Never Trust The Doom-Mongers: Earth Day Predictions That Were All Wrong
The Daily Caller, 22 April 2016
Andrew Follett
Environmentalists truly believed and predicted that the planet was doomed during the first Earth Day in 1970, unless drastic actions were taken to save it. Humanity never quite got around to that drastic action, but environmentalists still recall the first Earth Day fondly and hold many of the predictions in high regard.
So this Earth Day, The Daily Caller News Foundation takes a look at predictions made by environmentalists around the original Earth Day in 1970 to see how they’ve held up.
Have any of these dire predictions come true? No, but that hasn’t stopped environmentalists from worrying. From predicting the end of civilization to classic worries about peak oil, here are seven green predictions that were just flat out wrong.
1: “Civilization Will End Within 15 or 30 Years.”
Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970 that civilization would soon end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Three years before his projection, Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
Wald was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. He even flew to Moscow at one point to advise the leader of the Soviet Union on environmental policy.
Despite his assistance to a communist government, civilization still exists. The percentage of Americans who are concerned about environmental threats has fallen as civilization failed to end by environmental catastrophe.
2: “100-200 Million People Per Year Will Be Starving to Death During the Next Ten Years.”
Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably increased despite increases in population.
Ehrlich is largely responsible for this view, having co-published “The Population Bomb” with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country’s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.
3: “Population Will Inevitably and Completely Outstrip Whatever Small Increases in Food Supplies We Make.”
Paul Ehrlich also made the above claim in 1970, shortly before an agricultural revolution that caused the world’s food supply to rapidly increase.
Ehrlich has consistently failed to revise his predictions when confronted with the fact that they did not occur, stating in 2009 that “perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future.”
4: “Demographers Agree Almost Unanimously … Thirty Years From Now, the Entire World … Will Be in Famine.”
Environmentalists in 1970 truly believed in a scientific consensus predicting global famine due to population growth in the developing world, especially in India.
“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,” Peter Gunter, a professor at North Texas State University, said in a 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.”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.”
India, where the famines were supposed to begin, recently became one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products and food supply per person in the country has drastically increased in recent years. In fact, the number of people in every country listed by Gunter has risen dramatically since 1970.
5: “In A Decade, Urban Dwellers Will Have to Wear Gas Masks to Survive Air Pollution.”
Life magazine stated in January 1970 that scientist had “solid experimental and theoretical evidence” to believe that “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.”
Despite the prediction, air quality has been improving worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Air pollution has also sharply declined in industrialized countries. Carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas environmentalists are worried about today, is odorless, invisible and harmless to humans in normal amounts.
6: “Childbearing [Will Be] A Punishable Crime Against Society, Unless the Parents Hold a Government License.”
David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club made the above claim and went on to say that “[a]ll potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.” Brower was also essential in founding Friends of the Earth and the League Of Conservation Voters and much of the modern environmental movement.
Brower believed that most environmental problems were ultimately attributable to new technology that allowed humans to pass natural limits on population size. He famously stated before his death in 2000 that “all technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent” and repeatedly advocated for mandatory birth control.
Today, the only major government to ever get close to his vision has been China, which ended its one-child policy last October.
7: “By the Year 2000 … There Won’t Be Any More Crude Oil.”
On Earth Day in 1970 ecologist Kenneth Watt famously predicted that the world would run out of oil saying, “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.’”
Numerous academics like Watt predicted that American oil production peaked in 1970 and would gradually decline, likely causing a global economic meltdown. However, the successful application of massive hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, caused American oil production to come roaring back and there is currently too much oil on the market.
American oil and natural gas reserves are at their highest levels since 1972 and American oil production in 2014 was 80 percent higher than in 2008 thanks to fracking.
Furthermore, the U.S. now controls the world’s largest untapped oil reserve, the Green River Formation in Colorado. This formation alone contains up to 3 trillion barrels of untapped oil shale, half of which may be recoverable. That’s five and a half times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. This single geologic formation could contain more oil than the rest of the world’s proven reserves combined.
