rhino wrote on Jun 21^st, 2015 at 9:01pm:


Really?? I don't remember "hundreds of millions of people starving to death" in the 1970s, or India being unable to feed their own population by 1980 either...


Of course I completely missed the launch of the Jupiter II spacecraft  (with the Robinson family aboard) in 1980, and also the Moon being blow out of orbit in 1999 too, so maybe the Ehrlichs were 'actually right each time'...

rhino wrote on Jun 21^st, 2015 at 9:22pm:


No there have been famines, even some fairly large ones, but nothing on the scale Ehrlich predicted, and the world death rate, contrary to his opinion, actually DROPPED since the late 60s/early 70s.

"The Ehrlichs made a number of specific predictions that did not come to pass, for which they have received criticism. They have acknowledged that some predictions were incorrect. However, they maintain that their general argument remains intact, that their predictions were merely illustrative, that their and others' warnings caused preventive action, or that many of their predictions may yet come true (see Ehrlich's response below). Still other commentators have criticized the Ehrlichs' perceived inability to acknowledge mistakes, evasiveness, and refusal to alter their arguments in the face of contrary evidence.

In The Population Bomb's opening lines the authors state that nothing can prevent famines in which hundreds of millions of people will die during the 1970s (amended to 1970s and 80s in later editions), and that there would be "a substantial increase in the world death rate." Although many lives could be saved through dramatic action, it was already too late to prevent a substantial increase in the global death rate. However, in reality the global death rate has continued to decline substantially since then, from 13/1000 in 1965–74 to 10/1000 from 1985–1990. Meanwhile, the population of the world has more than doubled, while calories consumed/person have increased 24%. The UN does not keep official death-by-hunger statistics so it is hard to measure whether the "hundreds of millions of deaths" number is correct. Ehrlich himself suggested in 2009 that between 200-300 million had died of hunger since 1968. However, that is measured over 40 years rather than the ten to twenty foreseen in the book, so it can be seen as significantly fewer than predicted."

freediver wrote on Jun 21^st, 2015 at 9:43pm:


He might not have a crystal ball, but hindsight would work better. At least then he wouldn't have released the same (almost) predictions again, 40 odd years later.

rhino wrote on Jun 21^st, 2015 at 11:07pm:



And that is as unlikely as there being 'zero dispute' on man being 100% the cause of climate change.

There is ALWAYS dispute in science.

____ wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2015 at 2:38pm:


You alarmist idiots usually claim humans are either the 'major driver' or the SOLE driver of ACC...and don't bother to deny it.

____ wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2015 at 3:49pm:


You may not have claimed 'sole', but a number of people HAVE, and  even claiming 'major' is completely stupid, and rates up there with Ehrlich's ideas (i.e, is bullshit)

And talking about 'alarmist idiots' is no different to you lot carrying on about 'deniers' instead of skeptics...

gizmo_2655 wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2015 at 10:31am:
Nothing to do with climate change, species are becoming extinct at a rate far greater than any time in recent history, do you dispute this? Seriously, because only an idiot would dispute this fact.

gizmo_2655 wrote on Jun 22^nd, 2015 at 3:57pm:
I disagree with Greens on one point. This kind of absurd exaggeration (ie  that global warmest are claiming that humans are 100% responsible for global warming) is what gizmo usually engages in when he's losing the argument. I have NEVER seen anyone make that claim. It's just a fabricated claim to support a position that Gizmo takes for ideological reasons and has absolutely no interest in where the actual truth lies.