Cassandra gets a bad rap.
The royal character from classical Greek drama is misperceived today as the archetypal false prophet. But in Agamemnon, the playwright Aeschylus casts Cassandra as a tragic heroine; her accurate warnings of doom are ridiculed as the ravings of a madwoman.
Paul Ehrlich, who spoke to a packed house at the University of Vermont on Tuesday, might be seen as a contemporary Cassandra.
A biologist and professor at Stanford University, Ehrlich has been forecasting global doom for the past 45 years. He’s the author of a 1968 best-seller, The Population Bomb, which helped initiate worldwide debate on issues of sustainability.
Ehrlich’s enemies — and they are legion — are quick to cite this passage from the best known of his 40 books: “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.”
Was that prophecy false in its essence, or only in its time frame?
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seems as though this fellow has a track record that makes it hard to even defend the speakers fee he received let alone his theories …..the technology today is producing incredible breakthroughs at an ever increasing rate . Mr Ehrlich would do well to spend a few months or years acquainting himself with the ascent of man ……talk to some young children and really listen instead of being a victim of his own bs
“But in Agamemnon, the playwright Aeschylus casts Cassandra as a tragic heroine; her accurate warnings of doom are ridiculed as the ravings of a madwoman.”
I think the irony was missed here. Civilization DIDN’T end. Cassandra’s prophecies, like Ehrlich’s, were wrong. Ehrlich is living proof that people will always be listened to, and make money, by prophesying doom. And the liberal group-think club in Vermont will always eat it up.
California will be an important testing ground with the Almond season this year. Due to Bee Colony Collapse disorder (Neonicotinoids, feeding bees HFCS [which breaks down into bee toxins], parasitic infestations, etc.), the bees able to be transported to the mono-culture Almond tree fields has dwindled to a potential tipping point. If there aren’t enough bees to ship to California this year – that crop will largely fail. Others may follow and when the bees are gone, so goes our food with it.
Wack…..Ohhhhhhhhhh!
Funny thing how Ehrlich consistenly loses the bet HE agreed to about our “impending doom.” Julian L. Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered in a famous scientific wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. Simon had Ehrlich choose five commodity metals. Copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten were chosen and Simon bet that their prices would decrease, while Ehrlich bet they would increase.[note 1]
Ehrlich ultimately lost the bet, and all five commodities that were
selected as the basis for the wager continued to trend downward during
the wager period.
Just because someone may be crazy doesn’t mean there isn’t some truth hidden in what they say. Take you for example – discussing how a doomsday theorist would have any indication of the market for metals. Sounds a bit off base – but it doesn’t mean you aren’t occasionally right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Cassandra predicted the fall of Troy, not of “civilization.” Troy DID fall.
Only if you assume Homer was telling the truth . . . He was, after all, writing for the Greeks.
The opposite is also true. Just because a guy is crazy doesn’t mean his predictions ARE correct.
And the broken clock is right twice a day regardless of Ehrlich. By that logic, what’s true is true regardless of Ehrlich, and he is irrelevant.