Via Benny Peiser. (H/T, Ronald Bailey at Reason and Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute).
What this article doesn’t recognize, and what climate change deniers choose to ignore, is that many of the predictions made in 1970 didn’t come to pass BECAUSE of Earth Day. Specifically, the environmental activism that produced Earth Day was also the impetus behind a whole range of environmental legislation including the Clean Air and Water Acts and the Endangered Species Act. The result was that leaded gasoline was phased out, resulting in dramatically lower lead levels in children; DDT was banned, which brought bald eagles and other raptors back from the edge of extinction; air pollution in urban areas declined dramatically; water treatment regulations led to dramatically higher quality rivers and estuaries; NO2 and heavy particles are now routinely filtered in energy plants, leading to lower levels of toxic pollution.
Moreover, that environmental activism was mirrored in many other parts of the developed world, so many of the salutary policies enacted in North America were also enacted around the world.
There is no question but that powerful market forces have led to advancements in food production, oil production, and other market responses to changes in the environment, which made predictions about food shortages and famine dramatically wrong.
However, wrong predictions in the past is not an indicator that predictions today are wrong. The quality and breadth of information available today is much higher, the power of the computers generating environmental models is ten million times greater, and many of the predictions relate to changes that are measurable and accumulate slowly (e.g., warming oceans).
As a practical matter, I would rather put real energy into understanding whether the concerns being raised today are thoughtful and seem to reflect the available data, as opposed to mocking predictions made 45 years ago.
Doug Peters,
DDT was not the reason for the decline in eagles. And air pollution has declined because as the country became wealthier; we could afford to take the necesary steps. It wasn’t because of the running around in circles by the eco-crowd. It was due to growing wealth.
Next, not only Nox, but all particulates are removed from coal plants now.
Coal power is very clean; cleaner than windmill and solar. You probably don’t believe that, but that’s because you’ve heard only one side of the debate. Stick around here and you’ll hear all sides of the debate.
Next, you say that …powerful market forces have led to advancements in food production, oil production, and other market responses to changes in the environment, which made predictions about food shortages and famine dramatically wrong.
You’re leaving out the rise in CO2, which has resulted in much greater agricultural productivity. More CO2 means more food. Simple as that.
Next, you attribute computers (GCMs) for being able to make predictions. True. However, the predictions are generally wrong. So what good are they?
The alarmist crowd’s predictions are being mocked because they were wrong. ALL of their scary predictions failed; no exceptions. When one side of a debate has been 100.0% wrong, the proper response is to defenestrate the conjecture they are based on, then try to formulate a new conjecture that attempts to do a better job of explaining reality.
Instead, the alarmist crowd doubles down on their failed predictions. But that’s not science; it’s politics. Scientific skeptics of the CO2=cAGW conjecture won the debate years ago. So now the eco-alarmist clique has moved the debate into the political arena.
Politics is not science. Neither is “environmental activism”.
(PS: what’s a “climate change denier”? I’ll tell you what it is: it’s a stupid term that the scientific ignoratii use in place of thinking.)
[Snip. ID thief. -mod]
Hey Ron, you do realize the ” Coal Pond” is that thing in the background with the fountains (The part that’s really hard to see in this photograph ) !!
That picture is almost as deceptive as your website !!
Fly Ash is also recycled !
http://www.caer.uky.edu/kyasheducation/whyimportant3.shtml
Mr. Manley:
“… windmills … don’t have coal ash ponds” (which do not hurt anyone, btw)
they have this:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/01/28/article-1350811-0CF36063000005DC-625_634x286.jpg
(Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html)
[Note: The commenter ‘Manley’ is an impostor/ID thief who is commenting under Mr. Manley’s name. Therefore, all the impostor’s comments were a waste of time: Deleted. -mod]
Ron Manley on April 22, 2016 at 5:22 pm
[ … ]
_______________
Ron, building, erection, maintenance of windgenerators and PV costs more CO2 producting combustion then they ever return in electro energie.
Really should more often read here.
