Failed Predictions: a book review of
Betrayal of Science and Reason (by Paul and Anne Ehrlich)

by S. Fred Singer

Failed Predictions: a book review by S. Fred Singer of
Betrayal of Science and Reason (by Paul and Anne Ehrlich)

(This review was originally published in The World & I, July 1997)

The Ehrlichs have a message--simplistic and wrong; the paranoid title of their book pretty much tells the story: They sense a conspiracy by "anti- environmentalists," who have "successfully sowed seeds of doubt among journalists, policy-makers, and the public at large about the reality and importance of such phenomena as overpopulation, global climate change, ozone depletion, and loss of biodiversity." But there is no conspiracy out there; and if journalists are listening, it may just be that they find scientific facts persuasive.

Paul Ehrlich is a professor of biology at Stanford University, who has specialized in population dynamics of insects. He is best known for his book The Population Bomb, published in 1968, which gained much notoriety when environmental consciousness was raised by Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring. These books nurtured organizations like Zero Population Growth and fired up environmental activism, which transformed old-line conservation organizations like the Audubon Society and Sierra Club, and spawned new ones like the Environmental Defense Fund and Greenpeace. As the Ehrlich's new book proudly relates, he received a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and numerous ecology awards--which tells you something about the judgment of the judges.
It is a matter of record that Paul Ehrlich has a consistent history of failed predictions; a good source is the book Eco-Scam by Ronald Bailey (St. Martins Press, New York, 1993), with over two dozen references to Ehrlich. In his 1969 article "Eco-Catastrophe!" Ehrlich predicted the following: the oceans dead from DDT poisoning by 1979 and devoid of fish; 200,000 deaths from "smog disasters" in New York and Los Angeles in 1973; U.S. life expectancy dropping to 42 years by 1980 because of pesticide-induced cancers, with U.S. population declining to 22.6 million by 1999 (!), and so on. [NB: In 2006, US population will pass the 300-milion mark.]

In a July 1995 article in Contingencies, R. A. Dousette comments trenchantly that one of Ehrlich's earlier books, The End of Affluence (1974), has "much of the comic quality of an old Marx Brothers film." Ehrlich recommends stockpiling cans of tuna, "because periodic protein shortages...seem certain to occur...", with the President dissolving Congress "during the food riots of the 1980s." These food shortages would drive the United States to using insecticides so damaging to the environment that a horrified world would launch a nuclear attack on our country, in order to forestall environmental despoliation of this magnitude. The book is an endless catalog of failed predictions. Potential problems are treated as certain to occur and then magnified into disasters. There is not even the slightest acknowledgment of the possibilities imminent within human creativity and our problem-solving capacity as antidotes to Ehrlich's dark and pessimistic vision.
In promoting their new book, the Ehrlichs employed an outfit called Environmental Media Services. EMS appears to be closely tied to Fenton Communications, the folks that brought us the notorious cancer scare about the chemical Alar. More recently, Fenton has been touting other environmental "catastrophes" that seem to have little scientific basis, like the endocrine-disrupter scare featured in the book Our Stolen Future.

EMS/Fenton attempted to gain scientific respectability--and to mislead journalists to boot--by holding a press conference in the offices of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and inveigling the then-serving AAAS president, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, to appear on a panel with Paul Ehrlich. It is not clear how the AAAS allowed itself to be used as seeming to endorse Betrayal of Science and Reason. When questioned by reporters, however, Lubchenco had to admit that she was not speaking for the AAAS--but her disclaimer could not erase the impression that the AAAS stood behind the Ehrlichs' thesis.

The press release issued by EMS/Fenton pulls no punches. (They evidently did not employ the services of a libel lawyer, which may have been a mistake on their part.) Under the heading "Scientists hit 'brownlash' in new book: Authors of The Population Bomb detail backdoor campaign to derail environmental and health policy," the release describes the strategy of these 'brownlashers' who "have opened a new line of attack...by challenging science upon which environmentalism is based." How dastardly! I am shocked, shocked! How dare anyone question the science of the Ehrlichs and their allies?
Of course, their real problem seems to be that journalists are listening to these challenges, so the press release attacks them all--from Ted Koppel to Rush Limbaugh ... an interesting constellation. Apparently, on ABC-Nightline a few years ago, Koppel opined that scientific critics should be judged on the basis of their science rather than on who supports their work.
The press release then goes on to label as "anti-environmentalists" well-known writers Michael Fumento, author of Science Under Siege, and Gregg Easterbrook, author of A Moment on Earth. I find my name listed alongside of theirs and attacked by patently false smears that are probably actionable. [In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the book itself refers to me unfavorably but in a reasonably civil manner. The Ehrlichs acknowledge that a specialist in libel law reviewed their manuscript; perhaps that had something to do with it.]

