The danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy
We must make every effort not to let ''The Limits of Growth'' become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are two shipwrecked men on a lifeboat. They have 20 litres of water, 10 kg of emergency rations and the oars on board.
- The optimist: We are 300 km from the coast, with our supplies we will be able to reach the coast in 10 days.
- The pessimist: We're all gonna die. We are condemned to death. We have no chance of escaping our fate.
The optimist tries to calm the pessimist to better thoughts, he talks to him well. But the pessimist cannot be convinced. On the contrary, he wants to convince the optimist that he and only he can be right. Such insanity, rowing 300 km on the open sea in a tiny lifeboat, it is unbelievable what nonsense the optimist babbles.
In the night when the optimist sleeps deeply, the pessimist throws the canister with the 20 liters of water, the 10 kg emergency rations and the oars into the sea. The next day in the morning the pessimist screams:
"Ha, you lunatic with your survival fantasies. We have no water, no food and no rudder either, do you still want to claim that we could reach the 300 km distant coast alive?"
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On the state of the world
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- The optimist: We have a boundless future ahead of us. We only have to change our energy system. From 300 tons of oil, gas and coal per capita and lifetime to 3 tons of energy technology that we will recycle for a very long time every few decades.
- The pessimist: Sustainable development is a nonsensical vocabulary like peaceful war. There is no development with sustainability. And as far as the green industry is concerned, this is pure fantasy. There is the idea of decoupling gross domestic product from energy consumption. There is absolutely no empirical evidence for this. Wherever the gross domestic product goes up, energy consumption goes up.
Renewable energy? Recycling? The pessimist doesn't want to hear about it, there's no place for it in his world view. That would disturb his gruesome fantasies of doom just as much as the 20 litres of water and 10 kg of emergency rations on board the lifeboat.
This pessimist has a name: Dennis Maedows, co-author of "The Limits to Growth". This is a Quote from the FAZ- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of December 4, 2012
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The working method of the pessimists
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- The optimist: Electric cars allow us clean mobility.
- The pessimist: Electric cars are dirt catapults. If the electricity comes from a lignite-fired power plant, 23 kWh/100 km 253 g CO2/km
- The optimist: But photovoltaics has fallen extremely in price. Today already cheaper than petroleum, if you calculate the fuel costs per km. Even in less sunny Austria and Germany.
- The pessimist: The manufacture of an electric car requires much more energy
- The optimist: But we can recycle everything with the electric car and its energy supply with sun and wind. However, a conventional car leaves 50 tons of CO2 in the air during its average service life.
The pessimist insists that he only gives fossil energy, recycling is only permitted if it is done using fossil energy. Everything is done to prove that we have no chance.
The water and emergency supplies thrown into the sea are the decades we have lost through the manipulations of these pessimists in switching to renewable energy and electric mobility.
These pessimists were very successful for decades in turning "The Limits of Growth" into a self-fulfilling prophecy. We of the WorldWellow Wealth must draw a line here. |
