Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by ska on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @02:27PM
(#26638363)
> Don't forget the prediction of mass starvation made in the 1970s for the 80
This didn't happen at any significant scale; I mean there were (correct) concerns about geopolitical forces leading to things like the mid 80s ethiopian faminei impact but no concern about wide spread starvation.
There was concern about mass starvation in the earlier part of the century, and it was pretty well founded. This changed due the "green revolution" and massive increase in food production.
What this shows is that predictive models can be made obsolete by new technology.
Unfortunately, a lot of people take the wrong lesson from that. The assumption that new technology will arrive in time to address a well predicted problem is dangerously irrational.
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by haltingproblem on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @03:41PM
(#26639385)
"Dangerously stupid"? Please review the HN site usage guidelines.
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by ska on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @04:13PM
(#26639800)
I’ll have a look bit suspect it’s on the right side of them, it’s an assumption not a person; updated anyway.
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by the-dude on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @01:29PM
(#26637539)
In the 70s we would all freeze to death due to a new ice age. Thanks for the heads-up.
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by titzer on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @01:49PM
(#26637844)
No scientist ever seriously suggested this. At most they pointed out that a new ice age was coming...on schedule. In a couple thousand years.
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by haltingproblem on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @03:52PM
(#26639525)
"the prognosis is for a long-lasting global cooling more severe than any experiened hitherto by civilized mankind." [1]
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/003358...
Re:Japan's cherry blossom 'earliest peak since records began'
by titzer on Tuesday March 30, 2021 @05:03PM
(#26640460)
....8000 years from now, as part of the normal interglacial cycle, which is exactly what I said. And given that civilization is less than 10000 years old, just returning to the previous ice age would technically fulfill the quote you tried so hard to pull out of context. Did you actually even read the entire abstract?
Don't forget the prediction of mass starvation made in the 1970s for the 80s, updated to the 90s then the 2000s and so on and so forth.
Galactic gloom and doom is probably written into our genes which is why it makes its way into almost every western religion. Armageddon. We need to balance our natural proclivity for gloom and doom with plausible scenarios like pandemics, asteroid strikes, obesity epidemic, population declines instead of fantasy one that never come to pass or ones we have no control over.