Certainties
The March of Time
Hat tip: Tigerhawk. The above, someone pointed out to me, is a photoshopped image and not a real cover. I apologize for the oversight. The real cover does not have the reference to “Beyond Detente”. However, the Global Warming cover seems correct.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” — Mark Twain.
“I think that the scientific debate has now closed on global warming, and the popular debate is closing as well” — David Miliband, UK Secretary for the Environment, 2006.
“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul R. Erlich, author The Population Bomb.
How to Publish on Amazon’s Kindle for $2.99
The Three Conjectures at Amazon Kindle for $1.99
Storming the Castle at Amazon Kindle for $3.99
No Way In at Amazon Kindle $3.99, print $9.99
Dumbasses.
The crow wasn’t tasty:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/odd/map_makers_admit_greenland_gaffe_1_2077854
Even better is that smaller headline on the 1977 rag.
“Beyond Detente: Why We Can’t Beat The Soviets”
Looks like Time got a lot of things wrong. Except Larry Linville did leave MASH. They got that right.
Paul Ehrlich could not be reached for comment.
And just to add to all the fun: From Watts Up With That yesterday, a post by David Archibald entitled: First estimate of solar cycle 25 amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years. The comments are most interesting. Cheers -
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/25/first-estimate-of-solar-cycle-25-amplitudesmallest-in-over-300-years/#more-55458
When in danger or in doubt,
turn in circles,
scream and shout.
That was a valid policy for a lost Naval Aviator in WW-II. For the technically illiterate of today the noise just leads to silence.
You don’t have to be an idiot to believe in the possibility of AGW, but you do have to be an idiot to want to savage the economy to “deal” with it, unless of course you happen to be getting tons of money from the Feds and the NGOs to keep the dream alive.
In the latter case you would just be a pig and the idiots would be the taxpayers who let it happen.
McCain, Gingrich, Romney have all grovelled at the foot of global warming altar to their infinite shame. Call it character. George W. Bush resisted even at the peak of the “crisis”, to his credit.
The only place socialism ever really worked was in the movies. Likewise, the only place global warming was ever a “certainty” is in the nation’s “news” magazines.
Two covers, two different eras, opposite predictions about the environment. But I’ll bet if we cracked open the magazines and read the “solutions” suggested, they’d be pretty much the same in both cases: something like higher taxes on the rich and greater government control of the economy.
The covers may change, the narrative remains the same.
P.S. Look closely at the top of the ’77 issue. You can just make out a featured story: “Beyond Detene; Why We Can’t Beat the Soviets“.
Are these people ever held accountable for being dead-wrong on anything?
Could you invoke the Precautionary Principle to ask: ‘what if the Global Warming theory were wrong?’ What if the models were wrong. Ed Miliband, who who was the former Labor government UK secretary of the environment, believed that there was a 90% chance that Global Warming was true because the science was ‘settled’. But that still leaves 10% — which is not an inconsiderable risk.
If the Global Warming model is wrong, not only could governments be wasting money but perturbing the Climate in ways they don’t understand. If Global Warming prescriptions were drugs for a single person they would never be considered safe enough for an individual. Yet governments blithely propose to apply these prescriptions to all of humanity.
But who will tell them they are wrong, even if they were? Like Mao during the Great Leap Forward (see previous thread) all the monetary incentives are to reinforce the Global Warming theory. After all, what scientist wants to be branded as a “climate denier”? So there will be a tremendous amount of pressure to get with the program.
This is very bad practice and the odds are very high that this kind of cognitive bias will lead to genuine catastrophe.
If there is a 10% chance of error, science it ain’t. I have never read any story on this scam that stated the probable error in any of their estimates. When you think about it an estimate of a rise in the average temperature of 5 or 6 degrees surely has a huge error built into it. Thats why they never mentioned it. The temps in 2140 will be on the average 5 degrees warmer (plus or minus 8 degrees)
Intuitively obvious to the untrained observer.
The facts are clear: given enough Time, even mother nature can be tamed.
