Population Bomb Reborn: Everyone’s favorite faux intellectual Tom Friedman is at it again. Friedman claims that “one generation in one country lives at 150 percent of sustainable capacity.” Whatever the hell that means. Thomas Malthus must rest well knowing that his theories have been proven wrong over the last two hundred years, but people like Friedman believe there aren’t any resources left.
You better pay your students loans or the Department of Education is sending in the boots.
Jonah Goldberg saves me the time by burying Friedman in his shallow pool of pop intellectualism.
Much of the scarcity of resources we have in the United States isn’t the result of actual physical scarcity. It’s the result of man-made scarcity. Fossil fuels aren’t really so scarce in absolute terms, but in legal terms. That may not be the case in some parts of the developing world. But his column is aimed at people in America who irresponsibly want to live as lavishly as Tom Friedman.
I must admit that Tom Friedman annoys me. There are plenty of shallow thinkers in the world, but none are taken quite as seriously as this clown.
Government Intervention: For some odd reason the Senate voted to let the Federal Reserve curb the fees that stores pay financial institutions when a customer swipes a debit card. The most startling question I have is why the government is getting involved in this situation. That amount of government regulation in every facet of our lives is maddening. The banks will just pass the cost on to us through some other mechanism, and if they can’t they’ll go bankrupt. If the banks go bankrupt then the government will just bail them out. What a country!
The Liberal Loving Press: Rep. Anthony Weiner has been in the news lately, but you wouldn’t really know if you read Newsweek or Time. The two liberal trade rags dedicated covers and page after page of analysis to Rep. Mark Foley’s indiscretions a few years ago. However, news about Democrats just isn’t quite as sexy for liberal journalists. Can there be any doubt the mainstream press is biased?
The Department of Education or Secret Police: First off all, the Department of Education is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars and it should be abolished immediately. In its 30-year existence there hasn’t been a substantial improvement in public education in the United States. What are we funding? Oh yeah, SWAT teams.
The resident, Kenneth Wright, does not have a criminal record and he had no reason to believe why what he thought was a S.W.A.T team would be breaking down his door at 6 in the morning. “I look out of my window and I see 15 police officers,” Wright said. As Wright came downstairs in his boxer shorts, he said the officers barged through his front door. Wright said an officer grabbed him by the neck and led him outside on his front lawn.
What is the Wright family crime? Apparently Mrs. Wright hasn’t paid her student loans. Let me get this straight: we’re living in the bailout age where people walk away from their homes and cars, banks and automakers are collecting cash from the government, and the Department of Education is sending SWAT teams in to arrest people for defunct student loans?
There has to be some missing information in this case, but it’s going to take a lot to convince me this was a necessary act of police force. I imagine there will be plenty of outrage about this act by the Department of Education; however, there needs to be serious talk about eliminating this cabinet level department.
It’s kind of odd to watch how the problems in Egypt are being covered. This is another example of how the press has no understanding of economics. Egypt isn’t the only nation facing civil uprising. Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Yemen are all facing uprisings of varying degrees because of the rising cost of food. The liberal culprit will make Thomas Malthus smile. Any time there is a worldwide food supply issue liberals blame overpopulation; however, the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy is driving down the dollar, causing the price of commodities to rise.
The surge in global food prices since the summer – since Ben Bernanke signalled a fresh dollar blitz, as it happens – is not the underlying cause of Arab revolt, any more than bad harvests in 1788 were the cause of the French Revolution.
Yet they are the trigger, and have set off a vicious circle. Vulnerable governments are scrambling to lock up world supplies of grain while they can. Algeria bought 800,000 tonnes of wheat last week, and Indonesia has ordered 800,000 tonnes of rice, both greatly exceeding their normal pace of purchases. Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Bangladesh, are trying to secure extra grain supplies.
This is the result of a nation that has spent more than it can possibly afford. Marxists cite exploitation theory as one of the evils of capitalism, but in this case it’s the state’s appetite for entitlements and low taxation that is exploiting the developing world. Instead of paying our debt the Federal Reserve is flooding the market in dollars to drive down the cost of our debt. Plus, thanks to our idiotic leadership in both parties we have diverted corn to ethanol production. Bad policies lead to real problems.
The first places to experience the pain of higher food costs will be the developing nations. Just think about this; Egypt is apparently one of the more developed Middle-Eastern nations; however, its GDP is $216 billion (pop. 80 million). To put that in perspective Singapore has a population of 5 million and its GDP is $217 billion.
As long as commodity prices continue to rise nations like Egypt are going to struggle. Nothing leads to unrest quicker than a population that can’t afford to eat.
I saw a bumper sticker a few days ago that read: “Socialism: trickle up poverty.” Nowhere is this better represented than among the ranks of climate change alarmists. World War II type rationing is the consensus of a new climate change summit in Cancun, Mexico. Obviously, being an alarmist has its advantages. While these “scientists” burn more carbon than the annual output of most nations to meet in tropical locations and fret over the weather their solution is to impose poverty on the developed world…
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles for many people in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel hungry cars.
