Dan McLaughlin

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To Home Page Latest Newsletter Column Archives Click to get these columns for your local paperd	Post Comments Below © 2008 Daniel J. McLaughlin Environmental Truth The “Global 2000 Report To The President” was published in 1980, more than 2 ½ decades ago. It described the environmental nightmares that would surely ensue unless drastic measures were taken by government to cut human population and thwart development. The report said that the earth would be more crowded, with serious stresses involving population, resources and environment. According to Global 2000, the world 20 years from it’s publication date would be poorer with mass starvation. There would be significant energy and other resource shortages. Environmental disaster would be overwhelming. It received a great deal of notoriety at the time, and is still a major force in government policy. The only problem with the report was that it was based on erroneous premises, and nearly every one of it’s conclusions has been proven to be demonstrably false. While there are definitely more people on the earth, they are less poor, less hungry. There are more known energy reserves and less scarcity of resources. The environment has improved by all objective, measurable factors. Another conclusion of the report was that there would be large scale extinctions, with the threat of losing 40,000 species a year by the year 2000. The legacy of Global 2000 lingers on as a recent New York Times Op Ed by Thomas Friedman quotes Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s Environment Minister, as saying “Up to 150 species become extinct each day”. This makes for good scare stories, and Mr. Friedman took the bait, with his warning about the modern age of Noah, fighting a losing battle to save the animals from extinction. The true species extinction rate is not really known, since we don’t even know all of the species that are now existent or presently evolving. The current rate of extinction of species known to have existed, however, is about 1 per year. The other 54, 749 extinctions per year that the honorable minister was talking about must be from the large pool of unknown species, in other words, pure speculation that has no basis in history or fact. The extinction of any species is not good. Neither is it abnormal or unnatural. Fossil remains and historical records indicate that millions of species became extinct, while others evolved to take their place. As humans, we should be concerned about the cost to human society of species extinction. There does come a point, however, when the social costs greatly outweigh the benefits of maintaining an obscure species. The description from a database of extinct animals says, for example, that for one species of bird, there were only 2 specimens, which were indistinguishable from another existing species. The World Conservation Union reported that the Wooly Stalked Begonia is the only species to have been declared extinct this year. It is only known from collections made in 1886 and 1898 on Penang Island. The effect of those losses was obviously not catastrophic, even if they were real. One of the particular animals discussed in the article was the Javan Gibbon, from the island of Java. The concern is that the forests are being cut and the Gibbon population is dwindling. It is wise to be aware of the impact of your actions. It is also wise to recognize that Java is not the first place on earth to develop. Every modern country went through all stages of progress without the loss of hundreds of thousands of species. Animal populations adapt and stabilize with the new stable situation after development. The Java Gibbon, as a species, may indeed have a tough time in the future, but the potential loss of that species certainly does not point to the demise of vast numbers of species. The forests of Java will eventually be managed, like much of the harvested forests in western countries, because it makes economic sense to do so. Eventually, human populations of Indonesia and other less developed regions will stabilize, just like they have in the more developed countries. Environmental science is a valuable endeavor. As with all science, it should tell us about reality so we can make better choices. Modern environmentalism has morphed, however, from science to religion. The predictions they make are way off target because they don’t rely on fact or reason, but on the religious zeal of the anointed ones. Politics determines the public face of the science. Environmentalists have lost all credibility because fact does not matter to them. It will only be regained when they decide to start telling the truth.
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Daniel Mclaughlin Copyright © 2007 [Daniel McLaughlin]. All rights reserved. Revised: 01/11/08

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Environmental Truth

The “Global 2000 Report To The President” was published in 1980, more than 2 ½ decades ago. It described the environmental nightmares that would surely ensue unless drastic measures were taken by government to cut human population and thwart development.

The report said that the earth would be more crowded, with serious stresses involving population, resources and environment. According to Global 2000, the world 20 years from it’s publication date would be poorer with mass starvation. There would be significant energy and other resource shortages. Environmental disaster would be overwhelming.

It received a great deal of notoriety at the time, and is still a major force in government policy. The only problem with the report was that it was based on erroneous premises, and nearly every one of it’s conclusions has been proven to be demonstrably false. While there are definitely more people on the earth, they are less poor, less hungry. There are more known energy reserves and less scarcity of resources. The environment has improved by all objective, measurable factors.

Another conclusion of the report was that there would be large scale extinctions, with the threat of losing 40,000 species a year by the year 2000. The legacy of Global 2000 lingers on as a recent New York Times Op Ed by Thomas Friedman quotes Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s Environment Minister, as saying “Up to 150 species become extinct each day”. This makes for good scare stories, and Mr. Friedman took the bait, with his warning about the modern age of Noah, fighting a losing battle to save the animals from extinction.

The true species extinction rate is not really known, since we don’t even know all of the species that are now existent or presently evolving. The current rate of extinction of species known to have existed, however, is about 1 per year. The other 54, 749 extinctions per year that the honorable minister was talking about must be from the large pool of unknown species, in other words, pure speculation that has no basis in history or fact.

The extinction of any species is not good. Neither is it abnormal or unnatural. Fossil remains and historical records indicate that millions of species became extinct, while others evolved to take their place. As humans, we should be concerned about the cost to human society of species extinction. There does come a point, however, when the social costs greatly outweigh the benefits of maintaining an obscure species. The description from a database of extinct animals says, for example, that for one species of bird, there were only 2 specimens, which were indistinguishable from another existing species. The World Conservation Union reported that the Wooly Stalked Begonia is the only species to have been declared extinct this year. It is only known from collections made in 1886 and 1898 on Penang Island. The effect of those losses was obviously not catastrophic, even if they were real.

One of the particular animals discussed in the article was the Javan Gibbon, from the island of Java. The concern is that the forests are being cut and the Gibbon population is dwindling. It is wise to be aware of the impact of your actions. It is also wise to recognize that Java is not the first place on earth to develop. Every modern country went through all stages of progress without the loss of hundreds of thousands of species. Animal populations adapt and stabilize with the new stable situation after development. The Java Gibbon, as a species, may indeed have a tough time in the future, but the potential loss of that species certainly does not point to the demise of vast numbers of species.

The forests of Java will eventually be managed, like much of the harvested forests in western countries, because it makes economic sense to do so. Eventually, human populations of Indonesia and other less developed regions will stabilize, just like they have in the more developed countries.

Environmental science is a valuable endeavor. As with all science, it should tell us about reality so we can make better choices. Modern environmentalism has morphed, however, from science to religion. The predictions they make are way off target because they don’t rely on fact or reason, but on the religious zeal of the anointed ones. Politics determines the public face of the science. Environmentalists have lost all credibility because fact does not matter to them. It will only be regained when they decide to start telling the truth.

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