O Time in thy flyte
How often not right
How often thy headlines doth scream
But alack and alas
They do not come to pass
And events are not all as they seem
To thine editors all
And thine writers who scrawl
Of the horrors to come such as these
You would think they’d descry
The few copies we buy
Means their cup is now down to the lees
Incidentally, I just checked my free Hittite at Amazon, and it is downloading over 200 copies in the first few hours, and interestingly under the heading “People Who Bought This Also Bought” is listed Richard’s No Way In and The Three Conjectures. So it’s a win-win for everyone.
Walt
It’s the certainty of enthusiasm, not of anything else.
I’m still troubled by the possibility that atomic bomb testing will produce vast colonies of giant ants in the Nevada desert. And with James Whitmore’s passing, who’s to prevent them from taking over the sewers of Los Angeles; nay, even Los Angeles itself?
At least we now have (again) flying wings to mount a counteroffensive.
I’m a child of the 50s.
15. Roughcoat
My question is “Who would notice?” Unless, of course, Oakland recruited one as a running back.
r @ 15: I’m still troubled by the possibility that atomic bomb testing will produce vast colonies of giant ants in the Nevada desert.
I dunno about that, but for sure, it produced one Harry Reid.
cellec @ 9 said:
“Look closely at the top of the ’77 issue. You can just make out a featured story: “Beyond Detene; Why We Can’t Beat the Soviets“.”
I’m reminded again why I hate the MSM so much. That sort of defeatism bordered on treason and was all to common with the MSM during the 70s. The moonbat mindset was really something, i.e. the nuclear arms race must ultimately result in nuclear apocalypse, therefore to avoid certain destruction we must surrender to the communists. Of course the guys saying this stuff were either useful idiots or communist sympathizers.
I’m further reminded of this entertaining comic book based movie that appeared a couple years ago, i.e. “The Watchmen”. The premise there was a superhero felt obligated to slaughter 15 million people in order to trick the Soviet Union and the United States from engaging in nuclear war.
How about Plan-B? The super hero does NOT slaughter 15 million people and the Soviet Union is allowed to implode on its on.
Oddly enough, the movie was made after the Soviet Union imploded but that actual possibility was never considered in the movie (the movie script writer was obviously a frustrated moonbat). I should mention that despite the brain dead politics, “The Watchmen” is a fun movie.
I guess history is repeating itself. In the 1970s, we were expected to surrender to a single world order based upon socialism in order to prevent a nuclear holocaust. Now we are expected to surrender to a single world order based upon socialism in order to save ourselves from AGW. I wonder what the next variation on this theme will be? Maybe if Obama gets reelected we will end up surrendering to a single world order based upon socialism. Won’t that be nice?
“If the Global Warming model is wrong, not only could governments be wasting money but perturbing the Climate in ways they don’t understand.” Chemtrails? I keep hearing about them anyway though I’ve never seen them.
Anyway, since all my comments are blocked over in Prestonistan, let me just say it appears we’ve got the first case of Google being hacked to create a false flag page in American political history, or just one idiot who happens to support Paul being falsely attributed to Paul himself:
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/comment/281113/
We all remember that ‘Ron Paul hates Asians’ fake video created by John Huntsman supporters, conveniently right before Huntsman quit. This seems to be the same type of dirty trick.
Par for the course for these clowns. Wretchard and Reynolds drive most of PJM’s traffic but the rest of this site has been turned into a libelous ball of Paul hate. I hope Paul’s people sue Roger.
If Ron Paul is so dumb and has so few supporters, why does the Establishment have to resort to all this falsified crap to discredit him?
#15 Roughcoat
Hope you’re not losing sleep over the paper that The Lancet published in 1998 “proving” that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is linked to autism. It wasn’t until 2010 that Andrew Wakefield’s “research” was proved fraudulent and his medical license was revoked. Nonetheless, there are still a lot of parents out there who refuse to have their kids vaccinated, meaning there is considerable lag time between the exposure of a scientific hoax and a shift in public opinion.
Speaking of sewers– I thought it was NYC that was supposed to have a problem with its sewers being taken over by a population bomb of Florida alligators.
