True enough. But when the people doing the predicting have enough power, they can screw things up badly when they're wrong. If I buy shares in a cold-fusion company, and it turns out to be a ripoff, a few people are screwed. If the government decides to pass laws and incentives to force everyone to switch from coal and gas to cold fusion, the results have a lot more impact.

Economies are about feedback. A market system is like driving a car, accelerating when you need to speed up, and braking when you need to slow down, depending on a huge variety of circumstances.

Try pre-programming all the braking and accelerating cycles into the car, and launch the car into traffic. Now, try doing it for all the cars on the road.

That's a "planned economy."

BTW, the purpose of my original post was not to blame trees for all the methane. It was to show that the answers to complex climate and ecological questions may not be as straightforward as "get rid of all the cars."