Cheers – Hans
[Note: The commenter ‘Manley’ is an impostor/ID thief who is commenting under Mr. Manley’s name. Minxey is another screen name used by that sockpuppet. Therefore, all the impostor’s comments were a waste of time: Deleted. -mod]
[Snip. Impostor. -mod]
‘Ron Manley’, you’re not who you claim to be.
[Note: True. The commenter ‘Manley’ is an impostor/ID thief who is commenting under Mr. Manley’s name. Minxey is another screen name used by that sockpuppet. Therefore, all the impostor’s comments were a waste of time: Deleted. -mod]
100 points for using defenestrate.
[Note: This site pest is a fake who posts under numerous other screen names, including ‘Ron Manley’. -mod]
A note to Ron Manley, regarding his over-confident claim, that “large multi-megawatt wind turbines do not use permanent magnets”. Direct drive PM multi megawatt turbines are widespread. And likely to be even more widespread in the future. For example:
http://www.windpowerengineering.com/design/mechanical/gearboxes/6-mw-direct-drive-turbines-the-new-norm-for-offshore/
[Note: The commenter ‘Manley’ is an impostor/ID thief who is commenting under Mr. Manley’s name. Minxey is another screen name used by that sockpuppet. Therefore, all the impostor’s comments were a waste of time: Deleted. -mod]
Hey Minxey, did you miss the part about “Theoretical” ?? Means not real yet !
” .The theoretical magnetic energy product for this iron nitride (Fe16N2) magnet is 130 mega gauss oersteds”
To Ron Manley, and now Minxey.
O.K. then – here is another example of Permanent Magnet direct drive wind turbines.
In other words – meanwhile in the REAL-world where we all live:
“Goldwind has 271 MW of wind power operating or under construction in North and South America, bringing our permanent magnet direct-drive (PMDD) technology to communities in both established and emerging renewable energy markets. ”
If you spend 2 minute doing a search on Google, then you can find plenty more examples:
http://www.goldwindamerica.com/experience-showcase/track-record/
[Note: The commenter ‘Manley’ is an impostor/ID thief who is commenting under Mr. Manley’s name. Minxey is another screen name used by that sockpuppet. Therefore, all the impostor’s comments were a waste of time: Deleted. -mod]
“I would rather put real energy into understanding whether the concerns being raised today are thoughtful and seem to reflect the available data, as opposed to mocking predictions made 45 years ago.” — Doug Peters
And in 45 years, if you’re still alive, you’ll be saying the same thing about today’s predictions.
If the power of computers is much greater today, it simply means they can come up with the wrong answer much faster than ever before. And just because the breadth of information available today is much larger, doesn’t mean the quality of that information is necessarily better. In today’s world, you’re allowed to publish bad data as long as it conforms to the political narrative of the day. In fact, you’re more likely to get future grants if you publish fake research that agrees with the consensus than if you publish real research that disagrees.
Science used to be a field that overturned the consensus of the day with every major breakthrough. But today government influences the outcome of research by determining who gets funding. Political pressure is gradually subordinating science to politics and turning it into a propaganda wing of government. The very fact that so many people in power measure the validity of scientific thought by how well it conforms to “consensus” proves my point.
Doug Peters
You are talking about the achievements of my generation. All the pluses you list were things we addressed that had happened in the past. We cleaned up the environment and did a really good job of it too. There is much in the current legal framework which keeps us safe and clean.
The lampooning taking place on this site about Earth Day is about none of the good things we accomplished. It is about the fatuous, idiotic, plain ridiculous predictions of calamity, mass death, life-extincting doom to which we supposedly were already committed by 1970. And it richly deserves such a roasting each year on the anniversary of Earth Day, just to remind us how foolish we can be.
The reason is simple. There is a broad belief by those who seek leadership that the public is too stupid to know when they are being lied to. I have no doubt there are the perpetually gullible Pollyannas in every corner of society, but what these wannabe kings of the world don’t realise, is it is they who are the gullible, believing each and every scare story dreamed up by those with their snouts in the public trough.
