[Cowboy89]

To add to my earlier point I think we should avoid thinking that we really and truly live in a Hallmark era of human knowledge, technology, and ability. It's truly dangerous to come out and claim that while 34 years ago we weren't able to make an accurate prediction about climate due to primative theory and technology, but now we do because in the meantime we've reached the watershed of enlightenment required not only to identify the problem, but to quantify, and solve it. Afterall I bet in 1974 proponents of the cooling theory could have made the same remarks about an era 34 years prior. Many great civilizations have fallen due arrogance placed in their perception of their society's status of human advancement.

Moving back to the tech bubble example and with reference to those who cautioned the beliefs of the new paradigm shift. Back in 1996 those voices would have been profoundly more difficult to hear than today. Those who had the contrarian view back then were the ones who were able to write the history books and the finance textbooks for future generations ex-ante. While history as written by them does a good job of explaining what happened it also tends to glorify their own personal role while it happened.

Furthermore, many people who were silent or otherwise on the sidelines back then emerged later claiming they knew better all along. Ask a French person who was an adult living in France during the second world war. I bet most of them claim to have been part of the resistance. Had Germany retained control of France for generations after the 1940s I'm sure many of those same people who claimed to be resistors would have claimed to have been stallwart supporters of Nazi Germany.

Decades from now should many of today's predictions be proven inaccurate many "Other opinions" of our day will be 're-told' and glorified to paint the perception that it was only a few powerfull idiots who wanted to wreck the world economy based on faulty science. Someone will be scapegoated, likely whoever is the President of the United States when said economy goes/went sour and things will move on from there. Should UN IPCC predictions be proven correct the so-called 'Deniers' will downplay some of the words they said or explain an alternative revisionist reality where what they did say can somehow be reconciled to what happened. Look no further than David Suzuki, he was one of those who championed the global cooling theory 34 years ago. Ie "The warming related to this crisis overpowered the cooling trend"