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Dude, that is bogus! That is so totally not Whole Earth Catalog thinking! We must totally act now to save the planet from Mel Gibson's Jew Hating Mad Max Nuclear War Winter cannibalism and vote Kerry! Haven't you seen Waterworld?

Posted by Anon at February 23, 2004 03:47 AM

Just because they aren't 'scientists' doesn't make them wrong! Listen to Oprah!!! Soylent Green is People!

Posted by Dennis Ahern at February 23, 2004 03:56 AM

Lex Luthor is behind this plot to make worthless desert land into beachfront. Common knowledge. Just ask anybody.

Posted by jl at February 23, 2004 04:10 AM

What no nekked dancing ladies, even jest topless ones?

(PS Thot Ralph Nader was soiled green? Is "soylent" an "(sp)" kinda thing?)

Posted by Steve at February 23, 2004 04:12 AM

Calpundit doesn't claim to support the story. He admits he doesn't know whether it's valid or not.

Or Weather or not...

Posted by Caldefender at February 23, 2004 04:20 AM

Hmmmm... you mean like he did with the Bush/AWOL story?

Posted by Ornot at February 23, 2004 04:21 AM

Peter Schwartz wrote the script for the movie War Games (where a kid hacks the missile control network and nearly starts WWIII). He's smart, well-connected to specialists who know what they're talking about, and a critical thinker. I interviewed him some years ago for a Discovery Channel documentary called FutureWar. He is the real McCoy.

Stewart Brand is probably even smarter than Peter. Check out his brief book Clock of the Long Now if you want some incisive, non-GreenieWeenie perspective on matters concerning timeframes longer than one human life. The book is chock-full of insights about how to sort out what matters from what doesn't in our own lives and in our culture. Only a few, precious aspects of human life will hold their value despite ever-accelerating technological advance. Yet these are exactly the things (example: love of our children) that impart the most meaning to our lives. It's urgent that we protect the important things and quit wasting time on the things that time will erase.

These guys are futurists, not fortune tellers. That means they construct worlds that might be, not worlds that certainly will be. The idea is to help organizations ranging from the Pentagon to the Sierra Club realize what effect current actions might have on the future, and consider how adjustments to current practices might lead to better futures. Notice the word "might." Schwartz et al. would be the first to tell you no one can predict the future...but that doesn't mean we shouldn't think about it.

Posted by Mark Hoover at February 23, 2004 04:48 AM

The Guardian article irritated me. The Pentagon is a building. Buildings don't talk. The Pentagon has tens of thousands of people in it. There are about ten people in the Office of Net Assessment, and they don't speak with the voice of the Department of Defense--their job is to think weird thoughts for a living.

Similar thing happened last month, when the news reported one guy's writing at the Army War College to be the official position of the whole school!

No wonder the military doesn't like press....

Posted by chap at February 23, 2004 04:52 AM

I don't get the "The truth is out there." link? It only took me to this site called Google, I think? What the hell is that? No truth there that I could see? Please, at least make real arguments by supplying real links to supporting arguments. Ok?

Posted by Kamakzi at February 23, 2004 04:56 AM

I remember whren WWIII broke out. It was a lot like War Games...

Seriously though the point is the Guardian/Observer really wanted a shot at Bush, wanted to start a new myth-based Bush bash, and conveniently left some key facts out of their story. And they knew it, or could have found it via Google. That's Yellow Journalism.

Here's more.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153514,00.html

"Key findings of the Pentagon" is deliberately deceptive, no offense intended to the gentlemen who wrote it. (Who, in fact, might not enjoy being called "The Pentagon")

Posted by Greyhawk at February 23, 2004 05:11 AM

You think the guy who wrote the script to "War games" is a valid futurist? The script centered around a working AI, using 1980s technology!

Nations will never use nukes to secure food supplies. The ones with nukes are advanced enough to secure other food supplies. The third world countries will do what they've always done. Let the peasants starve while feeding the upper class.

Posted by ErikZ at February 23, 2004 06:06 AM

to kamikaze

those japanese pilots were on a drug induce euphoria to aid them in their quest for glory.
I suspect you are on the same quest.
sometimes the obvious is not for everybody.

Posted by butthead at February 23, 2004 06:30 AM

For what it's worth, according to IMDB, Lawrence Lasker and Walter Parkes wrote War Games.

Posted by nitpicker #9 at February 23, 2004 06:37 AM

The Guardian story is old news — they just put an alarmist twist to a story published in Fortune magazine almost two weeks ago.

