he does so intentionally deceptively or merely in a revisionist manner—-and we don’t need to remove him from that pedestal. He and Al Gore look good together in that Hall of Clinkers.
Roger Pielke over at The Honest Broker has been doing good work demonstrating how much harm these wild-eyed, hair-on-fire doomsayers have done to rational scientific policy.
The bitter pill: your opponents will never acknowledge they were wrong, never say sorry, never pay any real price. You have to love truth for its own sake.
I agree. Those predicting the end of the world by way of fossil fuel combustion will never acknowledge even doubt in such a claim. They will, I think, very soon declare victory because - hey - look at all the windmills.
Paul Ehrich was my commencement speaker at Franklin College in Franklin Indiana in 1977. I don't ever think I saw any group of people have a more open mouthed, shocked look, event ever. His vision of the world was to tell us that we were on the edge of disaster and that we faced an "ice age" and that over population was going to kill us. He has been wrong about ALL of it. Instead of too many people, its now become obvious, if things don't change, within a hundred years from now, the population will so collapse so as to threaten man's existence as the dominant species on this planet. As far as an "ice age," it now looks as though they were all wrong and that manmade climate change was a far-fetched joke, as many people said it was.
Absolutely, you are right. I went on to acquire 2 more college degrees (terminal masters) but I didn't ever consider myself part of the "academic crowd." You learned through the years that the pontificators and theorists would come and go. As you can see on so many medias today, many of these "professors" are SOOOO arrogant. If there was anything I learned over the years is that one should be conservative in your "opinions" and if you want to make wild assertions you should have research and legitimate data to back up your ideas.
How does this guy keep his job? After the Simon bet didn't the academics at Stanford take a second look? When 2000 came shouldn't he have been fired? Bad look for Stanford management. Ehrlich gives a bad name to academics and to the institutions who take him seriously. Along with climate "science" academics, he and his ilk have contributed to the widespread distrust of "science". I'm just a simple economic geologist who knows where "stuff" comes from and that HIS stuff was bull____ from day one.
Unfortunately, this is the norm for doom predictors. They are spectacularly wrong, refuse to admit it, and few people care enough to remember how spectacularly wrong they were.
But he is famous and respected, so I guess the goal was achieved.
I've been an ecologist for nearly as long as Paul. So I speck "ecologist" as well as English. So I can tell you what he is saying is the same for an ecologist, as it is to you. I find it depressing that he can't just say that he was wrong, and show he understands why. A permanently closed mind. Sad.
I suspect that, all things properly considered, there is an upper limit to this earth's carrying capacity and that at some future point it will have become clear that many of the world's problems were the direct result of there being to many of us and that most.of the world's problems could have be resolved if there had been fewer of us
Of *course* there's an upper limit to the earth's carrying capacity. But it isn't one fixed value for all eternity. Before microbes or whatever started producing oxygen, it was lower. Before life migrated to land, it was lower. Before agriculture, it was lower. Before the Industrial Revolution, it was lower. Before the Green Revolution, it was lower. Every change has raised the upper limit. There may well be some upper limit to the upper limit, but it would be the height of hubris to think we will even know what that limit is in our lifetimes.
The may or may not be true but is tangential to the point of the post. The words "the year 2000" has a very specific meaning to most of us and Erlich should know it has a specific meaning. Why would he use those words if he really just meant "at some point in the near future?" It's called prevarication and it's disgusting. Especially from a professor speaking in his own field.
Oops. Interesting that he would just not say, "I was Wrong"? I guess he is like all the other various end of the world cults. however, maybe he is right with his "ecological time" thing. Things are beginning to look a little scary from a global environment pov. Population will peak and we will feed them. but will not be good if the ice caps and the permafrost melts
That's a political answer. Politicians never admit they were wrong. Maybe once in a while in their memoirs, but even then it's usually hedged. There is a quote often attributed to JFK that Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. That is incorrect. Defeat had a thousand mothers because everyone blames their defeat on some other SOB or MF. After all Hitler said that the German people failed him. Not that he was wrong. I.E. It's all your fault.
Ehrlich is remembered most thoroughly for being spectacularly wrong—no matter what ecological time filter he employs, nor whether he does so intentionally deceptively or merely in a revisionist manner—-and we don’t need to remove him from that pedestal. He and Al Gore look good together in that Hall of Clinkers.
