Susan Blackmore contracts apocalyptic fever

[Diamond]

That follows logically. If the average life span is, say, 60, a lot of people will die within the next 30 years.

Do you really think Blackmore was making such a trivial statement about human lifespan?

Do you think that all who share her views have come to these views because they have taken mind-altering drugs?

It would explain a lot if they did, but its an irrelevant discussion from whether Blackmore has any evidence that billions are going to die via fire, water and plague rather than natural old age.

On that point, she (and you) are rather light on evidence.

 

[CFLarsen]

Do you really think Blackmore was making such a trivial statement about human lifespan?

I don't know. Do you prefer to speculate?

It would explain a lot if they did

I asked you a question. You cast doubt on her statements because of her drug habits. Do you think her conclusions are false because she smokes pot? Yes or no?

but its an irrelevant discussion from whether Blackmore has any evidence that billions are going to die via fire, water and plague rather than natural old age.

Where does she speak of fire, water and plague?

On that point, she (and you) are rather light on evidence.

Me?

 

[Rolfe]

That follows logically. If the average life span is, say, 60, a lot of people will die within the next 30 years.

Oh, didn't I just know you were going to say that!

I didn't mention it because the point was already covered earlier in the thread. Billions of people have died over the past few decades too, of old age, disease, and yes, famine and natural disaster. And billions more have been born. Situation normal. If that is all she's talking about, then the rest of her article simply doesn't follow. But she goes on.

When sea levels rise further millions will drown, when the deserts grow bigger millions will starve, when the glaciers end their present flood of excess melt water vast cities will become uninhabitable almost overnight. Then what? ....

The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water.

She is not talking about the normal turnover of lifespan, she is talking about major catastrophe. And all this "within the next few decades".

If you intend to weasel out of this by declaring that her comment that

In all probablility billions of people are going to die in the next few decades.

is referring simply to the undoubted fact that billions of people die every few decades in the natural scheme of things, and that her following apocalyptic comments are somehow unrelated, talking about a catastrophe far further in the future, then I give up. You're beyond rational argument.

Now, you say that

She's not the only one with these views

So, please give references to other, reputable authorities who believe that the apocalyptic scenario she paints is in all probability going to happen within the next few decades. Then maybe we can come to some view on whether these people have any interesting chemical habits or not.

Rolfe.

 

[CFLarsen]

Now, you say thatSo, please give references to other, reputable authorities who believe that the apocalyptic scenario she paints is in all probability going to happen within the next few decades. Then maybe we can come to some view on whether these people have any interesting chemical habits or not.

EPA

WWF, here, and here.

Nature

European Environment Agency

All these people smoke pot?

Mass extinction of species and massive environmental changes will not result in an immense number of people dying?

You are beyond rational argument.

 

[Rolfe]

EPA

No mention of any timescale at all. And although some quite significant changes are described, nothing even close to a suggestion that "The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water."

WWF,

Better, in that a timescale is given, "by the end of this century". Is that "a few decades"? Debatable. However, what are they suggesting might happen by the end of the century? Alteration of habitats, so that eventually species of plants and animals will become extinct. They're talking about monarch butterflies and spoon-billed sandpipers, for example. How serious are the implications of this for human civilisation? Not stated. If the authors intend us to conclude that this will lead to "the world [becoming] awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water," they have singularly failed to take the argument that far.

here,

Better again, in that a timescale of "by 2050" is mentioned. But what is going to happen by then, according to that article? It is speaking of species being committed to extinction, not actually being extinct by then. This is entirely in line with what I posted earlier as my understanding of the situation, that indeed we may well have only "a few decades" to get this tanker stopped or turned round, before the course for the rocks is irreversible (indeed, we may be lucky to have that long). However, this is very different from declaring that the catastrophe itself will be upon us in that timescale.

And again, the article is entirely about loss of biodiversity.

“The hotspots studied in this paper are essentially refugee camps for many of our planet’s most unique plant and animal species. If those areas are no longer habitable due to global warming then we will quite literally be destroying the last sanctuaries many of these species have left.”

Since these biodiversity hotspots make up about one percent of the Earth’s surface, but contain 44 per cent of all terrestrial vertebrate species and 35 per cent of the world’s plant species, they are good indicators of the magnitude of global species that might be affected by rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

"These species lose their last options if we allow climate change to continue unchecked,” said Dr Lara Hansen, chief climate scientist at WWF-US. “Keeping the natural wealth of this planet means we must avoid dangerous climate change – and that means we have got to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.”