The Fortune article concludes:

In sum, the risk of abrupt climate change remains uncertain, and it is quite possibly small. But given its dire consequences, it should be elevated beyond a scientific debate. Action now matters, because we may be able to reduce its likelihood of happening, and we can certainly be better prepared if it does. It is time to recognize it as a national security concern.

Posted by Bug at February 23, 2004 07:37 AM

I find it a very big coincidence that this came out the same day that Ralph Nader decided to enter the presidential race.

Posted by Deans 4 Green at February 23, 2004 08:04 AM

"Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'

Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.

'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.

'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace."

Hat tip: Greyhawk. You made them all look...uhhh... uninformed

Posted by Thorn at February 23, 2004 08:35 AM

Oh, and one more:

"So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign."

Bring it on!

Posted by Thorn at February 23, 2004 08:39 AM

I have worked with Peter and his team, and have found some of their ideas to be terrifically powerful. I have no direct knowledge of the Pentagon report.

Large corporations or organizations like the Pentagon pay GBN to swoop in and map out plausible ways the future might unfold, as a tool for managing key uncertainties that affect the organization's future. Their bread and butter is to sketch out sets of scenarios like these (just an example):

1. Global warming is real and we do nothing about it
2. Global warming is phony and we do nothing about it
3. Global warming is real and we work hard to stop it
4. Global warming is phony and we work hard to stop it

and discuss in vivid detail what such a world would look like, how we'd recognize that reality is trending that way, and what we'd do if we found ourselves there. They are NOT qualified to say, and would never try to say, something like "scenario 1 will happen by 2020, and 55 million people will die." Predicting the future is precisely what their technique does NOT attempt to do, and is part of what makes it unique.

When the article says "so dramatic are the report's scenarios that they may prove vital in the US elections," I want to scream. First, they're supposed to be dramatic, to engage one's creative thinking. Second, GBN's scenarios come in sets: they write about a thing and its opposite, as in my example above. I'd love to hear the Guardian report on GBN's presumed "global warming is phony" scenario.

(IIRC, the GBN folks made their fortune by asking, 30 years ago, both "What if the price of oil keeps going up," which every expert knew would surely happen, and also "What if the price of oil goes way down," which turned out to be the surprising truth. Having thought through both scenarios, Shell was better-prepared than its competitors to act when the slump hit.)

If the Pentagon is using GBN, I applaud their foresight. A session with GBN can really shake up an organization and get them thinking creatively. It should never be confused with a plan or a prediction. I suspect the Guardian has confused the two.

Posted by planner at February 23, 2004 09:25 AM

Yeah, remember when they said back in the old days that NYC would be knee deep in horse shit in a few years because of all the horses and buggies. Now THAT's a scenario worth being scared about.

Posted by Syl at February 23, 2004 09:28 AM

Now, Planner brings some sanity to the brawl...

I can agree that the people themselves are among some of the most qualified futurists and futurologists in the world. And I can agree that they contemplate, investigate and eventually publish various 'scenarios' which have some validity in fact (in objective reality).

But for Al-Gaurdian to use the info like this makes even IT look petty, biased and lacking anything REAL with which to bash Bush.

Posted by Sharps Shooter at February 23, 2004 11:00 AM

Futurists!

Name me any "futurist" who was right except by random chance.

I have no doubt these guys are bright. They live good lives without doing anything real, just glib talking.

I am 57. When I was a teenager, the biggest problem facing the USA was going to be leisure time. There were books writen about it. Automation was going to replace all those factory jobs, and then what would people do with their time? Really, that was the worry.

Then, the futurists switched to a darker vision, famine due to overpopulation. Etc.

Americans now have the longest work week in the Western devleloped world, and we all know how fat we are.

Forget forecasters.

Joel

Posted by Joel at February 23, 2004 11:57 AM

No, it's true. Soylent Green is made out of people. It's people!

Posted by section9 at February 23, 2004 12:42 PM

Don't forget the coming Ice Age. That was the buzz for us enviro-nerds in the late fifties.

Posted by Emory at February 23, 2004 12:45 PM

Just wondering ... how long will it be before the "suppressed Pentagon report on global warming" takes its place beside the plastic turkey and Bush the Deserter as a left-wing incantation? I say, one week, tops.

Posted by Brown Line at February 23, 2004 12:50 PM

I find it interesting that the same people who are willing to cower after connecting the (few and far between) scare dots on the global warming musings - are the same people who can't seem to connect the dots that Islamist terrorists have established an international network, with the cooperation of nation-states, with the stated intention of attacking and destroying the west.

Hmmm..which should we be more concerned with today? That the ocean might rise another 3 inches in the next 20 years before we get serious about carbon fuels - or that terrorists might enter our country with WMDs??

