Optimism Is Just Another Word For Delusional Hubris

Why Not Tell It Like It Is? In discussing James Lovelock's remarks in his latest BBC interview, Chris Huntingford states: "To say that humans are too stupid to prevent climate change is in itself a potentially dangerous remark. It is discouraging, and creates a feeling of inevitability that we will leave a degraded climate for future generations. To achieve climate stability through reductions in fossil fuel emissions will, most likely, require the collective actions of many individuals, and we should remain optimistic that this is possible." http://www.countercurrents.org/huntingford030410.htm Why be optimistic or pessimistic? Why not just be realistic? Isn't that what a scientist should be? If scientists should be cheerleaders and morale-boosters, then who can we rely upon to tell the truth? Scientists should be like Sgt. Friday on "Dragnet". "The facts m'am. Just the facts." They should not be, as Lovelock portrays them, careerists who have every incentive to fudge the data and customize their conclusions to fit the requirements of patrons and benefactors. They should tell governments and corporations what the powerful need to be told, not what they want to hear. We have a surfeit of fools from Disneyworld telling us to wish upon a star. Polticians, envrionmentalists, economists, self-help gurus and Bible-punchers----all telling us that with faith, anything is possible. Garbage. Huntingford then goes on to say: "Human ingenuity is remarkable and often limitless in times of need. There are many instances where society has worked together to address a particular problem, be it provision of health services, construction of better transport systems or the actions of charities such as Oxfam that have a truly global reach. The transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy sources is a challenge of unparalleled proportions, but are we so stupid that on this issue we will completely fail?" In a word, yes. We are that stupid, not on this issue, but on the issue of overshoot generally. If that old chestnut, "human ingenuity", is remarkable, it is not limitless in times of need. All the things that Huntingford enumerates as achievements of human ingenuity are proven enablers of the very thing that is killing us----growth. Better health care services, better transport and charity without growth controls are futile. Preventing deaths without preventing births is a recipe for disaster, as should be apparent to anyone who has witnessed the failure of these measures to improve life in Africa---and elsewhere. Precious resources are being wasted just to keep up with growing populations. More schools, more roads, more housing. We need to invest in condoms, not condominiums. Smaller populations consuming less that live off the interest, and not the capital, of nature's bank account. It is not about individual people consuming less or using better technology to consume more efficiently, it is about reducing total consumption. It is quite simiple. Number of people times their average per capita consumption and waste. As Lovelock once said, if we had kept the population level that we had in the eighteenth century, we could use any energy source we liked---for a very long time. Tim Murray April 5, 2010