Once more, if these authors intend that their argument should be continued to conclude that "The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water" by 2050, they have singluarly failed to make that point.

and here.

Another short piece on loss of biodiversity. Nothing at all on any impact on human civilisation, let alone any suggestion that

In all probability billions of people are going to die in the next few decades. Our poor, abused planet simply cannot take much more....

I know this. The science has been building up for years and is now clear. When sea levels rise further millions will drown, when the deserts grow bigger millions will starve, when the glaciers end their present flood of excess melt water vast cities will become uninhabitable almost overnight. Then what?....

The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water.

Nature

This seems simply to be a very much shorter summary of the same paper as was discussed in the third of the links you posted, same comments apply.

European Environment Agency

Can't say. My computer crashed trying to open the document. However, as it's 107 pages long (we got that far), I couldn't promise to read it this month anyway. If you have an extract that doesn't swallow all my available memory, then please post it.

All these people smoke pot?

I shouldn't think so. But then they're not saying anything close to what Susan Blackmore is saying. Which I will remind you is that

In all probability billions of people are going to die in the next few decades. Our poor, abused planet simply cannot take much more....

I know this. The science has been building up for years and is now clear. When sea levels rise further millions will drown, when the deserts grow bigger millions will starve, when the glaciers end their present flood of excess melt water vast cities will become uninhabitable almost overnight. Then what?....

The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water.

I asked you to show some references to reputable authorities who were saying what Susan Blackmore is saying, and none of these is coming even close.

Mass extinction of species and massive environmental changes will not result in an immense number of people dying?

I don't know. That this will happen "in all probability" "within the next few decades", no, so far I remain extremely sceptical. Care to present an actual argument for that scanario?

You are beyond rational argument.

I don't know. We can't know until you actually try some rational argument.

Rolfe.

 

[The Painter]

Finally, we might decide that civilisation itself is worth preserving. In that case we have to work out what to save and which people would be needed in a drastically reduced population - weighing the value of scientists and musicians against that of politicians, for example - a prospect that does not look at all easy from here.

This is straight out of Dr. Strangelove. Here's some of the script.



Strangelove:

(Executes an about face from the big board to face the camera.) Mr. President, I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy... heh heh... (rolls forward into the light) at the bottom of ah ... some of our deeper mineshafts. The radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep. And in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in dwelling space could easily be provided.

Muffley:

Well I... I would hate to have to decide.. who stays up and.. who goes down.

Strangelove:

Well, that would not be necessary Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross section of necessary skills. Of course it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. (Slams down left fist. Right arm rises in stiff Nazi salute.) Arrrrr! (Restrains right arm with left.) Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within say, twenty years.

Turgidson:

Doctor, you mentioned the ration of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Strangelove:

Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

DeSadeski:

I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

Strangelove:

...sir! (stands up out of his wheelchair) I have a plan. Heh. (pauses, realizing that he is standing) Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!




Movie script edited for your enjoyment.

 

[CFLarsen]

Rolfe,

Rationality. Ah, yes.

The ice caps melt. Just one of the likely consequences of Global Warming. The sea level rises 80 meters (according to the French National Center for Scientific Research).

London gone. Holland gone. Large parts of Belgium, Germany and Poland gone. The Po valley, with Venice, gone. Denmark gone.

Millions of people. 25 million, perhaps more?

And that's just in Europe. Look for other global effects here.

Consider Bangladesh. In 1998, most of the country was flooded. That was only a hurricane, and the water level wasn't permanent. With global warming, the water stays. We are talking about the better part of - get a grip, Rolfe - 147 million people. Half the US population.

What about the US? With 80 meters, no more New York, 8 million people. Florida long gone, 17 million people. Most of Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, gone. Wanna do the math? Because I am getting tired of all these huge numbers.

Where would all these people go? Remember, we are not just talking about relocating them, we are talking about building new societies for them. People who need food, shelter and a way to get their lives back together.

Susan Blackmore isn't that far off after all. Is she?

 

[Rolfe]

How about you post some evidence that these things will in all probability occur "within the next few decades"? Susan Blackmore knows this, remember? Indeed, that little "I know this" sentence is one of the reasons I find Diamond's conclusion of substance-assisted thinking more than a little persuasive.

