Charles Philip Arthur George, the prince of Wales and the man who would unfortunately be king, sees doomsday in the near future. Apparently his foreknowledge is a function of his royal super powers. He’s seeing something no one else is.
Of course there’s good reason for that.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Prince Charles, addressing foreign ministers from around the Commonwealth last week. “I am firmly of the view that the next 18 months will decide our ability to keep climate change to survivable levels and to restore nature to the equilibrium we need for our survival.”
The prince wasn’t wearing a sandwich board sign declaring “The End Is Nigh.” It wouldn’t have been expected of a distinguished gentlemen from a royal bloodline. But it would have been fitting.
A little more than a decade ago, about 124 months in the past, the prince announced the world had “less than 100 months” to save itself. He revised his doomsday prediction in 2015 to 35 years. Now he’s certain that it’s 18 months. What he’ll be predicting next week is anyone’s guess.
But being a global warming alarmist means never having to admit error.
Al Gore, who invented both the Internet and global warming, predicted in 2006 there would be no Arctic within five years. In 2007, 2008, and 2009 he said the pole would be ice-free some time around 2013.
Also in 2006, “while preening at the Sundance Film Festival,” he declared “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases” were “taken within the next 10 years, the world will reach a point of no return.” We would be suffering “a true planetary emergency.”
He was wrong on all counts. As have all the other global warming prophets who’ve warned us disaster is imminent. Yet they continue to stir fears, and speak with a dead-set certainty that leaves no room for backtracking.
What these zealots have forgotten, or maybe have never known, is that no one knows what will happen in the future. A few events are predictable. Economics accurately predicts what will occur when supply and/or demand change. But beyond that, history shows that we have no idea what’s coming next.
Author Michael Crichton made this clear in a 2002 speech in which he said “nobody knows what the future holds.”
Paul Ehrlich, described by Crichton as a “brilliant academic,” has been, for example, “wrong in nearly all his major predictions,” including prophecies “about diminishing resources … the population explosion” and the loss of half of all species.
The late Crichton listed quite a few real-world misses — including Y2K — before quoting Mark Twain, who said, “I’ve seen a heap of trouble in my life, and most of it never came to pass.”
In another speech the following year, Crichton elaborated on scientific “consensus,” which he regarded “as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks.”
“It is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. When you hear the consensus of scientists agree on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
Consensus, said Crichton, is the “business of politics,” not science. It is, in fact, “irrelevant” in science.
“If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
Crichton cites a number of pivotal moments in history when the “consensus” was wrong: the pellagra outbreak in the 1920s, a half-century of denying continental drift, ideas on smallpox, germ theory, margarine, and nuclear winter — his list of “dramatic, damaging errors of the consensus goes on and on.”
Remember this when Gore says a consensus among researchers has settled the science on global warming, or when a journalist lazily, and uncritically, claims there is overwhelming evidence that human production of carbon dioxide is overheating Earth. Skepticism is healthy.
Continually menacing the populace with empty doomsday predictions, however, is not.
Issues & Insights is a new site formed by the seasoned journalists behind the legendary IBD Editorials page. We’re just getting started, and we’ll be adding new features as time permits. We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we believe the nation needs the kind of cogent, rational, data-driven, fact-based commentary that we can provide.
Be sure to tell all your friends! And if you’d like to make a contribution to support our effort, feel free to click the Tip Jar over on the right sidebar.
I will take the over on Prince Charles prediction. The stakes are: all the gold in my home, versus the Hope diamond and any autographed Beatles albums he may have
I’d like a piece of that action, Prince Charles’s autographed copy of “I’m a Loser”.
Isn’t Charles the idiot who promotes Homeopathy when all objective studies have concluded it is nothing but chicanery ?
Science has “proved beyond doubt” we had an ice age millions of years ago. I have asked myself what caused the end of that ice age. I came to the conclusion it must g ave been global warming. God made the ice age, global warming and everything else. He will reverse the process so in another 20 million years we can worry about global freezing, The only thing we can do is not “encouraging the proces. We cs n not stop it or reverse it.
Biased article. Writer obviously does not like Charles. Make the rest of the article not worth reading.
How come all negative comments give me an option to “like” and your comment says “loading”. Things that make you question the validity of this article.
Yeah, maybe the end of HIS world…or rather, the British royals as a whole. Just how long do they expect to be around with sharia & stuff????? Ha!
Whether global warming exists or scientists will ever agree….the future has already been written in advance. The Creator of heaven and earth will not let humans destroy our home. He promises in the book of Revelation chapter 11 vs 18 that he will bring to ruin those ruining the earth. Among other things it predicts, the Bible clearly shows that we are living in the final part of the days of society as we know it…
Matt. 24:14
I would have though that ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’, by Thomas H Kuhn, would have thoroughly and permanently dismissed the validity of ‘scientific consensus’, but 1962 was a long time ago, and all the most honored and decorated scientists (and predictors) seem to be those that promote hogwash.
Your reference in the article reminds of an old cartoon, possibly in the New Yorker, depicting an old man with a long beard, wearing a sandwich board that said ‘World Ends Tomorrow’. It was his lifelong career.
And finally, the objective of Luddites and other ‘progressives’ seems to be the dismissal, annulment, and revocation of all the achievements in public health of the last 200 years … all in the guise of promoting healthy living. No additives, no preservatives, no insecticides, no vaccination, no packaging, raw milk, even no refrigeration!
It is more than evident there is no climate change except what God of the universe decides! The originally scientist who was at the beginning checking into and studying global science, Green Peace has left those that ran away through politics the idea of “global warming”. While in fact the uncorrupted models show these false claims of “pocketbook climate change” and related claims are just that, a Ponzi scheme!
Perhaps this is why the Queen is waiting two years before handing Charles the crown.
Maybe you could have added some changes that were made to reduce global warming…but guess it has to be your opinion only.
I believe Prince Charles stated, 18 months for us to decide our ability. Regardless of the timeline, truth is, we are in a crisis. We all need to do our part to aide in change before it is too late.
All the horrible things going on in this world and he thinks global warming is going to end the world.