Thomas Robert Malthus was an English cleric who first came forward with the theory that world population would grow more rapidly than the food supply and other resources so that progress in those areas would be wiped out. In other words, humanity would need more resources than the Earth could ever supply with the result being starvation and mass depravation. That sounds a great deal like the current view of much of the environmentalist left. Climate change is just the latest manifestation of this argument: people are causing the Earth to warm and that will soon destroy humanity.
Here's the key, though: Malthus came forward with this view in 1796. That's right, 222 years ago, this idea was put forward with the inevitable starvation of humanity seen to be coming in 20-30 years after that. Since that time, one after another "expert" has come forward with a similar view, just with a different time frame. So far, however, it hasn't happened. Indeed, the standard of living for humanity has risen dramatically over those two centuries.
Today, however, I saw an interview with the chief astronomer of the UK in which he expressed his view that it would be tough for humanity to survive the rest of this century because of the inability of the Earth's resources to support the human population. Somehow, the identity of the "expert" changes, but the idea does not. Nevertheless, there's no reason to believe that humanity is any close to disaster today than it was 10 or 50 or 100 years ago.
Here's the key, though: Malthus came forward with this view in 1796. That's right, 222 years ago, this idea was put forward with the inevitable starvation of humanity seen to be coming in 20-30 years after that. Since that time, one after another "expert" has come forward with a similar view, just with a different time frame. So far, however, it hasn't happened. Indeed, the standard of living for humanity has risen dramatically over those two centuries.
Today, however, I saw an interview with the chief astronomer of the UK in which he expressed his view that it would be tough for humanity to survive the rest of this century because of the inability of the Earth's resources to support the human population. Somehow, the identity of the "expert" changes, but the idea does not. Nevertheless, there's no reason to believe that humanity is any close to disaster today than it was 10 or 50 or 100 years ago.
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