Seven Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions

Sir, you have left me speechless.

I'm still awaiting your critique on the points I made where, indeed, among other things, I brought up Hitler. Got to say anything constructive about it, go ahead... One-liner drivels won't do. At least the other person had a somewhat logical, albeit misguided, train of thought. So far I got nothing constructive from you. If you have nothing to say, don't say it.

You are so hyperbolic no response on my part is needed.  You embarrass yourself.

Yep, only name calling and stupid one-liners... No substance. Just what I thought. Probably one of those folks who get their ideas about the world from Jon Stewart's shows...

Women did

Who would listen to that? He knows nothing

Lets see if he answers that. Lol

He won't

Let's not forget that this thread is about the Big Failed Environmentalist Predictions. If we are to discuss lunar landings, let's not get carried away. Let's stay on topic.

I remember reading Dr. Carl Sagan's "The Pale Blue Dot" book and there he, too, had the alarmist attitude. He would picture a scenrario of an intelligent alien spaceship visiting the Earth and observing it. Earth's biochemical composition would give the aliens a good idea that there's life on the planet; Human activities would also be detected to demonstrate the presence of an intelligent life. Then, supposedly, the aliens would detect all of our polluting industries, and rise of carbon in the atmosphere. Dr. Sagan goes on to say that perhaps aliens would rethink their initial supposition of presence of an intelligent life... :) A very nice book, by the way, worth reading - came in the 90s, if I remember it right.

Here's the thing though. There hasn't been an environmental catastrophy the way scientists were predicting it would be. I remember reading quite a few environment-related literature (most memorable was a 1990 book "Crisis in the Year 2000" - don't remember the authors but I think they were German). I, too, was getting very concerned and anxious about what we're doing with the environment. Yet, despite all of the doomsday scenarious, it seems like even the best scientists (armed with the latest technologies) were too alarmist indeed. I'm not saying problems don't exist - they do. However, it seems like we underestimated the ability of the planet and the species to adapt. The most important species, like I argued before, are us - the Humans. And we have adapted and grown by leaps and bounds.

If you looked at the World of 1990, it was much poorer than it is now - at least on average. There had been titanic economic shifts in East Asia. More than 1 Billion people had been lifted from extreme poverty. In China, the urbanization rate had gone up spectacularly - hundreds of millions of people moved to urban areas. For the first time in modern history of China their urbanization rate is above 50%. And this process will continue. Of course, I'm not saying they did everything right. There's a huge price tag to their progress in terms of environmental damage. However, they are on track to surpass the United States as the World's largest economy. China, in turn, thanks to their large financial and Human reserves, are also taking their capital to other countries. Not only do they produce affordable goods for the World, but they also emigrate and invest around the planet. Very interesting is their activity in Africa - where they are helping the locals in building roads, bridges, and eradicating poverty. A continent once seemed a lost cause by many is finally getting a real chance to get itself together. Surely, there, too, the environment is not spared and is mercilessly exploited. But unless you grew up in poverty, unless you know the real tradeoff between economic destitude and environmental sacrifice, you can hardly be an impartial judge on what's really going on around the World. I've had a touch of that, but, thank God, not too much...

It is very easy for those of us who live in the Developed World to say "I'm satisfied the way things are... Let's stop here... Let's stop carbon, Human growth, etc." Like it or not, to lift people from poverty, we need to burn coal, gas, and oil. We need to keep polluting the air, water, and soil. We don't have clean industries yet - unfortunately. However, we can't just wait and do nothing. Those people in destitude cannot wait. They are moving and will be moving to better places to live. They will also be multiplying in record numbers - it's an instinct, it's in our DNA. So, we need to understand those things and act accordingly. We should not strive to limit and curtail Human aspirations and freedoms because that's a path to wars, tyranny, and genocide - all of which will boumerang back to us. Time to Get Real!

If you must encourage him, please encourage him to go away and think deeply.

Is that...Ronald Joseph Cote?!

quod erat demonstrandum

MuhammedAreez10: The only reason we have not yet reached "catastrophe" is because actions have been taken and continue to be taken. Environmental standards have risen drastically, but not high enough. 

There is already more than enough wealth and food for everyone. The only reason anyone is hungry is because of geopolitics, especially local conflicts in places like Africa, where locals starve and kill locals. We've tried to help all over the globe and we get crapped on for it. 

As for environmental catastrophes, have you ever heard of Chernobyl (still radioactive, still harming the environment)?? The EPA was created (in the 70s I think) to deal with environmental issues in this country which were out of hand. Rivers were catching fire because of pollution; action was taken and water quality has improved drastically. Water is kind of important. 

Ever hear of Bhopal, India? 

Ever hear of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

Can't argue against common sense!

People didn't go to other planets because it was too expensive and too risky - at least according to NASA and its sponsors. After beating the USSR in the race to the Moon, the politicians lost appetite for big space projects. They envisioned a reusable or a semi-reusable system - the Space Transportation System, a.k.a. the Space Shuttle. They were hoping to cut costs to deliver useful payloads to orbit and only then think about going elsewhere. Well, Space Shuttle didn't work out the way they thought it would. It was still extremely expensive to go to orbit and shuttle's re-usability didn't help. Nobody wanted to botch the Human Spaceflight though and they envisioned this big project - the International Space Station - which they build with the Russians. The costs of building and operating the International Space Station are enormous - in hundreds billions of dollars over its expected life cycle. With the current technology, going to Mars is also going to be rather expensive. They are plans out there to minimize costs of such missions but that will still have a price tug in the order of tens of billions of dollars.

And there is the risk factor of course. Apollo program was all about "let's take the risk" attitude. However, even there there had been shockers. First, Apollo 1 crew was burned alive on the ground - in what was supposed to be a routine capsule test. Then, in the April of 1970, the famous incident with Apollo 13 happened. That was pretty scary for NASA, politicians, and even the public. That was one of the main reasons of cancellation of the Apollo program. With so many things that could go wrong, they thought that it's just a matter of time that a crew may be lost in Space or on the surface of the Moon and that would really be an embarrassment for NASA and a national tragedy. So they thought that going to the low-Earth orbit should be a relatively safe endeavor that will also keep the public happy and engaged in the space program. And then, of course, there were the two incidents with the Space Shuttles that resulted in a lost of two crews and two machines. Those events, coupled with costs, have slowly been eroding NASA's appetite for risk taking and now, after the Space Shuttle's retirement, it relies on Russia to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

Now, there's a brilliant man, Elon Musk, who realized the necessity of creating a re-usable spacecraft to enable Humans travel to Space - cheaply. He founded SpaceX, build an awesome team of mostly young and passionate rocket engineers who are working day and night to slash costs of sending rockets to the low Earth orbit (and, by extension, elsewhere). He has already had some success - his Falcon 9 rocket is the most efficient rocket in the world. SpaceX is also on the verge of cracking the rocket re-usability problem. When that is done, we'll see not only missions to Mars but also colonies on the Red planet. Until then, just enjoy the show. :)

The biggest reason we aren't going to Mars or anywhere else anytime soon is that no one has figured out how to protect an astronaut from the radiation that they would be exposed to during the voyage.  Until this is solved we're going to be sticking to sending robots.