Tough choice (if you are stupid).

Posted by Becky at February 23, 2004 12:51 PM

Three cheers to Planner.

Now back to ARod & his effect on the NYY's Global Dominance. (ARod is real & the Bosox are working hard to stop his effect; well, they could've worked harder.)

Why do I feel that if a Dem is elected Pres, all Global Warming stories will be off the front page? Could it be that I'm thinking of the homeless-in-the-street poverty stories, which were ubiquitous when Bush 41 was Pres, but which disappeared when Clinton was Pres, only to be, hesto-presto, resurrected when Bush 43 became Pres?

Hey, Karl Rove, how about this pro Bush headline: "Global Warming Helps Homeless; Now Warm In The Streets!"

TomCom

Posted by TomCom at February 23, 2004 12:59 PM

Hey Democrats, how about this headline: "Bush, GOP AWOL On Global Warming!"

TomCom

Posted by TomCom at February 23, 2004 01:02 PM

Didn't I hear all this on Art Bell's radio show--or he wrote a book on this or something.

Futurist. Heh.

Posted by eric at February 23, 2004 01:11 PM

Don't forget that the timeframe for that dramatic rise in temperature is absurd. If global warming exist (and isn't neutralized by some effect we don't know about), in a real situation the world would easily adapt. If you want to look at security, terrorist have an intent. Terrorist have ever evolving techniques with a fixed goal, the climate/environment is an everchanging system with no fixed goal and no end result.

Posted by aaron at February 23, 2004 01:33 PM

Butthead, the kamikaze pilots were not on drugs. If they had been, they wouldn't have hit anything.

Kamakzi, now, I don't know what he/she's on. I'm just talking about the kamikaze.

Oyasumi!

Posted by tom beta 2 at February 23, 2004 02:40 PM

Look, let's get this straight. "Climate change" is NOT a myth or else we'd still be huddling through an ice age. The question isn't over whether the climate changes. The question is one of whether or not humans are causing significant changes to the climate now, what those changes might be, and how we might limit that impact. I think it is silly to take actions regarding climate since we have no idea what changes might be taking place if we didn't exist. Particularly when the actions we take may have wildly disproportionate impact on our economy. Such economic impact could just as easily be equated to the effects of terrorism. The factors involved in trying to figure out how to counteract climate change are astronomical. We don't know with any degree of certainty what effect we are having on climate because we don't know what the climate would be like if we weren't doing what we are doing. And if we do something different, we won't know if what we did had any effect because we won't know what the climate would've been like if we hadn't done it. Precautionary principle be damned. We are human beings. If the climate changes in some radical fashion, we adapt and move on. It has happened before.

Posted by JAM at February 23, 2004 02:40 PM

The anonymous "planner" says that he has "worked with Peter and his team" and that their ideas are "terrifically powerful." Serious people do not describe ideas as "terrifically powerful." Nor do serious researchers "swoop in" with reports made more "dramatic" so as to "engage one's creative thinking." Cultists, cranks and quacks, on the other hand, do.

Posted by Paul Stinchfield at February 23, 2004 04:20 PM

I did policy debate in high school, and no matter what the topic of debate was, someone would find a way to link it to nuclear war. Giving help to homeless --> nuclear war.

In response, you could use the "Nuclear War is Good" evidence, showing all the good things about nuclear war.

Posted by Greg at February 23, 2004 05:05 PM

Art Bell did indeed do a book on climate change. Co-authored by none other than Whitley Streiber, UFO abductee extraordinary. The Coming Global Superstorm. At the time it came out a few years back I used it as evidence that their was absolutely nothing to worry about. If these cranks were pushing the notion it had to mean there was no basis in fact.

Posted by JAM at February 23, 2004 06:56 PM

Peter Schwartz wrote the script for the movie War Games (where a kid hacks the missile control network and nearly starts WWIII). He's smart, well-connected to specialists who know what they're talking about, and a critical thinker.

Hmmm...a critical thinker who didn't stop to ask himself: "Now, why on earth would anyone buy the idea that someone would design a top-secret military computer with an unencrypted outside line?"

I can't say that it follows.

Posted by Slartibartfast at February 23, 2004 09:04 PM

Jam said, ""Climate change" is NOT a myth or else we'd still be huddling through an ice age." The inherent fallibility in that argument is the assumption of some prehistoric event for which there is no scientific "proof". For all we really "know", the "Ice Age" is a myth too.

Posted by Chris at February 23, 2004 09:05 PM

Very clever. From now on I get all my science info from President Bush, you know, the guy who thinks the world is closer to a thousand than a billion years old.

