The Unknown Candidate: Tierney in Denial

Friday, October 13, 2006

Tierney in Denial

Deny deny deny. It's the Republican way. Reality is what I say it is; screw the facts.

Now John Tierney reasons that the population explosion warnings of yesteryear were bogus; therefore, why worry about global warming today? Overpopulation, according to Tierney, was "a case study of intellectual arrogance, and of the perils of putting too much faith in a 'scientific consensus' of experts infatuated with their own forecasts."

I'd argue that Tierney, "infatuated with [his] own [journalistic] arrogance," "is a case study of ... the perils of putting too [little] faith in a 'scientific consensus' of experts...."

Tierney's argument is specious, to say the most. Perhaps he is not aware of the millions of people currently starving throughout the world -- some even right here in the good ol' U. S. of A.

Perhaps he is unaware of the energy crisis which is upon us because our government is more interested in oil profiteering and accumulating power than it is in developing clean energy alternatives, which would (1) make us less bent on waging wars for oil, (2) lead us toward energy self-sufficiency, (3) create thousands of new jobs, technologies, and industries providing work for thousands of unemployed people, (4) leave our children with a cleaner, healthier planet on which to live, and (5) provide us with the opportunity to inspire other nations to join our efforts in order to create a better, more peaceful planet for all.

Even if all of the scientists are wrong about global warming, which even Tierney does not profess, the goal of alternative, cleaner energy is, in and of itself, a goal worth pursuing for all of the benefits mentioned above.

Tierney's statement that "no matter what problems lie ahead, the good news on Tuesday will be that America has 600 million hands to solve them," is glib; our current exploding population certainly isn't impressing anyone with their problem-solving genius.

Sometimes, common sense dictates doing something because it is the right thing to do. No scientific proof is necessary; there is sufficient evidence. And sometimes, the benefits to all of mankind are more than reason enough.

The Kids Are All Right
By John Tierney
The New York Times

In 1968, the year after the U.S. population reached 200 million, Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk and other scientific luminaries signed their names to a full-page advertisement. It pictured a beatific baby in diapers who was labeled, in large letters, “Threat to Peace.”

“It is only being realistic,” the scientists warned, “to say that skyrocketing population growth may doom the world we live in.” They shared the concerns of Paul Ehrlich, who was on the best-seller lists warning of unprecedented famines overseas in the 1970’s and food riots on the streets of America in the 1980’s.

On Tuesday morning, when the 300 millionth American is born, the parents will not be worrying about a national shortage of food. If anything, they’ll worry about their child becoming obese. There is more food available per person — in America and the rest of the world — than ever imagined by the 1960’s doomsayers, Malthus or the ancient Greek philosophers who discussed the need for population control.

“Overpopulation” is history’s oldest environmental crisis, and it’s the most instructive for making sense of today’s debates about energy and climate change. It’s a case study of intellectual arrogance, and of the perils of putting too much faith in a “scientific consensus” of experts infatuated with their own forecasts.

Four decades ago, scientists were so determined to prevent famines that they analyzed the feasibility of putting “fertility control agents” in public drinking water. The physicist William Shockley suggested using sterilization to impose a national limit on the number of births.

Planned Parenthood’s policy of relying on voluntary birth control was called a “tragic ideal” by the ecologist Garrett Hardin. Writing in the journal Science, Hardin argued that “freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” He and others urged America to adopt a “lifeboat ethic” by denying food aid, even during crises, to countries with rapidly growing populations.

Those intellectuals didn’t persuade Americans to adopt their policies, but they had more impact overseas. Under prodding from Westerners like Robert McNamara, the head of the World Bank, countries adopted “fertility targets” to achieve “optimal” population size. When an Indian government official proposed mandatory sterilization for men with three or more children, Paul Ehrlich criticized the United States for not rushing to help.

“We should have volunteered logistic support in the form of helicopters, vehicles, and surgical instruments,” he wrote, and added: “Coercion? Perhaps, but coercion in a good cause.”

India’s enraged voters stopped the government from pursuing coercive policies, but the Chinese couldn’t prevent their rulers from imposing a one-child-per-family rule. It was ostensibly voluntary, but the penalties were so severe that there were reported cases of forced abortions and infanticide.

Now China is facing a new problem: a severe shortage of young workers to support an aging population. The one-child rule turned out to be both an assault on personal liberty and a public-policy mistake. The parents made short-term sacrifices that left them worse off in the long run — the same risk we run with policies designed to curb global warming many decades from now.

Of course, the graphs projecting future temperatures could turn out to be more accurate than the old graphs forecasting food production and population growth. Global warming is a real danger, and in some ways controlling carbon dioxide is a more daunting problem than growing more food. It’s worth paying for some insurance against drastic climate change.

But we need to balance uncertain future benefits against certain costs today. Most steps to combat global warming will be expensive and will slow economic growth, inevitably affecting poor people around the world. More of them will be sick, and more of their children will die. They’ll be less educated and live in less technologically advanced societies.

If the past is any guide, the chief plagues and disasters afflicting future generations will be different from the ones forecast by Al Gore or any other popular prophet. The best insurance policy is to build free, prosperous societies of smart, adaptable people.

In the long debate about overpopulation and famine, none of the gloomy projections by intellectuals proved to be as prescient as an old proverb in farming societies: “Each extra mouth comes attached to two extra hands.” No matter what problems lie ahead, the good news on Tuesday will be that America has 600 million hands to solve them.

Photo credit: John Tierney. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)