Earth Day 2008: Predictions of Environmental Disaster Were Wrong
Earth Day is upon us. "Experts" will no doubt bombard us with dire predictions of future environmental cataclysm. But this is nothing new. In a press release today, Washington Policy Center points out that over the last 30+ years many have predicted catastrophes that never came. Here are a few:
- “...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.
- By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
- Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
- The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.
- “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.
- “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.
- “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.
- “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
- “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.
- Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.
- “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
- “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
Of course these claimants would rather people forgot about them altogether, and in fact it's a safe bet that most people have. But it's important we remember these claims and those who made them. Predictions of environmental apocalypse appear time and again, and they appear to play a significant role in policy decisions today.
As our governments enact laws to combat climate change in Washington and across the country, let's remember the importance of making policy decisions based on fact, not fear-mongering and scare tactics.
The author of the above blog post is evidently very ignorant about very many things. Environmental regulations against particulate pollution have gone a long way to resolving some of the problems which worried scientists in the 1970's.
What of 2008, though?
Have you people noticed that gasoline has just crashed through the $3.50 a gallon barrier, diesel has crossed $4 a gallon, and oil is approaching $120 a barrel?
Have you heard of global food shortages, provoking unrest in impoverished nations and so severe that it includes butter shortages in a country as wealthy as Japan?
I wonder if you people can add 2+2 together. You seem intelligent enough to figure out that there's a rather serious problem afflicting the Earth right now.
Okay. Assuming that your political views have blinded your own eyes, I will tell you what is coming:
* Americans are going to lose their automobiles & SUVs.
* Americans are goin to lose their consumerism driven economy.
* The United States of America will collapse, just as the Soviet Union collapsed.
* Our troops will leave the Middle East voluntarily because America won't be able to afford military adventures of this sort. This will constitute the official end of Imperial America, although it will occur after the collapse of the United States.
* While losing our cars, our economy and our empire will be extremely painful, the real sorrows will begin when trucks cease delivering food to grocery stores. Americans will then learn what true hunger feels like and they will experience true poverty, too.
That's the future. Wait a little while and you will see it with your own eyes.
Posted by: David Mathews | April 22, 2008 at 02:54 PM
Why, thank you, David! A little condescension goes a long way! Here’s some back:
Your reading skills are obviously too poor for you to have picked out the point of the above “ignorant” post: The prophets of the first Earth Day handed down their predictions with the same unshakable certainty that they (a lot of them are still around and – surprisingly – have not been laughed off the public stage) and their successors display today. Note, for instance, the leitmotif of impending, inescapable doom in these pronouncements:
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“The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.”
Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist, ‘The Population Bomb’ (1968)
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"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
Denis Hayes, chief organizer of the first Earth Day, The Living Wilderness Magazine, Spring 1970
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"[A]ir pollution... is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone."
Paul Ehrlich, Mademoiselle Magazine, April 1970
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"Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. ...By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine."
Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, in The Living Wilderness Magazine, Spring 1970
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"Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born. ... By...[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s."
Paul Ehrlich, essay, ‘Eco-Catastrophe!’ in Ramparts Magazine, Earth Day Special issue, 1970
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"The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind."
Nigel Calder, International Wildlife Magazine, June 1975.
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"Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support... the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution... by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half..."
Life Magazine, January 1970
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“Environmental regulations against particulate pollution...” have deflected this avalanche of apocalypses, my ass! These honorable gentlemen were using their reputations as scientists and academics to scare the beejeezus out of the ignorant masses. But you have to be really ignorant to fall for the same song-and-dance 35 years later!
Posted by: RNB | April 22, 2008 at 05:14 PM
Hello RNB,
"“Environmental regulations against particulate pollution...” have deflected this avalanche of apocalypses, my ass!"
Perhaps it is your own extraordinary ignorance which you are revealing by the above. Environmental regulations solved many of the major problems which scientists were terrified about in the 1970's. This is similar to the way in which warnings about lung cancer might motivate a smoker to give up smoking, thereby avoiding the cancer scare.