What about those long haul flights to Cancun, Mr. Anderson? This is the same kind of elite thinking that led to overpopulation controls in Britain during the 19th century. Let’s face it, the super rich can afford to limit economic growth on everyone else. The poor peasants who will be covering themselves in filth to stay warm during the winter can rest easier knowing some super-rich scientist saved us from the heat. Freezing to death to prevent climate change is the absolute highest sacrifice one can make in the fight against global warming.
The hubris of these people is astounding. We can’t predict the weather two weeks from now, but we’re supposed to believe the world is going to warm a full seven degrees before 2060? The only evidence the scientists can produce is a computer simulation that has proven to be wrong again and again. If these computers are so great why aren’t we harnessing them to predict the weather next week?
I think I’m falling out of love with The Economist. It continues to be a great source of information about foreign affairs, but it’s becoming less of a source for “economics.” This is especially true when they endorsed the hideously awful ObamaCare bill simply because it was “something.” That’s not intelligent; it’s simply bad economics. Another area where they’ve missed the boat is the theory of man-made global warming. The great Climategate whitewash has begun.
Greenhouse gases still warm planets, carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas and the amount of it in the Earth’s atmosphere is still shooting up. The temperature rose over the 20th century in a way that follows from these basic truths. Other mechanisms at play in the climate complicate the issue, but none of them offers a remotely satisfactory alternative explanation for the temperature rise.
Really, is this the best they could come up with to defend the theory? Yes, temperatures increased in the twentieth century. There wasn’t a spike, it wasn’t alarming, and history is littered with centuries of increasing and decreasing temperatures. “In a way that follows from these basics truths.” Huh? I think I’m giving up on this issue because the people who choose to believe this hogwash are beyond reasoning with anymore. No matter what happens there will always be a group of people who believe things are getting worse. They’ll always have a group of thick headed scientists to check off on the theory. What concerns me is that The Economist shouldn’t be falling for idiotic apocalyptic scenarios. Didn’t we learn anything from Thomas Malthus?
Here's a panel of leading experts.
Throughout history politicians have fanned the flames of paranoia, moving us on from one imaginary disaster to the next. Every time it’s sold as being done in our best interest and every time it only ends up doing more harm than good. The writers at The Economist should know better, but instead they believe in that age old shallow argument that we have to do “something.”
I have to admit, watching the great “Global Warming consensus” retreat has given me a great deal of satisfaction. When it comes to the theory of man-caused Global Warming I have never been a blind ideologue. There are many environmental issues that I think are much more important than this frenzied paranoia about climate change.
Thomas Malthus was wrong about population trends, but he is proof that being an alarmist never grows old. In fact, all the cool people are still afraid of over population.
Many of the issues I’ve had with temperature data over the past 20 years or so has to do with how temperature is measured in the first place. Due to urban heat the temperature in cities is often much warmer than the surrounding countryside. Anthony Watts has covered this issue effectively for years, but his observations have always been shot down with the blood curdling screams of consensus. Or should I say “liberal condescension.” This is groupthink on a massive scale. The world has witnessed people like Al Gore fly around the world and receive standing ovations, Oscars, and a Nobel Peace prize for a fraud.
My guess is there will never be an Oscar given out on a documentary that discusses the great Global Warming swindle. The alarmists on the left will act like none of this ever happened, just like the Population Bomb and Silent Spring. In fact the theory will go on; it will never die. “Scientists” will reinforce the theory and cast aside the fraud. There’s too much money at stake. Climate Change is a billion-dollar research industry. Like William Wallace in Braveheart, researchers will cry, “You may take our lives, but they’ll never take our research dollars!”
Last week I had the immense pleasure of reading Mark Steyn’s America Alone. I have always been a little weary of drawing false conclusions based on population projections. History is littered with projections of doom based on population trends. Most of these projections have been based on overpopulation. Ever since Thomas Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population prophets of doom have been warning the world of the dangers of overpopulation. Mark Steyn’s book takes a different look at population, especially looking at Europe where immigrating Muslims will be the majority in a few decades if the current trend continues. Unfortunately for Europe these immigrants aren’t assimilating into European culture.
Much of the developed world has quit having children. Most of the native Europeans aren’t having enough children to replace themselves. This is also true in Japan. Australia and the United States are two exceptions. The same thing is happening in the Northeastern Blue States. The Southeastern Biblebelt and the increasing Hispanic population are driving the population increase in the United States. I have pointed out time and again the looming fiscal crisis facing the United States with our entitlement programs, but Mark Steyn explains how the Europeans have it even worse. I don’t see how Europe’s economy will survive unless they take drastic steps to curb entitlements, decrease unemployment, and find a better way to assimilate the new immigrants. It’s funny how many American’s hold Europe up as example we should follow when they have so many problems.
Steyn’s book is clever and often laugh out loud funny. It’s a short read and he offers 10 points in the last chapter that the West can adopt to stem the tide of the extreme Wahhabi branch of Islam. Progressives in the United States and Europe like to beat up on “Christian Fundamentalists” in America, but there’s much larger problem facing the World. Europe is slowly capitulating to extremism, if they don’t do something soon the US will be the world’s last hope. Well, if the trend continues.
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