Betrayal claims to move the debate on environment "away from politics and polemics into the realm of science." A letter in the Washington Post (Jan.5, 1997) comments: "This is absurd... the book is itself a polemic. It mixes truths, half- truths, quarter-truths, and untruths in whatever proportions are needed to fit the Ehrlichs' beliefs on any issue. It caricatures the arguments of others to make demolition easier. It treats anyone who disagrees with the Ehrlichs as an enemy of the environment."

Perhaps the most amusing part of Betrayal is a listing of so-called "fables" about the atmosphere and climate, every one of which turns out to be true, even though the Ehrlichs state them to be myths. The most obvious one is: "Paul Ehrlich has made incredible claims about the climate before; he is not credible on this subject". This supposed myth, of course, happens to be absolutely correct. Here are some others, taken from the book and the EMS media advisory:
· "Global warming is not a major environmental problem."
Is this statement a myth? Certainly not. Our best estimate is that global average temperatures might increase by no more than a half a degree over the next hundred years as a result of greenhouse warming.
· "There is no evidence that global warming is real."
A myth? No. Plenty of natural fluctuations in the climate record, but no evidence yet of any manmade arming trend.
· "The atmosphere has actually cooled since 1979, according to accurate satellite- based measurements."
A myth? Not at all; the statement is absolutely correct. [NB: As of 1997; current data show a slight warming trend of uncertain origin.]
· "The less than one-half degree of temperature rise - all that global warming enthusiasts can find - is probably part of the slow recovery from the 'Little Ice Age'."
A myth? Hardly. This is considered the most likely interpretation of why the temperature increased between 1900 and 1940, well before industrial activity and population grew.
· "Even if global warming does occur, any necessary adjustments would be small compared to the adjustments we make to temperature differences over the course of a year."
A myth? No. Just compare a half-a-degree increase to a summer-winter difference of as much as fifty degrees Celsius (in Minnesota).
· "If global warming is occurring, there's probably not much we can do about it anyway."
Even without the benefit of modern technology, humanity has adjusted to much larger changes in the past millennia than we anticipate to happen in the next centuries.
· "Just a few decades ago, climatologists were concerned about global cooling. Scientists are obviously confused about the issue."
The first part of the statement is absolutely correct. And some scientists--like the Ehrlichs--are still confused.

In the Appendix, the Ehrlichs attack popular books that throw doubt on environmentalist claims. They stay away from the carefully researched The Resourceful Earth, edited by Julian Simon and the late Herman Kahn. It is interesting that they do not mention the widely publicized 1972 book Limits to Growth, which predicts an exhaustion of all mineral resources in the 1980s and of oil soon thereafter. It would have been too embarrassing to remind people of such failed predictions.

The same selective treatment is given to the so-called "scientific consensus" about global disasters. They quote a statement by scientific academies, concerned mainly with population growth, and the "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity," put out by the activist Union of Concerned Scientists. They carefully avoid mentioning the "Heidelberg Appeal," which cautions against hasty policies based on shaky science and was signed by over 4000 scientists worldwide, including some 70 Nobel laureates. Nor do they mention the "Leipzig Declaration," specifically concerned with the global warming scare, signed by nearly 100 atmospheric specialists.

I also note the absence of any mention of the "Morelia Declaration," a 1992 document signed by scientists that include some of the icons mentioned by the Ehrlichs in their acknowledgments--specifically, Thomas Lovejoy and Sherwood Rowland. Morelia calls for equal treatment of all species, including not only animals but also plants. So stinkweed should have the same rights as a human being? That notion might have been a bit too radical, even for the Ehrlichs.
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S. Fred Singer, an atmospheric physicist, is the founding president of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and emeritus professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. He was the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service. In early publications, he predicted the increase of atmospheric methane (Nature 1971), an important greenhouse gas, and devised the instrument used to measure stratospheric ozone from satellites (1956).
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