The whole argument contained in your post is an absurdity of the same order as the ex-smoker declaring: "I didn't get cancer so those anti-smoking advocates were all fools. To think that they are still giving the same advice today!"
***
So how much are you paying for gasoline, sir?
Are you unconcerned about $120 a barrel oil?
And what is your opinion regarding overpopulation?
If food shortages are appearing globally @ 6.5 billion, what sort of horrors must occur when there are nine billion hungry humans on the planet?
And what is your opinion regarding pollution? Are you of the opinion that humans should go ahead and continue polluting the planet at an accelerating rate forever? Do you not fear the consequences?
I think your post is so ignorant that you are approaching scientific illiteracy. I think that your confidence regarding the future will be refuted within your own lifetime with horrors that you will not only see with your own eyes but also experience.
But if you want to walk blindly off a cliff, suit yourself!
Posted by: David Mathews | April 23, 2008 at 02:00 PM
Speaking of walking blindly off a cliff. You can marry your own scientific ignorance with your economic ignorance. Everything with people like you, and these discredited scientists of the 70s, these whores for celebrity, is all about cataclysm, and imminent doom. And to what end? Never any consideration for the impact of your knee-jerk, reactionary dogma. Oil has to be refined. Not building a refinery since the scientific scare campaign detailed above, has prevented us from refining fuel in keeping with the rate of demand. I'm sure that was your intent, and when I say "your," I mean those who sip from Chicken Little's Kool-Aid cup. Now the United States has to actually import refined gasoline. Then, the army of environmental fascists have prevented any meaningful drilling for oil within the United States. They have halted the use of Nuclear power, by design I'm sure. Had we continued to research nuclear power it's possible we would be able to do far more than just boil water with it. Then, kowtowing to the latest fashion in anti-capitalist ideology, backed by more 'scientists' with their peer reviewed journals (which don't get reviewed unless you run in their circles) who pompously declare that "this time it's for real"; the Federal Government bows to pressure and mandates the use of ethanol, thereby driving up the cost of food worldwide, Yay Team! Through the roof taxation and stifling Government regulation have retarded real technological progress aside from, maybe, in the field of the microprocessor.
It is you, the environmental nut-jobs, that are keeping the world's poor hungry, and until you get that through your thick skulls, nothing is going to change. You dunces are pressuring governments to abdicate their responsibilities to a corrupt, inaccessible world body called the United Nations, which will do nothing but leave the planet exactly like you fear. It will end up like pre-revolutionary France with three quarters of the world starving while fat pigs in the UN control all the worlds resources and pat themselves on the back about how grand they are, and what good stewards they are. The road the hell is paved with good intentions, and a ton of ignorance. Just keep laying those bricks David, we are almost there.
Rik
Posted by: Rik | April 24, 2008 at 02:35 PM
Hello Rik,
> "Oil has to be refined. Not building a refinery since the scientific scare campaign detailed above, has prevented us from refining fuel in keeping with the rate of demand."
Whining isn't going to get you anywhere, Rik. Did you know that America consumes approximately 25% of the world's daily oil production?
Think about that for a few minutes and then imagine what is going to happen when 1.3 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians become as addicted to automobiles as Americans.
> "Then, the army of environmental fascists have prevented any meaningful drilling for oil within the United States."
Yes, indeed, and it was a wonderful thing for us to do. America is comsuming 25% of the world's daily oil production and once it is all burnt away there won't be any oil left for future generations to consume. And by "future generations" I do mean your own generation since you are going to live long enough to experience the end of oil.
> "They have halted the use of Nuclear power, by design I'm sure."
Yes, indeed, we have and we have no regrets whatsoever about that decision.
> "Through the roof taxation and stifling Government regulation have retarded real technological progress aside from, maybe, in the field of the microprocessor."
Technological progress is not guaranteed either by God or by science or by Nature or by the Constitution. By seeking technological progress you are behaving like a dog chasing its own tail. What you call "progress" isn't actually progress at all. Look at what five centuries of Science & Technology have done to the Earth!
> "It is you, the environmental nut-jobs, that are keeping the world's poor hungry, and until you get that through your thick skulls, nothing is going to change."
