May 05, 2007 00:13
"When I debate environmentalists, they always tell me that I have too much faith in technology to solve humanity's problems. I tell them that they don't have enough. I am a student of history, and history tells us that these environmental scares are always unfounded, because our technology and innovation allows us to overcome our obstacles. In the 1970s the dire prediction was that we were going to run out of food, that the world was overcrowded and we were all going to starve by the year 2000. It didn't happen. The claim is ludicrous. The world isn't in much danger of overcrowding, considering birthrates are falling throughout the developed world. Our technology allows us to produce more food than any other time in history. Our government pays farmers not to grow anything on their land to keep overabundance from driving prices too far down. These doomsday predictions have never come true since people started making them. These doomsday sayers are not students of history. I always tell people that our environment is the best that it has ever been historically. In terms of your environment's ability to kill you, we have the best environment there's ever been. We humans are unique in our ability to control our environment through our technology. Historically and economically that has always been the case, and so history and economics give us no reason to believe that will not continue in the future."
-Dr. Phil Mitchell, my former history professor (paraphrased)
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