Are We Doomed?

Thomas Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” in 1798 and added his name to the language. Malthusian predictions of catastrophic population growth have been relegated to the lunatic fringe but the sentiment lives on. Man is destined to make the planet uninhabitable. Every generation has its doom sayers of course and the pace seems to be picking up. We’ve only just gotten past the nuclear winter scare, if we are past it, and now global warming is in full swing. There seems to be an emerging scientific consensus that it is happening, that it is caused by carbon based fuels, and that unless the United States reverts to the pre-industrial age we will soon see submerged sky scrapers in Manhattan. A consensus doesn’t mean the scientists are right. They’ve been wrong before. There are more than a few prominent skeptics but that doesn’t stop the dire predictions.
What nobody seems to have is any realistic notion of what to do about it. Solar and wind energy have their advocates but that potential is limited and there is the issue of where to put it. Those most likely to support massive windmill or solar cell farms don’t want them anywhere they might spoil the view. The only clean burning fuel on the horizon that could make a real difference is nuclear. Despite some recent softening by environmentalists an energy executive would have to be crazy to bet the company on that. Conservation is getting renewed interest but it is directed mostly at suburban mothers and their SUVs. The problem there is those mothers vote what’s important to them and one of their biggest issues is the car pool. If high gasoline prices don’t push them into hybrids I can’t see politicians getting in the way. The only other alternative I hear much about is the fuel cell. That technology is decades away at best. For now at least production of the necessary hydrogen consumes more energy than it provides and even if it didn’t a whole new distribution infrastructure would be required. In fact the two big winners in the current push for energy independence appear to be ethanol and so-called “clean coal,” neither of which does anything to decrease carbon dioxide emissions. Texas energy companies are even backing away from natural gas in favor of more coal because of price and supply instability.
If carbon dioxide really is a threat to the climate the two bulls in the china shop are China and India. They are going to join the industrialized world whether the rest of us like it or not, they are going to power their way there on carbon based fuels, and “clean coal” is not among their energy priorities.
So what do we do? We muddle through. Maybe enough reasoned voices will make themselves heard to offer something constructive. When they do we’ll act on them. We haven’t done that badly so far. The air is a bit cleaner than it was a few years ago. I suspect high prices will drive more than a little innovation I do think American energy independence will come, and fairly soon. That is a good thing because it will require a great deal more innovation. A few bad ideas will get passed into law but that’s life in a Democracy. The worst of them will be repealed before they do too much damage.
In the meantime, are people really spending money to see Al Gore’s movie on global warming? Abraham Lincoln was right. You can fool some of the people all of the time.