The poor and the hungry are those people whom are virtually nonexistent within the context of Capitalism. Americans are consuming 25% of the world's daily oil production, that leaves only crumbs for billions of other humans.
If you want to help the poor & the hungry, sacrifice your lifestyle. That is, sacrifice the American Way of Life.
> "It will end up like pre-revolutionary France with three quarters of the world starving while fat pigs in the UN control all the worlds resources and pat themselves on the back about how grand they are, and what good stewards they are."
Three quarters of the world are already starving, and they have been starving for centuries. Perhaps you are so isolated & insulated from reality that you are not aware of the horrors afflicting billions of humans worldwide.
Nor do you care about their suffering, either. Your American philosophy is contained by the phrase, "I got mine!" It is only your own self that you care about. The rest of the world is suffering and Americans continue to think only about their own wealth, prosperity, luxuries and conveniences.
Posted by: David Mathews | April 24, 2008 at 06:12 PM
> Whining isn't going to get you anywhere, Rik. Did you know that America consumes approximately 25% of the world's daily oil production?
Ooooo! But we can do more! God I feel so guilty.....
> Think about that for a few minutes and then imagine what is going to happen when 1.3 billion Chinese and 1 billion Indians become as addicted to automobiles as Americans.
Uh, build more roads? Have more traffic jams? Become a modern society where perhaps even the commie's can no longer control so easily?
>Yes, indeed, and it was a wonderful thing for us to do. America is comsuming 25% of the world's daily oil production and once it is all burnt away there won't be any oil left for future generations to consume. And by "future generations" I do mean your own generation since you are going to live long enough to experience the end of oil.
Pure dee BS. BTW, just for a little background. I worked for over 10 years in the Exxon Research and Development Lab, though I don't know if that makes me qualified enough for you to answer such a question. Besides, why worry about oil? If people like you would get out the way, we have more shale oil reserves in the continental US than Saudi Arabia has oil.
>Yes, indeed, we have and we have no regrets whatsoever about that decision.
Yup, nothing like a fiction movie (China Syndrome) to give the left reason to spread fear. Yet the facts remain....more people have died in Ted "The Swimmer" Kennedy's car than have died in a nuclear accident in the US.
>Technological progress is not guaranteed either by God or by science or by Nature or by the Constitution. By seeking technological progress you are behaving like a dog chasing its own tail. What you call "progress" isn't actually progress at all. Look at what five centuries of Science & Technology have done to the Earth!
Oh my! Another though question! What has five centuries of Science @ Technology done? Well, lets see, people live longer, live better, are more educated (though we seem to have missed a few judging from your comment) etc. Oh, but you mentioned what it did to the Earth. For the most part, nothing, and for all the ills I know you think of, I think of the illnesses that have been eradicated - let's not forget that back then, there was a lot more poop lying about on the earth, on the roads (where there were roads), forest fires are not free to burn till they burn out etc. Oh yes, I long for the 1500's!
> The poor and the hungry are those people whom are virtually nonexistent within the context of Capitalism. Americans are consuming 25% of the world's daily oil production, that leaves only crumbs for billions of other humans.
Are you actually trying to argue that it is because we consume so much oil that the rest of the world has to live on crumbs? Then by God, let's drill for some more oil so they can have some as well!
>If you want to help the poor & the hungry, sacrifice your lifestyle. That is, sacrifice the American Way of Life.
How about let's compromise.... you sacrifice all you have, and leave the rest of us alone.
>Three quarters of the world are already starving, and they have been starving for centuries. Perhaps you are so isolated & insulated from reality that you are not aware of the horrors afflicting billions of humans worldwide.
What? How can this be? They have been starving for "centuries?" Are you trying now to claim that even when this country was a colony of Great Britain, that our consumption was causing these other millions of people to starve? Damn it all! Even before any one even knew about oil we were sucking it down!
Oh, that is plenty enough for now. Rest peacefully tonight knowing that "you care" more than everyone and you know the answer!