Posted by Robert Schweizer at February 24, 2004 12:08 AM

I'm not sure what kind of evidence Chris is seeking. I'm not a professional scientist, but I think a lot of science is based on someone making an observation, and then trying to figure out or explain how the observed event might have taken place. Over time, other researchers will do work that adds additional proof or disproof of the original theory, and a consensus may eventually be reached about the correctness of the original claim. This may take a long time; just ask Copernicus.
While we can't take a time machine back to be 100% sure (I hope this isn't the evidence Chris is waiting for), at some point, somebody saw something that seemed best explained by the existence of an ice age. I'm also not an expert on ancient climate, but I think one piece of evidence used to support the ice age theory would be the presence of moraines left by advancing, and then retreating, glaciers. When we see this evidence in a non-arctic setting, we may conclude that the most reasonable explanation we can currently conceive involves some point in the past at which the climate was significantly colder. This is an example I happen to be aware of, but there probably are others. I will admit again that we don't have a time machine, but we do have evidence.
A myth would be something for which there is no evidence, although there may be plenty of wishful thinking on the topic. You know, like the Bush AWOL thing.

Posted by JayDean at February 24, 2004 12:12 AM

Uhh.. Robert, did you read anything here?

And are you okay?

Posted by Huh? at February 24, 2004 12:44 AM

Futurists were a big deal back in the '80s in private industry, then they went out of fashion when fanciful thinking got a closer scrutiny by the bean counters. Apparently, big government is the only place that still believes in straight trend-line thinking. But then it doesn't have to answer to stockholders, so anything goes.

Posted by jerry at February 24, 2004 01:22 AM

We are spending BILLIONS for these guys to sit around and think up possible (and impossible) scenarios that put our future (my kids) at risk. Good. This is money well spent, as compared to most of the crap my taxes are wasted on. Ever been through West Virginia?

Posted by td at February 24, 2004 03:23 AM

I think Paul Stinchfield nails a certain type of perma-alarmist pretty well. Kudos to Paul. No offense to planner.

Posted by Kelvin Mitnik at February 24, 2004 04:50 AM

Gee wiz, the Pentagon is studying what has a very small chance of happening. Good for them. Being thorough is a virtue that we can and should pursue. They also probably have plans for invading Paris. So what? Anyone who thinks this story has any significance, really needs to check their reality meter.

The really good lesson here is that you should never listen to leftist futurists. They are always way off due to self induced future myopia.

Posted by michael at February 24, 2004 06:09 AM

Oops, sorry for the double trackback. Nice bedtime story, I'll save it for my kids on halloween. Of course, I'll have to add a Rumsfeld inspired monster or two for the proper scare.

Posted by Blueshift at February 24, 2004 07:31 AM

Kelvin Mitnik: I think Paul Stinchfield nails a certain type of perma-alarmist pretty well. Kudos to Paul. No offense to planner.

No offense taken, Kelvin. I wouldn't be speaking up for GBN if I thought they were the typical perma-alarmists. As a capitalist and a conservative, I have no fondness for the Chicken Littles. But based on my prior experiences with GBN, I am skeptical that that's what's really going on here. What I think is more plausible is something like this:

Left-wing newspaper obtains largely unobjectionable leaked document, focuses on incendiary portion of much larger whole, interprets it in a context very different from the one it was written in, spins result into the most anti-Bush story it can.

Again, I have no direct knowledge of the Pentagon report, and I could be dead wrong, but based on what I do know of GBN, what is described in the Guardian story sounds fishy to me.

Oh, and Paul? Chill out. By snarkily attacking and misrepresenting not just GBN but me you risk antagonizing someone who may very well be your ally. I agree that something's fishy, but I suspect you're pointing the finger the wrong place. If I'm right, the story is not 'Doom-and-gloom think tank issues dire report,' it's 'Neutral think tank issues thoughtful report which major newspaper spins into anti-Bush scare piece.' Which story is more damning to the Axis of Fretful that we apparently both despise?

Or as Speculist points out, a Fisking is deserved, but we're Fisking the wrong guy. GBN good, Guardian evil.

UPDATE: I just read the report, thanks to Tim Blair and, ironically, the loonies at Stop Esso. The 22-page report is indeed GBN's typical, rather modest "What If" piece, filled with disclaimers about the impossibility of predicting the future, and with entirely reasonable recommendations at the end. The Guardian ripped out and waved around the scariest parts and recast the report as a scientific prediction of the future, which the report itself clearly states it is not.