"Isn't that far off"? Well, at least we're now seeing an acknowledgement that she is "off" to some extent. We progress.

Diamond and I would probably disagree fundamentally as to how probable it is that these scenarios will occur at some point in the more distant future. However, we have agreed that this is not the point at issue in this thread. The thread is about Susan Blackmore, and her specific opinion, of which this "within the next few decades" is not only an integral part, but in my opinion the main objection to her thesis. I'll post the salient section again.

In all probability billions of people are going to die in the next few decades. Our poor, abused planet simply cannot take much more.... The carrying capacity of the earth is possibly a billion or two; it's certainly far lower than the current plague of humans.

I know this. The science has been building up for years and is now clear. When sea levels rise further millions will drown, when the deserts grow bigger millions will starve, when the glaciers end their present flood of excess melt water vast cities will become uninhabitable almost overnight. Then what?....

The world will be awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water.

The rest of the essay, with its presented choices, rests entirely on these premises. That the planet cannot (apparently under any circumstances) sustain a population of more than a billion or two, and that we will experience an environmental catastrophe which will kill billions of people within the next few decades.

You accused me (and others) of declaring that her conclusions were false on the grounds that she is a drug-user. Of course, nobody declared anything of the sort. Her conclusions are irrelevant if the premises on which she bases them are erroneous. Diamond pointed out that she is a regular user of cannabis, which is well known to cause in some regular users anxiety and paranoia. I agree that it is a good point that her drug habit may be fuelling this apocalyptic vision.

Note that none of her suggested courses of action relates to doing anything to avoid the catastrophe, which she "knows" is inevitable. She suggests that the British might try to save themselves by barricading the island, that any attempts to save everybody will probably result in nobody surviving, that in any case it might be the best thing for the rest of the planet's species that this should happen, and finally that if we want to save civilisation we have to undertake some sort of drastic cull so that only the (presumably 1 or 2 billion) most essential people are left alive.

Now, Claus, I think you're mistaking the point here. This is not a case of Susan saying, unless we address some very pressing climate-change issues very very soon, these are the choices that may be faced by our descendents at some time in the future. She "knows" that her scenario is (probably) inevitable, within the next few decades. No time for remedial action there, and indeed no possibility of practical remedial action if you truly believe that the planet can sustain no more than 1 or 2 billion people under any circumstances.

So, do you agree with her that the planet cannot ever sustainably support more than 1 or 2 billion people? Do you agree that (in all probability) within the next few decades there will be an environmental catastrophe which will cause billions of people to die, and lead to the world becoming awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water?

If not, in what way is she "not that far off"?

Rolfe.

 

[Hellbound]

Just a comment on the "1 or 2 billion people" remark.

Current studies place the maximum sustainable capacity of Earth at about 10 to 12 billion on average. Her 1 to 2 billion figure is taking the far end of the bell curve. I can point you to a google scholar search for peer-reviewed articles, although I can only access the abstracts. If someone else can get full-texts there's more info.

From "free" sources, here's one that gives a summary of various estimates. There's a lot of info out there. I did a Google search for the exact phrase "human carrying capacity" with the addition of the word "earth", and limited it to .edu sites, to find that reference. There's only a few hundred papers However, while many have differing views, all agree that the average of current estimates tends to be about 11 billion or so.

 

[Rolfe]

I always disliked the woman, for reasons I suspect you wouldn't appreciate. I had no idea about the drug habits, and I'd never seen her with unconventional hair colouring.

I don't see much reason to bring up her hair color or you personal dislike of her, either.

Er, I need to re-evaluate here. I now realise I'd never heard of Susan Blackmore before reading this thread. So I had no reason to have any opionion about her at all.

Having checked some of the references a bit more carefully, and also figured out who I was actually thinking about (I'm really too embarrassed to name names, as the lady in question is even more eminent than I had entirely realised), I find that a superficial resemblance has misled me.

This changes nothing else at all that I said. It does however make me feel that this is hardly worth discussing. The woman has no influence and is not well-regarded, and I realise that even the article referenced wasn't a proper Guardian publication.

I'm just rather relieved that I've stopped myself thinking of an eminent scientist as someone who smokes pot to get her ideas, likes psychedelic hairdos, and has completely lost the plot, before I actually said something out loud!