Posted by: Wesley Cannon | April 24, 2008 at 07:00 PM
Hello Rik,
> "Uh, build more roads? Have more traffic jams? Become a modern society where perhaps even the commie's can no longer control so easily?"
It is difficult to argue with conservatives because you cannot see beyond the end of your own nose. No, Rik, the above things are not going to happen.
When one nation consumes 25% of the world's resources and two nations with 2.3 billion citizens adopt the same lifestyle as that one nation, well ... what must naturally result is that the oil-addicted nation will very soon lose access to 25% of the world's resources.
You can observe this happening right now. Oil's above $115 a barrel, gasoline and diesel are setting new records on a daily basis, and Americans are beginning to suffer. This suffering is going to reach catastrophic proportions and when the pain becomes seriously enough, Americans are going to stop driving.
That's the near future, Rik.
> "I worked for over 10 years in the Exxon Research and Development Lab, though I don't know if that makes me qualified enough for you to answer such a question. Besides, why worry about oil? If people like you would get out the way, we have more shale oil reserves in the continental US than Saudi Arabia has oil."
Working at Exxon doesn't impress me at all. Shale Oil is 21st century Snake Oil. Don't you ever open your eyes, Rik?
> "Yup, nothing like a fiction movie (China Syndrome) to give the left reason to spread fear. Yet the facts remain....more people have died in Ted "The Swimmer" Kennedy's car than have died in a nuclear accident in the US."
Nuclear was a terrible idea from the beginning and its defeat has served humankind well. I am certain that this defeat will continue and that the Nuclear Power Era will conclude by the middle of the 22nd Century.
> "Well, lets see, people live longer, live better, are more educated (though we seem to have missed a few judging from your comment) etc. Oh, but you mentioned what it did to the Earth. For the most part, nothing, and for all the ills I know you think of, I think of the illnesses that have been eradicated - let's not forget that back then, there was a lot more poop lying about on the earth, on the roads (where there were roads), forest fires are not free to burn till they burn out etc. Oh yes, I long for the 1500's!"
All of these benefits -- whether real or imaginary -- are doing to evaporate into nothingness this century, Rik. You may not want to live in the 1500's but you aren't going to have a choice. 9,000,000,000 humans are sufficient to deplete the Earth's resources at a rate which will render our American Way of Life absolute impossible by mid-century, or sooner.
> "Are you actually trying to argue that it is because we consume so much oil that the rest of the world has to live on crumbs? Then by God, let's drill for some more oil so they can have some as well!"
Addicts always want more drugs, Rik. It is the nature of addiction. But you don't help an addict by searching for more drugs.
> "How about let's compromise.... you sacrifice all you have, and leave the rest of us alone."
You won't sacrifice your lifestyle, Rik, but you are going to lose it anyway. You are also going to lose your country, too. You are going to lose everything and you will live long enough to witness the end of food deliveries to grocery stores.
> "What? How can this be? They have been starving for "centuries?" Are you trying now to claim that even when this country was a colony of Great Britain, that our consumption was causing these other millions of people to starve? Damn it all! Even before any one even knew about oil we were sucking it down!"
Yes, Rik, millions of people were suffering during America's formative years. Some of those people were America's slaves, abducted from Africa. Millions of Native Americans were also exterminated very effectively by American genocidal wars (which did not conclude until the end of the 19th century).
In the 20th century -- while Americans were shopping, watching television, driving mammoth SUVs, and becoming morbidly obese -- billions of humans have suffered from poverty, oppression, exploitation and warfare ... in many cases, committed either by the United States government or our corporations.
These are the crimes which made your lifestyle possible, Rik.
Posted by: David Mathews | April 24, 2008 at 07:41 PM
The above post was, obviously, written in response to Wesley Cannon's post. That's the disadvantage of having the name located at the end of the post!
Posted by: David Mathews | April 24, 2008 at 07:43 PM
Perhaps David Mathews can explain why those gas prices are soaring? Does he have any idea how dio-fuels are sucking up food? Does he have any ideas about what it costs in water to grow/harvest and manufacture bio-fuels?
