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Prophets of Doom

07 Aug 2020 | Crystal Ball

Prophets of Doom Crystal Ball

TRANSCRIPT

John Robson

Lately I’ve been reading what the experts are saying about the climate crisis, and it’s frightening stuff.

It’s time to get serious. We can’t keep ignoring the warnings. The picture is terrifying.

Narrator

According to top climate scientist James Hansen we have only ten years to act decisively and avert catastrophe.

Australia’s Chief Climate Scientist says the world has only five years to avoid disastrous warming. And a senior Australian government climate advisor says Adelaide could be out of water as soon as the end of next year.

NASA climate experts have predicted the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free within six years. And the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within 10 years.

The US Secretary of State says we have only 10 years before climate change will be “catastrophic and irreversible, and a threat to human security, global stability and American national security.”

The United Nations Environment Program predicts there will be 50 million climate refugees within two years. 1930s-style dust bowl conditions will devastate Canadian and US wheat-growing regions. The Maldives will be completely under water within 30 years.

And within the next 11 years, entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if global warming isn’t reversed.

John Robson

Granted, it’s not all doom and gloom. That same UN report also says warming could raise agricultural output in the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union? When was this written?

June 29, 1989.

These warnings that entire nations were going to be wiped off the map, and Canada’s prairies would be destroyed by drought, within eleven years were made… 31 years ago?

You know, last time I flew over them, the prairies were still there, and as we pointed out in our video on failed Canadian government climate predictions, wheat production has actually soared over the past two decades.

Also, as we’ve reported in our newsletters, countries are not being wiped off the map by rising sea levels. In fact small Pacific islands like the Maldives [as a number of viewers have pointed out, the Maldives are of course in the Indian Ocean] are holding up just fine.

So, maybe we should check when all those other scary predictions were made. Fortunately, it’s easy to do thanks to the website Extinctionclock.org.

Narrator

According to top climate scientist James Hansen we have only ten years to act decisively and avert catastrophe.

John Robson

That was September 14, 2006. So we had until 2016, which was four years ago. Was there a climate catastrophe and I missed it?

Narrator

Australia’s Chief Climate Scientist says the world has only have five years to avoid disastrous warming.

John Robson

December 4, 2009. We only had five years left, 11 years ago.

Narrator

And a senior Australian government climate advisor says Adelaide could be out of water as soon as the end of next year.

John Robson

As Gertrude Stein might say, “Interesting if true”. That prediction was made back in 2008, so “next year” would have been 2009. Still waiting on that one. The taps in Adelaide are still working.

Narrator

NASA climate experts have predicted the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free within six years.

John Robson

But that one is from December 12, 2007, and the forecast was for Arctic sea ice to be gone by the end of summer 2012.

Somehow the Arctic is still covered in ice.

Narrator

Alarms about the death of Arctic sea ice actually go back a long way. In 1954 the ice was predicted to be gone by 2004. In 1972 it was predicted to be gone by 2000. In 2007 it was predicted to be gone by 2013. In 2013 they said it would be gone by 2014, or 2015. In 2012 the “final collapse” of Arctic sea ice was predicted by 2016, according to Cambridge University polar expert Dr. Peter Wadhams. And then in 2016, the deadline was extended again, this time to 2017.

John Robson

So don’t tell me, let me guess we’re about to hear another prediction of the imminent disappearance of Arctic sea ice.

Narrator

The snows on Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone within 10 years.

John Robson

Al Gore made that prediction in 2007. The same Al Gore whose global warming movie gets shown to school kids all over the world. So it was headline news in 2019 when someone glanced upward and saw that, lo and behold, the snow on Kilimanjaro is still the snow on Kilimanjaro.

Narrator

The US Secretary of State says there’s only 10 years before climate change will be “catastrophic and irreversible, and a threat to human security, global stability and American national security.”

John Robson

Make that former US Secretary of State, because it was John Kerry, October 16, 2009, meaning last year was the end of the world. Which I just mentioned, in case you missed it.

Narrator

The United Nations Environment Program predicts there will be 50 million climate refugees within two years.

John Robson

Yes but, that one dates back to May 2008 and that’s when UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) said there would be a worldwide, climate-driven refugee crisis by 2010. Which curiously was the start of the most prosperous decade the world has ever experienced, including dramatic reductions in absolute poverty among the world’s poorest.

Now in case you’re worried that the thrill of surviving through one Armageddon prediction after another is a thing of the past, don’t worry – the Extinction Clock website keeps track of many upcoming doom-and-gloom deadlines so you can enjoy the breeze as they too whoosh by.

Narrator

The Hoover Dam reservoir will be a dry hole by the end of this year.

The world will lose a fifth of all species by 2023.

The human race faces extinction by 2026.

