Rutger's English Blogg

In his book, Paul Ehrlich wrote "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate. ". "As dark as the religious predictions. He still drives the same way and in the recent interview in The Guardian, he says that his most predictions have come true. Have advocates strong population reduction, additional tax on children and luxury tax  on children's items such as diapers, etc.. He advocates sterilizing, better contraception and more abortions.

 He has been in Gothenburg and received the Volvo Environment Prize, which was established in 1990, The Volvo Environment Prize. The price has through the years been distributed to some deserving people, writes Lars Bern on Newsmill, but the lasting impression is that it is tainted by the jury often picked out pure prophets of doom with a weak foothold in a virtual reality. Other prophets of doom who received this award are John Holdren and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber by Lars Bern et al. see
http://www.newsmill.se/artikel/2011/11/01/volvo-rykte-skadas-nr-man-prisar-domedagsprofeter

Another doomsday celebrity who has been in Gothenburg and won an award is Al Gore. But this time it was not Volvo price but "Gothenburg Award for Sustainable Development."

The world and  love pessimists  but optimists are those that promote development. Yields of grains have risen more than expected. Latest in this area is the forecast of an increase in global yields of 7% in the case of wheat and other cereals. Despite intense drought in the U.S. and elsewhere yields will increase. The threat that extreme weather will increase is just a doomsday threat. As long as man has existed, good weather is regularly interrupted by storms, typhoons and other disasters but man has always bounced back. Think of the late 1600s when it was at its coldest during the Little Ice Age. Failed harvests, one-third of the Finnish population died of starvation. Then we could not send  a lot of corn there. Today, with a world that has been given access to the western technology, we can do it if we just will. Often we are told that society is more vulnerable today because of technology, but in many situations it is the opposite. We know  for examples of how quickly Europe recovered after World War II. When Gustav Vasa took revenge on people from Småland after the war Dackefejden it took over a hundred years before the province recovered according to Wilhelm Moberg's "My Swedish History".  According to Wikipedia, it took decades.