Can Guardian Readers Get Any Thicker?
By Paul Homewood
The Guardian are off on one of their usual marxist rants:
A new study sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Centre has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common."
The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharri of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.
It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:
"The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent."
Certainly the rise and fall of empires is a historical fact, but what puzzles me is why the hell NASA are involved in funding this study. Or, for that matter, why is a satellite image of a pretty normal of a storm at all relevant?
I realise that the average Guardian reader is improbably thick, but really! Did the Roman Empire collapse because of a few storm clouds, or because of hordes of barbarians?
Was the Han Dynasty brought low by a bit of rain, or infighting?
Was the Gupta empire brought down because of a combination of weak leadership and Hun invaders, or by a missing cube of Arctic ice?
The Goddard Space Flight Centre is named in recognition of Dr. Robert H. Goddard (1882–1945), the pioneer of modern rocket propulsion in the United States. I would not blame if him if he was turning in his grave by now.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The Roman Empire flourished during the Roman Warm Period and died during the cold period that followed. We know that the tribes east of the Rhine were able to overrun the Empire.
We postulate the reason why was that the agriculture on which these tribes relied was unable to support the population expansion of the warm years and they moved west and south to more temperate lands.
The same thing happened to the Mycenaean Greeks at the end of the Minoan Warm Period.
If you have not read H H Lamb’s books then have a look at this site: http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/
Why some of us are worried about the pause in warming is that we are aware the pause could turn to cooling and for decades. We worry that it may signal the beginning of the end of the Modern Warm Period.
What is wrong with the Guardian article is that it does not point out where the danger lies and misdirects readers by saying that the risk is “climate change” implying that the direction does not matter.
The increase in CO2 will help mitigate the effect of cooling if that’s what happens over the next few decades. We will know soon enough..
Presumably the image they chose to use is the most up-to-date scary one available, so as it’s up to 4 years old, the pragmatist would wonder what there is to worry about.
Reblogged this on JunkScience.com and commented:
Why does NASA fund such studies?
A buffalo herd, a rat colony or a beehive, yes. Simple organisms without imagination are very vulnerable to physical shocks. Human societies are very likely to grow stronger from physical shocks. Empires and civilizations rise and fall in a moral/religious framework. Guardian readers are quite used to looking for cause and effect in the wrong place. This makes sense to them.
To keep it short; I’ll point out how durable Jewish culture is and its essential moral and religious basis. I choose Israel merely as an example of all civilizations. It is the fragility of the religious/moral framework that makes, “…advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations (can be) both fragile and impermanent.”
Once again, I am more concerned about the degradation of science than about this scary distopian fiction. Of course civilisations come and go but this report itself is symptomatic of the decay of disciplined rational thought that could well be symptomatic of the decline of our epoch. The old ideals of seeking for knowledge and truth, submitting to peer review, tolerating falsification tests etc. are being undermined by envy and greed and the seeking of power through fear. The progress that we have achieved through sheer hard work and honest research is being destroyed by Vandals masquerading as Scientists.
As to the inequalities of wealth – the rich get richer and the poor get poorer simply because our society is based on the notion that money lent should be returned in full with interest – ‘usury’ in the original meaning of the word. This practice guarantees the emergence of the super-rich. The alternative – ‘equity’ – where every penny is at risk, promotes enterprise, economic growth, employment and the spread of wealth, employment and the benefits of invention and production throughout society.
The worries about the depletion of natural resources are founded on the mistaken belief that known reserves are governed by physical availability, whereas in fact the scale of reserves discovered depends solely on economic considerations.
It is arrogant beyond measure to presume to write the history of the future of coming generations. They should be well able to look after themselves if they are not submerged in irrational beliefs and fears. Post-modern science and Agenda 21 are the heresies of our time, not honest science and technology.
Who can blame the press or the publishers, or the fake scientists for that matter – these poor untalented parasites have to make a living somehow – they are human and therefore corruptible and without skills or knowledge what can they do but sow fear?.
“Can Guardian Readers Get Any Thicker?” Ah! This is one of those Questions to Which the Answer is “Yes””
The issue of civilisation changing is like the issue of climate change. What is not known is why, when, what direction, and will I still be here?
The caption of the storm system photo says
“. . . which many scientists attribute to climate change.”
Someone just made that up!
I guess we don’t know whether that insight came from NASA or whether it was added at the Guardian. Perhaps, it was written by Nafeez Ahmed himself. In any case such storms have been documented (Thomas Jefferson was, I think, the first to do so) long before SUVs and coal powered electric generators. There is the rebound from the LIA or from the last Glacial. Storms might have been tracking a little differently 17,000 years ago.
Nevertheless, it is a nice image of a storm system.
There is one covering the eastern half of the US at the moment , , ,
Sun 1545 UTC GOES-EAST Visible Satellite Imagery
. . . although it is not so nicely formed.
grumpyoldmanuk PERMALINK
March 16, 2014 1:56 pm
“Can Guardian Readers Get Any Thicker?” Ah! This is one of those Questions to Which the Answer is “Yes””
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Please stop asking that question.
You know their readers take that as a challenge.
cn
I have looked at more than a dozen knock-off “news items” all sourced from the original Guardian “news item” and none of them has mentioned that the original Guardian “news item” does not have a link back to the report. Yet all of these extensively quote from the report — although they are only apparently using the same quotes as the Guardian piece did.
In a follow-up, the author mentions his exclusive coverage of this report and links back to… his original “news item”.
I have tried but can’t seem to find that report anywhere, so I can’t read it for myself, but have wasted enough time on this today.
Here is the original: http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/2014-03-18-handy1-paper-draft-safa-motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf
What has got into people that they think that building abstract models fashioned to grab headlines is a useful academic pursuit?