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The Royal Society Disaster Movie: Starring The Ehrlichs And The Prince of Wales

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Anthony Watts, Watts Up With That

This is funny and sad at the same time. The funny part is the fact that none of Paul Erhlich’s doom and gloom predictions about the human condition from the 70′s on have even come remotely close to true, the sad part is that the Royal Society, whose motto is Nullius in verba, Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it”, is taking the word of this doomer that can’t predict his way out of a paper bag. The focus now? You guessed it: global warming causing “escalating climate disruption”, which is unsupportable when you look at the data.

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Even the IPCC in theirSREX report doesn’t agree with claims of  “escalating climate disruption” as Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. pointed out. Plus, Nature recently went on record with an editorial saying Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.

These facts seem to make no dent in the doomers thinking, which seems to believe we are as ill equipped as the Mayans to manage ourselves, our resources, and our environment. One wonders about their sanity.

(h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard).

prophets of doom

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?

10 January 2013
Title:Perspective: Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided?
Authors:Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich
Journal:Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Throughout our history environmental problems have contributed to collapses of civilizations. A new paper published yesterday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B addresses the likelihood that we are facing a global collapse now. The paper concludes that global society can avoid this and recommends that social and natural scientists collaborate on research to develop ways to stimulate a significant increase in popular support for decisive and immediate action on our predicament.

Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s paper provides a comprehensive description of the damaging effects of escalating climate disruption, overpopulation, overconsumption, pole-to-pole distribution of dangerous toxic chemicals, poor technology choices, depletion of resources including water, soils, and biodiversity essential to food production, and other problems currently threatening global environment and society. The problems are not separate, but are complex, interact, and feed on each other.

The authors say serious environmental problems can only be solved and a collapse avoided with unprecedented levels of international cooperation through multiple civil and political organizations. They conclude that if that does not happen, nature will restructure civilization for us.

In a statement on his website, HRH The Prince of Wales has reacted to the paper, agreeing, “We do, in fact, have all the tools, assets and knowledge to avoid the collapse of which this report warns, but only if we act decisively now. If, though, in our evermore interconnected and complex world, we are to succeed, real leadership and vision is required. It is just possible that we can rise to this challenge, but to do so we will need to adjust our world view in a profound and comprehensive way. We have to see ourselves as utterly embedded in Nature and not somehow separate from those precious systems that sustain all life. I have said it before, and I will say it again – our grandchildren’s future depends entirely on whether we seize the initiative and prevaricate no further.”

Watts Up With That, 11 January 2013