Posted by planner at February 24, 2004 09:54 AM

Steve - "(PS Thot Ralph Nader was soiled green? Is "soylent" an "(sp)" kinda thing?)"

If you come back, no it isn't. It was a novel, later made into a movie with Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston about an overpopulated world which had discovered a miracle food called "soylent green", which the hero found out was made from people. Lots of nourishment...

Posted by John Anderson at February 24, 2004 07:55 PM

planner, you're right, there was no call for me to be snarky. You sounded uncredible to me, but I could just as easily have said so in a civil way. I apologise. No kudos for me.

And I promise to stop channeling Walter Matthau.

Posted by Paul Stinchfield at February 25, 2004 02:41 AM

Is this the same kinda science fiction as Wolfie's Pentagon cooked up about WMD's in Iraq?

We got lots of dire consequences that 'might' happen being hyped by media stooges.

And if the AWOL thing isn't true, why doesn't Shrub release all of the records like he said?

Posted by penheaded at February 25, 2004 05:01 AM

No kudos for Kelvin; kudos revoked for Paul. :(
Kudos for planner. :)
Par for the course for the Guardian, maybe.

Posted by Kelvin Mitnik at February 25, 2004 05:11 AM

If Jam does not believe in protecting the enviroment then he needs to get into a auto with all doors and windows closed and a pipe running from the exhaust to inside the auto with the motor running and count all his money or leave the money and get out. I'd bet we would be short one Republican or have a enviroment aware Democrat

Posted by Richard at March 3, 2004 06:01 AM

Kelvin comment on this.
Internet Lawsuit Could Have Global Effect


Email this Story

Feb 27, 9:36 PM (ET)

By ANICK JESDANUN

NEW YORK (AP) - On its face, the latest showdown between the company that runs much of the Internet's core and the organization that oversees key aspects of the global network is a basic contractual dispute.

But whatever a federal court in Los Angeles decides could have broad implications over whether financial or public interest ultimately drives decisions on how Internet users worldwide visit Web sites and send e-mail, legal experts say.

On Thursday, VeriSign Inc. sued the oversight body, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, saying ICANN's decisions have impeded efforts by VeriSign to offer new, moneymaking services.

The contract between VeriSign and ICANN is indeed vague, and both sides have strong arguments, said Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who follows Internet policy.

A decision could set precedent over whether ICANN has legal authority to halt emerging Internet services that it considers "good for VeriSign and bad for the Internet as a whole," Weinberg said.

VeriSign, based in Mountain View, Calif., sought injunction relief and unspecified damages against ICANN, which the U.S. government designated in 1998 to handle domain names and other Internet addressing policies.

In a statement, ICANN expressed disappointment "that VeriSign has again chosen confrontation over consensus."

VeriSign controls the computers that contain the master list of domain name suffixes, such as ".com" and ".fr." The company also runs directories for the two most popular suffixes, ".com" and ".net."

As a result, Internet computers intersect with VeriSign's millions of times daily to find out how to route e-mail and Web traffic.

Critics consider VeriSign a monopoly that tries to abuse its power by offering services favorable to its bottom line. Though VeriSign considers them innovations that benefit Internet users as well, ICANN has often responded by denying or delaying VeriSign's plans.

ICANN, meanwhile, has faced criticism that "it makes up its rules as it goes along," said Michael Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Miami. He described ICANN as a regulatory body without established procedures regulators normally have.

A newly formed U.N. task force is studying replacements to ICANN.

In the lawsuit, VeriSign argues that ICANN has exceeded its authority by defining the company's efforts as "registry services," a term that by contract subjects the company to greater oversight. VeriSign also complains that ICANN takes too long to make decisions and is often inconsistent when it does.

"It's a culmination of our efforts over the last few years to gain a clear and consistent and fair process for the introduction of new services," said Tom Galvin, vice president of government relations for VeriSign.

Disputed services include Site Finder, which VeriSign launched last fall for guiding Internet users who mistype Web addresses.

Instead of an error message, Web surfers who enter addresses that don't exist get suggestions on where they might have wanted to go. VeriSign sometimes gets money for directing traffic to those sites.

Under pressure from ICANN, VeriSign later agreed to suspend the service following criticisms that the service damaged existing functions, like some spam filters and rival search services.

VeriSign also is awaiting approval on offering domain names using non-English characters and a waiting list in which individuals or businesses can grab domain names already in use as soon as their registrations expire.

Weinberg said ICANN can reasonably argue that its role as guardian of Internet stability trumps the profit-making desires of a private company. But to the extent ICANN's authority is formalized in contracts that aren't all that clear, he said, "this is not a lawsuit to laugh off."

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