18 Earth Day predictions made on the first Earth Day in 1970 that were totally wrong – IOTW Report

18 Earth Day predictions made on the first Earth Day in 1970 that were totally wrong

KFI: Over the weekend people marched for science and celebrated the earth, bashing the presidency for ignoring “facts.”

But the alarmist predictions from the past have been proven wrong time and time again. We don’t affect the earth that much, so stop worrying. Don’t let the eco-scolds shame you!

AEI has put together a very entertaining article called “18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year.”

Here we go!

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
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22 Comments on 18 Earth Day predictions made on the first Earth Day in 1970 that were totally wrong

  1. Yea, but other than those 18 spectacularly wrong predictions, look at what they got right: Ethanol, Wind Farms (with just a couple of dead Eagles per year), $8 dollar light bulbs (which will cool the earth by .0003 degrees over the next ten million years), Gov. Jerry Brown, the entire state of California, Obama, Chelsea Clinton, etc.

  2. Most of the predictions had to do with Ehrlich and starvation and today we have so much grain we turn it into a piss poor substitute for auto fuel. If I live to see Ethanol banned as a fuel source in the US I will die a happy man.

  3. Well, I’m very happy to be with John [Kerry]. There is no week without a phone call or a visit between John and myself, and we have on the agenda many items, many issues – Iran, because negotiations are resuming today; the question of Syria, and we shall meet next Thursday in London together; Ukraine as well; and very important issues, issue of climate change, climate chaos. And we have – as I said, we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos. And I know that President Obama and John Kerry himself are committed on this subject and I’m sure that with them, with a lot of other friends, we shall be able to reach success on this very important matter.

    — French foreign minister Laurent Fabius at the State Department in Washington on Tuesday May 13th, 2014 [1078 days ago]

  4. Maybe just the talk of raising taxes and building out wind and solar farms makes Earth go, “Oh gee, they are doing something about it so I won’t be mean.” Someone needs to claim settled science on Earth Personality so we can have a dialog.

  5. Anyone who has taken a long weekend away from lawn and garden care during the spring/summer months knows too well the recuperative powers of the earth to thwart our puny efforts. Ecofascists are the least joyful, most fear-mongering people I know. I hope soon the entire Gaia movement will collapse and be remembered as a superstitious cult, if it is remembered at all.

  6. 7. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.”

    Let’s give them half-credit for this. The cause, however, is not pollution but Socialism…

  7. If any of these dire predictions come true, my money is that the root cause will be the “eco-scientists.” Humans need food, shelter, clothing and energy, and any scarcity of these items will likely be the leftists who want to drive society back to the stone age. Our greatest risk is political – not natural.

    The earth doesn’t care; it’s an inanimate object that will repair any damage caused by humans in a very short time. And the earth itself will be the cause of most castrophies – volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters. We have demonstrated that we do a poor job of even protecting ourselves from these events, and we have no idea of how to prevent them.

  8. There will always be famine, poor people, disease, war, and climate that cools and warms. That’s not going away.
    It was true of cave men days, it will be true when we’re all one fat ass blob of skin sitting in metal chairs with wires and IV’s coming out of our portholes in the future. Find something else to obsess over.

  9. How can something be so consistently WRONG and still be believed?
    Like socialism, for instance …
    People REALLY ARE fuckin morons.
    Not a mistake, not a misadventure, not a miscalculation – totally, completely, irrevocably, incontrovertibly, unquestionably WRONG!
    EVERY fukkin time!

    One must be breathlessly stupid to fall for that shit.
    Unable to feed oneself stupid.
    Painfully, potentially self-harming stupid.

    THIS is why they have to write “take out of box before microwaving” and “remove plastic before eating.” These people are pitiful dumb.

    izlamo delenda est …

  10. I was a Junior in HS in 1970 and I’m still here despite all the nattering nabobs of negativism from the left and the ecoweenies since then. And guess what I hope to be here still in another 20-30 years. So take that ecodweebs, the Earth will still be here as well as it’s people but you’re gonna croak at some point like everyone else and hopefully all your Chicken Little (chicken shit) antics will die with you because we never did believe your bullshit in the first place.

  11. The climate was much better when we had more pollution (tree food) in the air. Now we have started the process of messing with it, things are worse, not because it was getting worse.

    Hydrocarbons and C02 are essential to maintain the atmosphere. Volcanoes/fires have been doing it since life began, not so many volcanic eruptions now.

    My area has nearly never had a tornado, we have had 3 documented over the last couple years. The air is cleaner, and I have to watch my dog with a gun because of avian and land predators.

    Anyone see a problem here? The Green Movement is designed to eliminate manufacturing, and keep us scared, nothing more. Pathway to Socialism.

  12. When will they admit the settled science that CO2 is plant food?

    You know plants – that stuff food is made of.

    You know food – that stuff they say we’ll be short of…

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