Predictions?

Every year end there are a lot of predictions about the end of the world or major catastrophes coming in the new year. They always get my attention. I'll be in line at a checkout counter and the headline will read "World to End Next Year". I don't know about you, but I have to read further. I want to know who says and why and what their batting average is on predictions. I find that the more dire the predictions, the more I tend to read on and sometimes to the point that the checkout girl has to bring me back to reality. The world may be going to end tonight, but I still have to pay for the groceries.

Nostradamus is the all time leader in the predicting industry. He was a French, Christian, Jew (liked to cover all the bases) and he lived in the 1500's. He wrote vague and mysterious quatrains loaded with strange symbolism that successfully predicted World War One and Two if you can believe his proponents. I have noticed in the predicting world you want to be as vague and mysterious as you can. This is good theater and allows a wide variety of interpretations. You can always claim that a prediction was misinterpreted if it doesn't to come true. It allows you to change dates or facts if you need to. Symbolism also allows you to apply your predition to a wide variety of disasters.

Lets look at the ever popular "End of the World Prediction". So far they have all been wrong or "misinterpreted". This is evidently a tough one for predicters to get right. If you are thinking about predicting this one yourself you should be very, very vague. Give yourself some wiggle room. I wouldn't try this one if you are just starting out. If you are right, you can't say I told you so, cause well, the world ended. If you can't be a bit smug about your predictions that come true, they just aren't as much fun.

In the last twenty years or so the poplular doom and gloom predictions have all come from the "global warming industry". This industry seems to be teetering on the edge of collapse. They have made two classic mistakes you should avoid. They have predicted things to happen in our life times so they are verifiable, and they weren't vague enough. Just for fun lets look at a few of their more notable failed predictions.

Prediction: Gobal warming is causing the polar ice to disappear the arctic ice cap will melt entirely by the year 2008.

Boy, oh boy. Never give a date and use symbolism. Two classic mistakes.
The polar ice caps grow and shrink all the time. The artic ice was actually increasing just when it was supposed to decrease and disappear. Actually in the summer 1958 the artic cap broke up enough for a US sub to surface at the North Pole. So by predicting something that was already proven to be historically possible, they expected a slam dunk and by adding a date, just got slammed instead.
Vague--you need to be vague.

Prediction: CO2 is causing global warming. This a perrenial favorite. It started in the 1890's and despite data contradicting it all through the last century and the inability of the top twenty computer models that are being used to predict global warming, to predict the recent past, it is still popular. So poplular, we have created an ethanol industry where we are now burning enough food to increase food prices world wide even though it is admittedly so inefficient a process it takes almost as much energy to make the ethanol as you get out of it.

This is a better effort at prediction. It is vague, it operates at the fringes of statistical error, it is almost impossible for the average person to prove or disprove, it is compellingly scary and it has no specific date. The best part (I saved this for last). They have created an argument that: global cooling, is in reality, part of global warming. That is just soooo good. No matter the data now, it is global warming! Brilliant

Here are my predictions for 2011:

1. Funding for global warming research will increase.

2. The number of Universities studying global warming will increase, increasing the competition for money.

3. The scientist making the most dire predictions will get the most money. (Desparate scientists do desparate things)

4. As a result, predictions about global warming will become more dire in the face of evermore inconclusive or completely contradictory evidence.

5. Politicians will continue to make very poor decisions to save us from something that cannot be proven to be man made and may not be happening. It's just good politics.

6. Nostradamus will be predicting the end of the world again next year along with Al Gore. It's just good business for them and the news industry.

Hope all is well with you and the global warming believers can forgive my irreverance, and all of you have a safe and happy new year. (I'm guessing Nostradamus will be wrong again.)