Did Ted Turner really say that global warming would turn people into cannibals in just 30 years?

Question

if he did, how did he see this was going to happen?

Answer 1

The quote, which was during his interiew on the Charlie Rose Show, was

"We'll be eight degrees hotter in ten -- not ten, but 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow. Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals."

To view this portion of the interview, see the clip at the link below.

Answer 2

Yea, he said it.  The 'Mouth of the South' went off again.

Turner thinks all food production is going to end because of overpopulation.  This is going to turn everyone into cannibals.

This rant is nothing new from the believers.  Look how we're told there will be more hurricanes, floods, droughts, warmth, cold, snows, no beer, no food, St. Louis will be beach front property, blah, blah, blah.....

Global warming is nothing but an endless rant about how we should give up our lifestyle.

Turner is a good example of the mindset of this cult.

Answer 3

Something like it.  He was overreacting to a very real problem.

Many nations in the world, particularly in Africa, can barely feed themselves.  Global warming's damage to agriculture will tip some over the edge, and there will be starvation.  Starving people will go to war to feed themselves.

The "cannibal" word is quite unfortunate, and could be considered racist.  But the problem is real.

Answer 4

In Geology we know about the damage of a single volcano, flood, ice storm, drought, hurricanes, typhoons, earthquake,

fires due to lightning. With abundant food and water animal populations increase and strip the vegetation bare, causing starvation.

The cycle is constantly striving for homeostasis, or balance, as you say.

We as humans need to allow euthanasia on demand, abortion on demand at any stage of the pregnancy, recycle dead humans into fertilizer for crops, terminate all pregnancies with deformed, fetuses, allow terminal ill to choose euthanasia, allow suicide centers for all those wishing to do so from age 12 on, allow govt grown and taxed mood altering drugs, terminate all obese humans due to the cost of their medical care, free medical care, food, clothing, education. The United Nations will ban warfare. Provide free trade among all countries, free housing for all. Form a govt committee to ban crime, UN to ban disease, govt supported 4 week vacations at govt expense, free tanning salons for all white people, free bleaching salons for all people of color, free tickets for Manchester futbol games, schools to ban homework, students to be paid for grades, teacher salaries to be equal to top sales staff of commercial companies,

Answer 5

Ted may not have used the term literally.  Consider how a nation might cannibalize itself by selling off all manner of resources.  Or an individual might drain his/her long-term savings for current expenditures.  Once today deteriorates to a certain point, tomorrow just vanishes.

Answer 6

this is just another example of the extremist scare tactics they all use on that side of the forum.  they think you have never heard the chicken little story.

Answer 7

During a couple really severe famines in China some charges of cannibalism were prosecuted. The people charged had claimed to have eaten recently dead people, not having killed anyone.

The perpetrators were found guilty and sentenced to a further period of imprisonment.

We would hope that people would not turn to killing other people to eat them, but they might turn to warfare to protect supplies, farmland.

Severe crop failure however might bring about even killing to eat.

Much larger amounts of water storage reservoirs might allow us to avoid those starvation scenarios, because having water for irrigation is likely to be the most critical resource.

Answer 8

Yes, Ted Turner is an idiot.

Answer 9

I thought he said we would turn into cannabis.  Dang!

Answer 10

Rivergirl has the quote correctly. He has evidently bought into the garbage put out by James Lovelock who predicted that we will soon be reduced to a few 'breeding pairs' living in the Arctic since the world will be so warm. Which manages to overlook millions of years of geological evidence, basic physics and proves the man is a fool. Just as Ted Turner is a fool if he thinks we'll sit around on our thumbs as sea levels rise and temps increase. Perhaps, just maybe, we'll move away from the coasts that we can't wall off, install more A/C units and come up with new ways to stay cool, and crack the CO2 problem as well. But you don't sell newspapers or ad space on CNN by being optimistic about the future.

And Bob, OMG are you saying that the word cannibal is now politically incorrect? I thought I'd heard it all but that's a new one.

As cheap alternatives to fossil fuels come online we'll be able to mitigate the warming even more, desalinate seawater into fresh where needed, transport and store water for irrigation. And rising CO2 means plants will grow better and require less watering so how can that lead to mass starvation? He doesn't know what he's talking about.

By the way, no credible scientist agrees that temp will increase by 8C this century, only Turner and Rev. Gore claim this. Even the IPCC estimate is far lower than 8 degrees in their worst case scenario. CO2 levels were 20 times higher than they are today and the temp was a bit less than 10C higher than now so we have a long ways to go till we reach that point.

Answer 11

I guess he was just tired from all the effort he puts into steeling other men's wives.

Answer 12

It was irresponsible on his part, if he would not try and scare people and work with them it would be much more constructive.