Reasons for Optimism on Climate Change?

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/04/28/Niall_Ferguson_and_Peter_Schwartz_on_Human_Progress

Historian Niall Ferguson debates futurist author Peter Schwartz on reasons to feel optimistic about the issue of global climate change.

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Niall Ferguson and Peter Schwartz present Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress as part of The Long Now Foundation's Seminars about Long-term Thinking.

Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies.

He is also a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

He is most recently the author of the books The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006) and Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire (2004).

Peter Schwartz is cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network (GBN), a unique membership organization and worldwide network of strategists, business executives, scientists, and artists based in Emeryville, California. Established in 01988, GBN specializes in corporate scenario planning and research on the future of the business environment. From 01982 to 01986, Peter headed scenario planning for the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies in London. His team conducted comprehensive analyses of the global business and political environment and worked with senior management to create successful strategies.

Schwartz is the co-author of both the 01999 books The Long Boom, and When Good Companies Do Bad Things: Responsibility and Risk in an Age of Globalization, and is the author of the 01991 book, The Art of the Long View: Planning for the Future in an Uncertain World. He is a member of the Long Now Foundation's Board of Directors.

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News & Politics

Tags:

• global
• warming
• co2
• levels
• greenhouse
• gasses
• emissions
• pollution
• controls
• green
• technology
• energy
• microbes
• ice
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[jimmybloodyjimmy]

wanna know the real reason the world seems fucked? theres too many people. do the world a favour; knock an old person down in your car :)

[roidz17]

"shag." Baaaahahahahaaa!

[jimmybloodyjimmy]

oi shit for brains. shagging is fun. experience it. love it. then die. life has to have some perks tit head.

[59acres]

well thanks for proving your stupidity...its the shagging that produces the off spring that increases the population....it was you who mentioned killing as a means of population control..i'm just pointing out you chose the wrong demigraphic.....shit for brains

[jimmybloodyjimmy]

wow mr personable... give them a chance for a shag or two first. then kill them. if you enjoy it, well, excelsior to you.

[59acres]

no shithead....knock down a young person with a car and stop them from breeding...oh course if they are as stupid as you they are no doubt too stupid to breed.

[lusitanic777]

Hope you are right. Cuz if you are not, then all its all the other problems that might end up being irrelavent.

[christmanpunch]

Global warming isn't worth destroying our economy over in my opinion. This catastrophic global warming hysteria needs a huge dose of reality. Trying to protray green house gases like CO2 as dirty pollutants that threaten to blacken the world is ridiculous. We should be focusing our attention on much more important issues.

[ariagia]

"Why are people starving? Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes. Therefore the people are starving. Why are the people rebellious? Because the rulers interfere too much. Therefore they are rebellious. Why do people think so little of death? Because the rulers demand too much of life. Therefore the people take life lightly. Having to live on, one knows better than to value life too much." —Lao Zi

[GOPsithlord]

Having had a look at some of his thesis (regarding the inevitable Fall of the West), I am not particularly wowed by Ferguson's logic or for that matter, his pessimism. Here however, he offers points that should give us pause when we're told that technology will magically negate pure human self-interest in natural resources, some of which are scarce.