Will's Laws (on doomsaying)

Comment: George Will (always readable) on "eco-pessimism", "calamitous food shortages", "experts", "global warming", "global cooling", and other things that go bump in the night.

George Will: Dark Green Doomsayers

Excerpts:

1. "Law of Doomsaying": Predict catastrophe no sooner than five years hence but no later than 10 years away, soon enough to terrify but distant enough that people will forget if you are wrong
   
2. Montaigne's axiom: "Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."
   
3. Because of today's economy, another law — call it the Law of Clarifying Calamities — is being (redundantly) confirmed. On graphs tracking public opinion, two lines are moving in tandem and inversely: The sharply rising line charts public concern about the economy, the plunging line follows concern about the environment. A recent Pew Research Center poll asked which of 20 issues should be the government's top priorities. Climate change ranked 20th.
   
4. Real calamities take our minds off hypothetical ones