My response was to point out that this is nothing like clear, and that there are conceivable alternative explanations for the statement. It's very easy to interpret it another way; the most obvious is that statements about the utility of humanitarian aid under radically different conditions should not be construed as applying to current conditions.

I don't really see that interpretation. Do you think she is in any way suggesting that one possible way to approach her cataclysmic scenario is to provide aid to the third world? Her entire thesis is that a huge reduction in the world's population is inevitable.

Rolfe.

 

[mumblethrax]

The woman has no influence and is not well-regarded, and I realise that even the article referenced wasn't a proper Guardian publication.

Really? She's a prominent skeptic, having taken part in the recent conference on mind, brain and consciousness sponsored by the Skeptic Society. She's an influential (and skeptical) voice in popular science writing, if nothing else.

Your ad homs are not made more relevant by her new place in your universe.

But it's true, it's not a proper article, which is why I don't think we need to rake her over the coals for expressing a high degree of certainty about the crisis we're facing. It's at least plausible, and that's enough to warrant discussion.

Do you think she is in any way suggesting that one possible way to approach her cataclysmic scenario is to provide aid to the third world?

No, which is why I think these attempts to read between the lines are futile. She's saying that if we don't consider our options, the most likely response will be to continue on as we do now, largely ignoring the problems and scattering a little money around to make ourselves feel better. That's all she's saying. She's not saying that we created these problems with aid, she's not saying that aid can solve them. She's saying that under new conditions, this response might be the worst imaginable, and nothing more.

 

[Rolfe]

I've now read this blog commentary on the article in more detail, and it seems to me to cover the arguments pretty well. (It was this blog, in contrast to "Dr." Blackmore's own presentation of herself and all her books and articles and so on, that led me to the realisation that I'd been thinking of the wrong person.) Diamond's assessment of the thing still seems to me to be more or less on the money. Susan is at least hinting at the desirability of social Darwinism, in her suggestion regarding choosing who should live and who should die in order to preserve civilisation. She is also openly promoting eco-fascism, to Diamond's definition, which seems quite clear and uncontentious, in the constant assumption that "we" as a collective can and should actually take such decisions as to construct Fortress Great Britain, or euthanise all the excess population (shades of the Golgafrinchan B Ark, anyone?). While she hesitates to choose between her four "false dilemma" options, it seems clear that she regards choosing one of these as preferable to no action. (Though just how no action differs from option 3, in her universe, I'm still not entirely clear.)

To be honest, I doubt if I'd even have opened the thread, let alone taken such an interest, if I hadn't been under the serious misapprehension that the author of the article was someone well-regarded and influential. Now that I've realised my mistake, what's it all about?

Diamond is a well-known global warming sceptic. He and I have had at least one serious fist-fight about this on another thread. He posts an article which is grossly alarmist about global warming, and indicates that the author is away with the fairies. Which she plainly is.

So why all this leaping to defence of this weirdo, who witters on about Gaia's revenge, and (as Scott Burgess points out) probably has a subtext of abandoning the Kyoto protocols behind her article? Could it simply be because the article (to an extremely cursory glance) looks superficially similar to all those serious and well-referenced articles warning about the danger of loss of biodiversity that Claus linked to, apparently under the delusion that the authors were saying the same as Susan? So here we have it. Notorious climate-change-denier criticises climate-change-warning article. Heresy! Everyone, pile in and defend Susan, and demolish Diamond's opinion, because we are on opposite sides here!

Nuts. Even to someone who is seriously alarmed about the dangers of anthropogenic global warming, and believes passionately that the world has to get its act together to do something before it's too late, Susan's article (if you actually read it) is a pile of over-the-top scaremongering. Just because you disagree with Diamond on the wider global warming issue, doesn't mean he isn't right about this little item. And by going after him and trying to defend the indefensible Dr. Blackmore, it just looks to me as if people are letting knee-jerk responses to their pre-conceived notions of how another poster might be arguing interfere with their assessment of the merits of the actual argument in this case.

Scepticism to me means examining each argument on its merits, and not adopting a stance based on one's preconceptions of the attitudes of another poster.

Rolfe.

 

[mumblethrax]

Susan is at least hinting at the desirability of social Darwinism, in her suggestion regarding choosing who should live and who should die in order to preserve civilisation.

Once again, she's pointing out that if civilization of paramount value, it might be necessary to take repugnant actions to preserve it. This is not a promotion of social Darwinism, it's a conclusion from the premises.

