Word: doomsdayers
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Forceful Rebuttal. Beckerman's 1975 book, Two Cheers for the Affluent Society, has become one of the most forceful rebuttals of the doomsday forecasts. He argues that the doomsayers have not taken account of how the market system can motivate public and private enterprise to develop successful alternatives. As for population, says he, birth rates will fall dramatically as living standards rise, especially in Third World countries. Food shortages will fade as production techniques improve. Pollution can be controlled when it is recognized that the problem is not growth but a misallocation of resources. Says he: "Because...
...public cannot be asked to swallow, without questioning, the financing of research that has been called both the hope for mankind and a shortcut to doomsday...
Although the scientists left Asilomar thinking that they had allayed public fear about their work, they had only managed to fan it. Newspapers, which had until then paid scant attention to the story of recombinant DNA, erupted with scare headlines, alarming the nation with exaggerated doomsday prophecies. Two months later, Ted Kennedy held his first hearings on the new genetics. Some scientists, joined by politicians, began questioning whether the molecular biologists should do their own policing. Said one: "This is probably the first time in history that the incendiaries formed their own fire brigade...
Henry Kissinger once complained that the Pentagon was crediting its long-range cruise missile with being a cure for everything but the common cold. It may not be the ultimate doomsday weapon, but this armed drone, which looks a bit like a stunted jet plane, promises to become one of the most versatile weapons in the U.S. arsenal-and the Russians have good reason to be impressed...
...number of doomsday arguments have been raised against the Concorde, as well as against the ill-fated Boeing SST that was scrapped in 1971. There were prophecies that supersonic aircraft would emit such great quantities of water vapor that a permanent cloud barrier would shut out the sun; this "greenhouse" effect would dangerously raise the earth's surface temperature. There were also predictions of skin cancer epidemics: nitrogen oxides released by the SSTs would destroy the ozone layer that partly shields the earth against the sun's lethal ultraviolet radiation. Then too, the SST's fumes were...