Heh, sorry I missed Dack Thrombosis’ @3 comment the first time through.
“…unless of course you happen to be getting tons of money from the Feds and the NGOs to keep the dream alive.”
Do not discount the considerable possibility that these people do what they do out of bigotry and hatred. If hate is the underlying principle then the actual article of blame is frangible and can be swapped out with another claim. That is how the coming ice age becomes global warming becomes climate change. The malfeasance remains the same only the stated reasons evolve. They are patriotic Americans, they just hate those who founded it and who it is comprised of. In fact, trying to destroy it makes them even more patriotic. Who else is willing to take such risks for the glory of humanity?
Roughcoat/15
To those who claim that giants ants are impossible because of the square/cube law or something, let me state that my father had a couple of very large sisters, so I grew up in a world of giants aunts.
Walt @ 23,
My South African wife calls them “aUnts” and not “ants”.
“English” South Africans are more English than the British. It’s “tomatoes” rather than “tomAtoes”, “bath” rather than “bAth” and lots of funny names for car parts, e.g. “cubbyhole” instead of “glove compartment”, “bonnet” instead of “hood”, etc. They also drive on the wrong side of the road.
I keep telling my wife that she needs to learn how to speak English properly but she refuses to listen.
And which scenario (cooling or warming) stands the best chance of making big dollars for the politically connected? There is a lot of money to be made in stopping AGW. For cooling, not so much. Its surely just a coincidence that people like Al Whore (sorry–a typo, I meant Al Gore) have made out like bandits from the whole Scientology (excuse me, yet another typo–I meant Climatology) thing.
And of course there are critics–but they are the same type of cretins who deny that Astrology is a branch of science.
I merely observe, you decide.
Here are another couple of quotes:
Scientific American, circa 1910:” “The improvement in conditions in our cities as a result of the adoption of the internal combustion engine has been remarkable. The elimination of so much waste from horses has markedly improved the environment in the urban areas.”
TV show on the environment, circa 1970: “By 1990 environmental conditions will be so bad that the people in the US will look on countries such as India and China with envy.”
Wretchard #10:
Most troubling of all is that if GW exists and is a natural phenomenon the actions taken to stop AGW are exactly the opposite of that required to deal with natural GW. We need larger militaries, more 4X4 vehicles, more aircraft carriers, more oil for fuel and less food converted into fuel, more power plants, including coal, natural gas, and nuclear – and more emergency portable power capabilities, etc. We need to spend more on models designed to predict the weather and less on those on theory. We need more people who know how to do things like fly airplanes and helicopters, drive trucks, fix things, build things, grow food, and treat injuries – and fewer with degrees in journalism, wymens’s studies, filmmaking, etc. and especially not as many lawyers.
If in 1921 the USN had decided that Mitchell’s tests against ships showed that future battleships would need 22 inch naval guns and armor 6 ft thick, instead of aircraft carriers capable of handling the air threat, the results would have been disastrous. If the USAAC had decided that the tests showed that bombers could be as slow and fly as low as Mitchell’s Martin MB-2’s that would have been disastrous as well. But those were perfectly possible straight-line conclusions.
Roughcoat #15:
Even worse. We now can only conclude that they will be giant Fire Ants!
But are we still worried about the giant preying mantis and tarantula? I lost track.
“and lots of funny names for car parts, e.g. “cubbyhole” instead of “glove compartment”, “bonnet” instead of “hood”, etc. ”
and Panel Beaters (body shop) to fix them.
“Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Mark Twain
If we get Giant Ants then do we get Mothra to eat the Giant Ants? If we get Mothra do we then get cute miniature Japanese Princesses? (Insert burning elephant/duck joke here.) Could we sell this as a side benefit to fracking?
Annoy Mouse @ 27,
A funny English expression that I learned about yesterday was “telephone sanitizer”. Anyone who has read Douglas Adams knows about telephone sanitizers and the B-Ark. Apparently telephone sanitizers don’t clean telephones which is what I thought but instead they scrub toilets. Supposedly well off people in England would hire “telephone sanitizers” to come to their homes to do ordinary housekeeping. Apparently having the words “House Keeper” stenciled on the side of their truck was considered too vulgar but “Telephone Sanitizer” had a touch of class to it.