She is also openly promoting eco-fascism, to Diamond's definition, which seems quite clear and uncontentious, in the constant assumption that "we" as a collective can and should actually take such decisions as to construct Fortress Great Britain, or euthanise all the excess population (shades of the Golgafrinchan B Ark, anyone?).

No, she's not "openly promoting" eco-fascism, whatever it's supposed to mean. She's pointed out that is the environment is the thing to be preserved, then a different course of action is required.

While she hesitates to choose between her four "false dilemma" options, it seems clear that she regards choosing one of these as preferable to no action. (Though just how no action differs from option 3, in her universe, I'm still not entirely clear.)

In order to declare this a fallacy of the excluded middle, you will actually have to identify some option which has not been discussed. She's not regarding anything as preferable, you're inferring that from her use of the word 'survival.' It's possible that the best option in such a world is to preserve a basic sense of morality and try to help the 'eco-refugees', even if it means doom for our civilization. I think she's predicting that this won't actually be the course we choose, but that's something different.

To be honest, I doubt if I'd even have opened the thread, let alone taken such an interest, if I hadn't been under the serious misapprehension that the author of the article was someone well-regarded and influential. Now that I've realised my mistake, what's it all about?

Exactly what it's always been about: are these premises warranted or plausible? Do her conclusions follow? Does this make her a [insert creative political description here]?

Diamond is a well-known global warming sceptic. He and I have had at least one serious fist-fight about this on another thread. He posts an article which is grossly alarmist about global warming, and indicates that the author is away with the fairies. Which she plainly is.

Not to me; the scope of his fame is pretty limited, and he doesn't have a great deal of credibility as a skeptic (for me, anyway). I also haven't read many of his posts, except for some run-of-the-mill global warming denialism.

The article is not exclusively about global warming. The lower estimates of sustainable carrying capacity take into consideration the fact that our civilization floats on a sea of oil (itself "cheap" only to the degree that environmental costs remain external). That this is going to become prohibitively expensive around the same time that we'll be feeling the worst effects of climate change is cause for concern. I am a bit more optimistic, I think we might be able to invent our way out of it. But I'm not exactly optimistic about that.

Incidentally, you might want to avoid words like plainly about things which are not plain, and uncontested about things which are currently being contested.

So why all this leaping to defence of this weirdo, who witters on about Gaia's revenge, and (as Scott Burgess points out) probably has a subtext of abandoning the Kyoto protocols behind her article?

You mean "as Scott Burgess doesn't point out." That's nowhere in his blog post, and would be pulled out of his posterior even if it was. He presents a series of straw men and the same old tired arguments that local climate improvements will somehow mitigate global climate change. Never mind that things will generally get worse, never mind that ecosystems don't recover in the timeframe necessary for this to be even come out to equilibrium. Never mind that entire agricultural infrastructure in the breadbaskets of the world will have to be picked up and moved hundreds of miles away.

Notorious climate-change-denier criticises climate-change-warning article. Heresy! Everyone, pile in and defend Susan, and demolish Diamond's opinion, because we are on opposite sides here!

Now you're trying to read my mind? I agree that Blackmore is overstating the threat, but I think that she might have a reason for doing so in a non-scientific venue. I think that the situation she describes is plausible, and it's worth talking about how we would react. But mostly I object to the character assassination.

Just because you disagree with Diamond on the wider global warming issue, doesn't mean he isn't right about this little item.

More conclusions from faulty premises. Just because I disagree with Diamond doesn't mean he isn't right; he isn't right because he happens to be wrong.

Scepticism to me means examining each argument on its merits, and not adopting a stance based on one's preconceptions of the attitudes of another poster.

I don't even know Diamond well enough to knee-jerk disagree with him. But I think it hilarious that you're lecturing me about arguing the merits when you've just been busily attacking Blackmore's character, and the only thing I've criticized you or Diamond about is not arguing the merits.

 

[Jimbo07]

Once again, she's pointing out that if civilization of paramount value, it might be necessary to take repugnant actions to preserve it. This is not a promotion of social Darwinism, it's a conclusion from the premises.

Okay, let's discuss (my inflammatory post for the day ):

A civilization that sanctions widespread barabarism, even through negligence, is probably not worth preserving...

 

[Rolfe]

I really don't see the relevance of defending Susan's list of apocalyptic choices when they have no relevance unless the premises they are based on are sound.