Roger Pielke over at The Honest Broker has been doing good work demonstrating how much harm these wild-eyed, hair-on-fire doomsayers have done to rational scientific policy.
The bitter pill: your opponents will never acknowledge they were wrong, never say sorry, never pay any real price. You have to love truth for its own sake.
I agree. Those predicting the end of the world by way of fossil fuel combustion will never acknowledge even doubt in such a claim. They will, I think, very soon declare victory because - hey - look at all the windmills.
Paul Ehrich was my commencement speaker at Franklin College in Franklin Indiana in 1977. I don't ever think I saw any group of people have a more open mouthed, shocked look, event ever. His vision of the world was to tell us that we were on the edge of disaster and that we faced an "ice age" and that over population was going to kill us. He has been wrong about ALL of it. Instead of too many people, its now become obvious, if things don't change, within a hundred years from now, the population will so collapse so as to threaten man's existence as the dominant species on this planet. As far as an "ice age," it now looks as though they were all wrong and that manmade climate change was a far-fetched joke, as many people said it was.
Ah, scares sell as well as sex... from a new Ice Age to global warming ... pick your poison! Is there an asylum for academic lunatics?
Absolutely, you are right. I went on to acquire 2 more college degrees (terminal masters) but I didn't ever consider myself part of the "academic crowd." You learned through the years that the pontificators and theorists would come and go. As you can see on so many medias today, many of these "professors" are SOOOO arrogant. If there was anything I learned over the years is that one should be conservative in your "opinions" and if you want to make wild assertions you should have research and legitimate data to back up your ideas.
How does this guy keep his job? After the Simon bet didn't the academics at Stanford take a second look? When 2000 came shouldn't he have been fired? Bad look for Stanford management. Ehrlich gives a bad name to academics and to the institutions who take him seriously. Along with climate "science" academics, he and his ilk have contributed to the widespread distrust of "science". I'm just a simple economic geologist who knows where "stuff" comes from and that HIS stuff was bull____ from day one.
Unfortunately, this is the norm for doom predictors. They are spectacularly wrong, refuse to admit it, and few people care enough to remember how spectacularly wrong they were.
But he is famous and respected, so I guess the goal was achieved.
Philip Tetlock has documented the behavior:
https://techratchet.com/2021/05/26/book-summary-expert-political-judgement-how-good-is-it-by-philip-tetlock/
Out of curiosity, does he give any explanation as to what "time means to an ecologist"?
I've been an ecologist for nearly as long as Paul. So I speck "ecologist" as well as English. So I can tell you what he is saying is the same for an ecologist, as it is to you. I find it depressing that he can't just say that he was wrong, and show he understands why. A permanently closed mind. Sad.
I thought he was dead and buried.
I suspect that, all things properly considered, there is an upper limit to this earth's carrying capacity and that at some future point it will have become clear that many of the world's problems were the direct result of there being to many of us and that most.of the world's problems could have be resolved if there had been fewer of us
Of *course* there's an upper limit to the earth's carrying capacity. But it isn't one fixed value for all eternity. Before microbes or whatever started producing oxygen, it was lower. Before life migrated to land, it was lower. Before agriculture, it was lower. Before the Industrial Revolution, it was lower. Before the Green Revolution, it was lower. Every change has raised the upper limit. There may well be some upper limit to the upper limit, but it would be the height of hubris to think we will even know what that limit is in our lifetimes.
Good.
The may or may not be true but is tangential to the point of the post. The words "the year 2000" has a very specific meaning to most of us and Erlich should know it has a specific meaning. Why would he use those words if he really just meant "at some point in the near future?" It's called prevarication and it's disgusting. Especially from a professor speaking in his own field.
Oops. Interesting that he would just not say, "I was Wrong"? I guess he is like all the other various end of the world cults. however, maybe he is right with his "ecological time" thing. Things are beginning to look a little scary from a global environment pov. Population will peak and we will feed them. but will not be good if the ice caps and the permafrost melts
That's a political answer. Politicians never admit they were wrong. Maybe once in a while in their memoirs, but even then it's usually hedged. There is a quote often attributed to JFK that Victory has a thousand fathers but defeat is an orphan. That is incorrect. Defeat had a thousand mothers because everyone blames their defeat on some other SOB or MF. After all Hitler said that the German people failed him. Not that he was wrong. I.E. It's all your fault.