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Earth Day predictions of 1970:
If the predictions of these environmentalists, ecologists, and biologists were accurate we'd already be dead a dozen times over. Climate was seen as a threat back then, but not the same way it is now.
"We have about five more years at the outside to do something." - Kenneth Watt, ecologist
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."
- George Wald, Harvard Biologist
"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"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, Stanford University biologist
"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
- Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
[The only starvation we've seen is due to poor governance, e.g., Venezuela. -LD]
"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, professor, North Texas State University
"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
"Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones."
- Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, `I am very sorry, there isn't any.'"
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
- Sen. Gaylord Nelson
"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
The defense of all this failure is often that technological developments that these prophets didn't foresee avoided the catastrophes they predicted. But the Green Revolution was already in place when these predictions of mass starvation were made.
It is true that warnings about pollution of the air and water spurred the passage of laws to clean up the air and water, such as the creation of the EPA, which began operation later in 1970 with a mandate to do that, and it succeeded. This would be an example of reasonable, do-able goals to improve the world such as the agenda that Bjørn Lomborg advocates. The EPA has long since departed from reasonableness.
Trust in scientists is sensible, but not if they have a demonstrated tendency to fail.
If the predictions of these environmentalists, ecologists, and biologists were accurate we'd already be dead a dozen times over. Climate was seen as a threat back then, but not the same way it is now.
"We have about five more years at the outside to do something." - Kenneth Watt, ecologist
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind."
- George Wald, Harvard Biologist
"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"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, Stanford University biologist
"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation."
- Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
[The only starvation we've seen is due to poor governance, e.g., Venezuela. -LD]
"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, professor, North Texas State University
"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
"Air pollution is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.
- Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
"We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones."
- Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
"By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate that there won't be any more crude oil. You'll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill 'er up, buddy,' and he'll say, `I am very sorry, there isn't any.'"
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
"Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct."
- Sen. Gaylord Nelson
"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age."
- Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
The defense of all this failure is often that technological developments that these prophets didn't foresee avoided the catastrophes they predicted. But the Green Revolution was already in place when these predictions of mass starvation were made.
It is true that warnings about pollution of the air and water spurred the passage of laws to clean up the air and water, such as the creation of the EPA, which began operation later in 1970 with a mandate to do that, and it succeeded. This would be an example of reasonable, do-able goals to improve the world such as the agenda that Bjørn Lomborg advocates. The EPA has long since departed from reasonableness.
Trust in scientists is sensible, but not if they have a demonstrated tendency to fail.