Ironmonger was a English profession that I always thought had an edgy name to it.
I wouldn’t trust Ed Millband to give odds on an Arsenal/Chelsea match more or less something like climate science. Any estimate that someone like him provides would leave you no better informed that if he hadn’t.
18 @eggplant
I’m reminded again why I hate the MSM so much. That sort of defeatism bordered on treason and was all to common with the MSM during the 70s. The moonbat mindset was really something, i.e. the nuclear arms race must ultimately result in nuclear apocalypse, therefore to avoid certain destruction we must surrender to the communists. Of course the guys saying this stuff were either useful idiots or communist sympathizers.
Amen brother. That was the strategy of demoralization directed out of the Kremlin as described by Bezmenov. Probably more comsymp than useful idiot, but I’m sure you had some of the latter.
How about Time Magazine‘s December 3, 1973, cover from here. Or Dec. 24 1979. Or perhaps March 1975 Science News from here.
That polar bear MUST be the famous one…
IIRC, the photographer was standing on the ALASKAN MAINLAND as the animal floated pathetically by only 700 yards off shore.
The caption told the viewers that the animal was floating off to its doom.
Agitprop all the way, all the time, all to the Left.
@ #18 eggplant
The Watchmen was a short comic book series written in ’86 and ’87. So it was timely to some extent…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmen
“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul R. Erlich, author The Population Bomb.
Erlich is a gambler. He lost.
The Simon–Ehrlich wager
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
eggplant #18: “I’m reminded again why I hate the MSM so much. That sort of defeatism bordered on treason and was all to common with the MSM during the 70s. The moonbat mindset was really something, i.e. the nuclear arms race must ultimately result in nuclear apocalypse, therefore to avoid certain destruction we must surrender to the communists. Of course the guys saying this stuff were either useful idiots or communist sympathizers. “
You’re right. I had forgotten how long the left has been saying that the world’s existence depends on the West slitting its own throat. Though I was young, I remember those self-assured of their sophistication and moral superiority saying the arms race will end only in annihilation. I remember sitting down in junior high History class in November 1980 and the teacher calmly announced, “Well, the Americans have elected Ronald Reagan president. So there will be a nuclear war.”
AGW is just more of the same. A lie told often enough with enough conviction by all those who are allowed to speak…
“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul R. Erlich, author The Population Bomb.
Actually, Erlich was basically correct. England no longer exists. It’s just not for the reasons Erlich was talking about.
And now for something completely different:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html
Will anyone give me odds on whether Time will make a cover story out of this…?
FWIW:
The most recent estimate offered for how long the
“warming trend” has been going on is 200 years.
That simply means we’ve been doing a slow crawl out of the “Little Ice Age.” The industrial revolution was confined to the temperate band of one quadrant of the northern hemisphere straddling the North Atlantic for the entire 19th century. There is no way that human activity caused the warming.
If the 1977 cover is being presented as parody, that sure isn’t the idea I’m getting. More like you’re offering a forgery.
Neil
It’s Moby-esque.
There were/ are so MANY ‘Club of Rome’ era fright-covers to choose from…
So why did this player synthesize this one?
So that realists would glom onto a fake?
And thereby look foolish?
Pure Moby.
blert @ 41,
Yup, Moby Dick strikes again. Had me fooled. The only real defense against this is to go to a university research library and check the original paper copies on the library shelves. Anything on the Internet can be hacked and/or photoshopped including the “original” information at http://www.time.com/time/coversearch .
It occurs to me that we will be in a 1984/”Ministry of Truth” situation after all the libraries scan their paper copies and convert to on-line PDFs. If there is no original hard copy left to validate against then who knows what the truth is?
blert @ 41 [again],
I wonder if the guy who photoshopped the Time magazine cover was really a moby. That would imply a frightening level of sophistication as a propagandist. Maybe the forger was merely a stupid and unethical person who happened to be right about AGW? I hope that’s the case.