And the Himalayan glaciers could be gone by 2035

John Robson

Of course we’ll all have been extinct for nine years so we won’t notice the disappearing of the glaciers. But, in case we’re still alive, we’re going to die, because the New York Times says rising sea levels will all but erase many coastal cities around the world by 2050, leading to armed conflict and terrorism around the world.

Or not.

At the risk of spreading calm, I’m here to say “Don’t panic”. For decades the alarmist’s crystal ball has been cracked, spewing out sparks and smoke that are just apocalyptic fiction. We know none of these predictions are going to come true. As we said in our video on the Climate Catastrophe, the global warming of the past century didn’t stand in the way of life getting remarkably better materially around the world, and even the experts on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have said they expect the same will be true for the coming century. And the alarmists and celebrities who buy waterfront properties and live in coastal cities, they know it too.

In fact, this constant bombardment of the public with nightmare forecasts would be funny, if it wasn’t also leading to some truly harmful consequences, like rising eco-anxiety among children and youth and a relentless push for draconian economic policies that will hurt poor people the worst.

It’s hard to be sure what to make of Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich’s August 10, 1969 claim, soberly reported in the New York Times that “we must realize that unless we are extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years”. And of course, Ehrlich is the author of the granddaddy of all failed ecological doom predictions. Nope, not his October 6, 1970 claim that “America will be subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980”, by which point instead the obesity crisis was busting out everywhere. I mean his original earth day claim, April 1st 1970 in Mademoiselle magazine, whatever that was, that “population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years”.

Fortunately, the merchants of doom have a long track record of being wrong, from Paul Ehrlich’s massive famines to nuclear winter. So, before you let them terrify you or your kids into supporting their radical policy agenda, ask them to account for their remarkably long and consistent record of failed past predictions.

For the Climate Discussion Nexus, I’m John Robson.

 

17 comments on “Prophets of Doom”

  1. Thanks for tailgating all the best we get subjected to daily! I wonder if they even know how stupid they look?!

  2. Very provocative indeed. But the alarmists don't listen so that they don't have change their agenda.

  3. How are we going to get rid of misinformation in curriculum content that students are using in classrooms and from online course material?

    Students are afraid to challenge misinformation because they do not want to lose marks for doing so.

  4. the climate is heating and if you want any more evidence of that just look at Australia's disastrous bushfire season just passed as well as a thousand other examples heatwaves, floods, droughts, and cyclonic activity around the globe, or stick your heads in the sand and ignore the evidence at you peril.

  5. Shaun,
    You are obviously not reading fully the CDN bulletins or, you are choosing to ignore that which doesn't fit your blinkered view of the worlds climate.
    Regarding the Australian bush fires, as an example, the recent fires were worse than normal, (they occur every year), because of a misguided government regulation that said that all bush debris was to be left in place instead of being cleared away, apparently to protect wildlife and nature.
    Don't worry Shaun, the end of the world is not nigh, but, maybe the financial system will be in danger, surely the "environmentalist" cannot milk the the system for much longer before it collapses.

  6. As an educator in Australia, it is difficult to overcome the heavily-pushed propaganda that our students have been fed for 20+ years. Those that were fed this as high school students 10 years ago are now the teachers doing the same to the next. And so on.
    I've only recently become realistic about this and have awoken to the false propaganda and the terrifying motivations behind this push. (It is a part of the Marxist subversion process.) I was an alarmist. It is extremely difficult to convince teachers that the curriculum is wrong or incomplete, but I persist. I'm promoting Michael Shellenberger's book as essential reading for an educator.

  7. What has happened to Extinctionclock.org ? It "can't be found". Has it been shut down? When that happens, you know it contains truths!

  8. Shaun, we'll all go to your funeral. Poor you, all heated up or drowned by rising seas or dying of hunger or whatever else Al Gore predicts.

  9. That the Australian bushfires went so much out of hand is because the government forbid to burn dry wood under controlled conditions over a long time. And right now there is a snowstorm happening because it is so cold like 15 years ago. Heatwave, floods, droughts and cyclonic activity happen more the colder climate is because of the increased difference in temperatures between Poles and equator. The warmer it gets the more balanced these are. Storms exist because of these differences, so the bigger they are the stronger the storms. Logically the samller they are the weaker they get until they are no longer classified as storms. Warm periods are known for their pleasant climate whilst Climate pessima are known for storms floods, droughts, diseases and famine.

  10. Shaun, historically the wildfires in Oz have been as bad or worse. If you actually care about the science of it, it is the scientific approach to consider all possible explanations for a phenomenon , and using data, try to understand the contribution of every possible causal factor. Blaming "climate change" for every phenomenon is unscientific because "climate change " doesn't actually cause anything. It is a background factor that may affect any or every other factor, and may increase or decrease the strength of any factor. In this case, the fires have multiple causes, including an exceptionally strong impact of normal and predictable winds and currents in the Indian Ocean.

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