So, the planet can only sustainably support 1 or 2 billion people? In spite of what Huntsman posted?

Billions of deaths by famine and flood are inevitable within the next few decades?

This will lead to the world becoming awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water?

Unless you can defend all of these as "in all probability" going to happen, then her four choices are so much waste of electrons. Pointless defending them as rational thinking.

Oh, and apart from agreeing that cannabis smoking might have affected her perception of reality, where did I attack the lady's character (as opposed to her extreme views)?

Rolfe.

 

[Rolfe]

I might as well embarrass myself properly.

This is the scientist I was thinking of, when I first saw the thread title.

Just to make it even more mortifying, here's her academic biography from the university server.

In my defence, I can only say that she does have a reputation of being a bit of an oddball, as it says in the first article.

Perhaps the public have taken to her because they recognise that she is, by her own account, something of a maverick. Susan was the first member of her family to go to university – her mother was a chorus girl, her father an electrician – and she grew up with this idea that everything was a laugh. Unusually for an Oxford Professor of Physiology, she doesn't have a chemistry O-level and suspects she would score poorly in an IQ test.

I remember her Desert Island Discs as very quirky.

And (if you half-shut your eyes) there might be a slight physical resemblance.

I'll go away and do penance now.

Rolfe.

 

[Withnail]

But carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas. Methane is also a factor, and a lot of that comes from cows. It fits very well with the steady increase in farming after the Middle Ages..

Not to derail, but I heard on a radio news show that this study

http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/ap_050727_cow_gas.html

has been completed and they found gas immissions from cows to be about half what was commonly thought. There should be written reports on this study very soon.

Withnail

 

[mumblethrax]

I really don't see the relevance of discussiong Susan's list of apocalyptic choices when they have no relevance unless the premises they are based on are sound.

Absolutely. This is why I don't understand why some are denying the validity of her premises and then calling her to account for her conclusions, as if they would somehow still apply.

So, the planet can only sustainably support 1 or 2 billion people? In spite of what Huntsman posted?

Because of what Huntsman posted. Those estimates that take into consideration the sustainability of agricultural practices driven by fossil fuels tend towards the lower end of the spectrum. This would seem to be pretty important when we're addressing the question of sustainable carrying capacity. It might not be 1 or 2 billion, but it's almost certainly less than the 9 billion projected by 2050. Throw the exigencies of global warming into the mix, and the world starts to look too small.

Billions of deaths by famine and flood are inevitable within the next few decades?

It's possible that we'll produce technology to replace fossil fuels (and not just as a source of energy) within the given timeframe, so I wouldn't call it inevitable, but the historical track record isn't very good here (see, for example, Jared Diamond's Collapse). While our civilization has been successful in transitioning to new resources before, that's not quite enough to give me confidence that we'll do it again, particular since it's very difficult to bootstrap our way to sustainable energy infrastructures. We're not really taking this seriously at the moment, and the clock is already ticking. But this is probably the point where I would differ most from Blackmore.

Give me an upper bound for "the next few decades" and I'll tell you if I think it's the right timeframe.

This will lead to the world becoming awash with eco-refugees, desperate to get to anywhere with land and fresh water?

Inevitably. Wherever we see famine or widespread conflict (itself often a result of ecological damage), we see refugee crises.

The current crisis in Darfur, for example, is at its core a conflict over land and fresh water. We should expect this type of event more often as resources dwindle. Our dismal track record there, including today's announcement that the rations provided by the World Food Program will be halved for budgetary reasons, give us a glimpse of the sort of genocidal neglect we are likely to apply as matters get worse.

Oh, and apart from agreeing that cannabis smoking might have affected her perception of reality, where did I attack the lady's character (as opposed to her extreme views)?

Her hair color, your personal distaste (which you've since said was a case of mistaken identity), her scientific eminence (which I think you've underestimated). None of these seems relevant to the truth of her premises. As for cannabis, Carl Sagan made very similar statements, and I don't really think any less of him or his work as a result. I don't even think it explains his dedication to SETI.

I mean, if you think she's wrong, I can understand that. But why is it necessary to call upon all these tangential details of her personal life? Can't we just stick to the argument?

 

[CFLarsen]

Rolfe,

Do you want more time?

 

[Rolfe]

Do you?

Rolfe.

(What for, by the way?)