From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Forecasters of doom
Date: 9 Sep 92 22:52:03 GMT
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group

In article <lak4kqINN9g4@news.bbn.com> hagstrop@oberon.mathcs.carleton.edu (Paul Hagstrom) writes:
>In article <BFsmqB1w164w@cellar.org> techie@cellar.org (William A Bacon)  
>writes:
>> part 2 of 3 parts wrong wrong wrong...........
>>    Over the years , environmental luminaries have been WRONG TIME AND TIME 
>> AGAIN. For example, 3tanford University professor Paul Ehrlich predicted in 
>> his 1968 BEst Seller THE POPULATION BOMB:"In the 1970's the world will 
>> undergo famines----HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE are goin g to starve to 
>> death in spite of any crash program embarked upon now" He also warned of 
>> severe water shortages: "In 1984 the United States will quite  literally by 
>> dying of thrist."
>
>Sure, predictions can be wrong; even those based on good evidence. In fact, it
>could very well be that the extremity of the view was more a "scare tactic"  
>than an honestly believed one.  The point, though, shouldn't be lost -- people 
>are incredibly careless with the environment, and more respect should be paid  
>to it.  Whether or not we're going to run out of paper in 20 years because no  
>trees are left, we'll run out of paper (and trees and the oxygen that they help
>supply) EVENTUALLY with CEO's sending memos to every staff member to tell them 
>that Mr. What-and-such is retiring or with a lot of the current beaucratic  
>nonsense present in the legal world (like, for instance, the continual  
>publishing and republishing of statutory corrections which include the whole  
>text of the statute for one correction at the end -- I type these things for a 
>[part of a] living, so I know that they exist, and in great quantities).  What 
>it mainly shows in unconsciousness to the environmental problem, which is  
>excusable only if that unconsciousness is soon removed.  Those who are  
>conscious of the problem and dismiss it as less important than their memos, I  
>find not excusable -- those who don't want to go along with recycling or paper 
>reduction because it seems "trendy", those who are out mainly to irritate  
>co-workers rather than to think about issues.

The problem with this scenario is that there is more standing pulpwood
in the US today than in 1900. We're in no danger of running out of paper
or the trees to produce them. This is exactly the same kind of emotional,
uninformed, and *wrong* scaremongering that Mr. Bacon was addressing.

>The point?  These inflated predictions of doom shouldn't discredit the entire  
>environmentalist cause.

But they *do* and that's tragic because there are some real environmental
issues that need to be addressed. They are lost, however, in the deluge
of doomster propaganda. An old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me." Another says that crying wolf too many times
means that no one will come when the wolf is really at the door. That's 
the danger presented by the doomsters. As people come to understand that
they are lying, it becomes harder for real environmental problems to be
raised. All environmental issues get tarred with the same brush.

Gary
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,ca.politics