Predicting the Environment’s Future Based on Its Past

Though I agree with very few of conservative columnist George Will’s conclusions, I find him to be one of the most impressive intellectuals in our world today. And occasionally, he will let out with something that really resonates with me, like the fallacy of predicting that the future will be a continuation of the past. As he points out, “The future always looks like the past – right up to the point it looks like something different.”

Personally, I see this as inconsistent with some of his conservative principles, and a justification for an abrupt change in some of our practices that are so aggressively depleting our natural resources and destroying our environment. If you believe that the future could look markedly different  from the past, doesn’t that mean that we could be on the precipice (as our scientists almost uniformly tell us) of a network of environmental disasters that will have devastating effects for humanity and all life forms?