He seems to think those issues are NOT related to the Earth Day globalists who wish to restrict all of us with stupid light bulbs and gas tax increases.
Here's another hint for ya Dave.. gas prices went up about one cent for every month under Bush and the GOP Congress. Since the lefties have taken over in 2006, gas prices have risen over 7 cents per month - now tell me why that is?
Posted by: Ann | April 25, 2008 at 01:03 PM
Dave Mathews said: "In the 20th century -- while Americans were shopping, watching television, driving mammoth SUVs, and becoming morbidly obese -- billions of humans have suffered from poverty, oppression, exploitation and warfare ... in many cases, committed either by the United States government or our corporations.
These are the crimes which made your lifestyle possible, Rik."
So, in eight short years GWBush did all this? Alone? With no help from the Clintons and the Dem controlled Congress for the past two years??
You BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is showing... badly.
Wait! I have an idea. Why dont you Dems tax us some more.. how about Jimmy Carter levels around 60%? That will create a good old stagflation, followed by a huge Depression that will kill our ability to send aid to Africa and those other 'poor' countries ..? That'll show us!
Posted by: Ann | April 25, 2008 at 01:09 PM
Mr. Mathews seems to think that wealth is a zero-sum game, that if one society is prosperous it's because another has been impoverished. This is dangerously narrow thinking. Study some basic economics.
Has the U.S. government done everything "correct" in foreign and domestic dealings? No. Throughout history have some corporations taken advantage of certain circumstances for their own gain? Probably. Where humans act you will not find perfection. But to say that the rest of the world has been impoverished because of the U.S. is a bold falsehood proposed by people who either have a nefarious political agenda or are sorely ignorant of history and economics.
Much of the suffering in the world today is the result of a lack of economic freedom. Africa is impoverished not because of corporations but because of corrupt governments, no real rights to private property, and no respect for the rule of law. The same holds true in Asia and other places where there is, as Mr. Mathew says, "poverty, oppression, exploitation and warfare."
Posted by: John | April 25, 2008 at 01:51 PM
Drastically unlike most prophets of doom assuring us of the fast- approaching end of life-as-we-know-it, I don't pretend to be an expert. But I recall that in 1970- the era of the First Earth Day - when all the experts were stating as a known fact that the world would be immersed in mass starvation within a decade or at the very most, two, those experts being led by Expert-in-Chief Paul Ehrlich whose expertise was in butterflies, I was skeptical. Not because I thought I knew more than they. It was because there were famines in old-testament times. And the Jewish people believed that one of the greatest problems they needed to overcome was UNDERpopulation.Of course the world faces problems; when hasn't it? Sure there are occasional small-scale famines based on wars or political upheavals or even intentional genocide but does anyone dispute that the world produces enough food to feed its population?Gas prices spell our doom? A temporary problem that can be overcome, by offshore drilling, nuclear power, biodiesel, wind, sun, ocean tides, squirrel cages - or all the above - who knows. But the most urgent problem is to get past the environmentalists who have created the problem they blame George W. Bush for.
Posted by: Bob Little | July 28, 2008 at 05:24 AM
Now i see where some green nut cases are calling for us to eat less meat and more veggies to stop global warming WHAT A BUNCH OF MALARKEY from these idiots why dont they instead keep their flapping pieholed closed it would realy stop all that HOT AIR
Posted by: Birdzilla | April 06, 2009 at 12:53 PM
Obviously, Mr. Mathews is an angry, uninformed person who will never be happy until everyone has been economically been beaten down to his level. He uses his "environmental sensitivity" to demonstrate his moral superiority over others that he cannot control, or that he envies because they are leading productive lives.
Posted by: Richard Venn | April 22, 2009 at 09:49 AM
Are we all supposed to believe that Al Gore and the other lefists are RIGHT this time whereas all of the other past "experts" were wrong? The leftist environmental prophecy track record hasn't been correct once! It's no surprise that only 1/3 of the people today even believe global warming is real. I guess that's why Obama feels he has to ram through legislation before anyone wakes up.
Posted by: Joe | April 23, 2009 at 03:29 PM