It turns out the credulous among us, the most easily misled, are those who would leap at the chance to ‘lead’ by yelling about yet another part of the sky falling. Anyone who openly and consciously seeks leadership immediate proves they are not worthy of the position.
Consider how this same generation, the much-maligned boomers, also blocked the Vietnam War, the unsafe cars, the killer toys, the poisonous paints, the workplace dust, the senseless slaughter of the whales. That’s us. We fixed these things. We didn’t do it by accepting the idiotic policies of our forefathers because we were skeptical. We still are. We know a lie when we hear one. We see a scam when it takes our cash. We have years of experience with carpetbaggers both green and not.
The Earth Day Prophecies were from those seeking leadership, screaming doom from the rafters. Nothing about the future according to those seeking leadership has changed. They still, now, prophecy disasters at every turn and ask us to believe and obey. This is a very different group from those who are real environmentalists, who cared enough for the planet and mankind to clean it up and set things in order. Those masquerading as ‘environmentalists’ today are largely the same crummy bunch that tried to hijack the movement in the 70’s, still selling their prophetic snake oil.
We didn’t clean up industry because of the lies of ‘Silent Spring’ or the fulminations of J Hansen and his ilk. We didn’t want clean air because ‘food would run out in twenty years’. We concerned ourselves with the issues of our day: war, the military industrial complex, rampant industrial irresponsibility, suffocating nationalism and the bright light of the emergence of the concept of global citizenship – that we share this planet, and that our ‘neighbours’ are not going anywhere so we’d better learn to get along.
Thus prepared and experienced, we see clearly the attempts to gain unelected control over the people and resources of the Earth by the use of scare tactics and promises of abomination and desolation. The greatest threat to this nefarious plan is education and understanding for a well educated person will never accept as true what is false.
CO2 is not going to cause ‘runaway temperatures’ on Earth. CO2 is not ‘pollution’. CO2 is not ‘dirty’. In a few million or hundred million years the Earth may, through natural processes which we already understand, run out of CO2 and nearly all life on Earth will cease. Until then we can have a lot of fun as a species investigating the nature of the universe and the purpose of physical reality. Sit back, enjoy the sunshine and recycle your empties. (We thought of that too.)
The problem with the Green River formation is that the net energy return on energy invested is too low for it to be a useful energy source. It might be useful someday as a petrochemical feedstock but that’s about it.
Lol what about our Lord and Savior AL Gore’s predictions? According to his “convenient lie to push the liberal agenda” we should all be dead by now!
Well, the climate changes. They got that right. They’re just clueless (proofless?) as to the cause.
The only way the leftist’s gloomy predictions will come true is if they are put in charge. I give you Obamacare and the endless famines in the worker’s paradise in the 1930’s.
Consensus is not science. Gravity does not exist because it was put to a vote.
But the future predictions they’re making today will come true, of course. We must listen or we’re all DOOMED. Doomed I say!
I recall a belief that pure science would be made obsolete because man had discovered all there was to the natural world……wasn’t that ‘prediction’ made in the late 19th early 20th century?
As Epstein put it so directly: prediction models that fail to predict anything are WRONG (please don’t quote me on that, I’m still reading the book).
Mexico City and Beijing are awash in smog.
There’s a cold blob in the North Atlantic that is confusing climate science peeps. The warm blob in the Pacific broke up and dispersed a few months ago.
More rock like limestone is exposed to the atmosphere through glacial melt. Rock erosion assists in absorbing atmospheric CO2. More exposed rock surface, more CO2 absorption. Hmmmm….
Mt. Everest is six inches higher because of the 2004 Indonesia quake and the 2015 Nepal quake. The Himalaya ridge is just slightly higher. No one has discussed how this slight rise will affect weather patterns.
Oman (and Yemen) has had heavy rains and severe flooding from tropical storms for the past three years. The ground is supersaturated, hence flooding. The monsoon usually goes northeast into Pakistan and India. Now P & I are having drought issues. Keep an eye on that. It could mean a shift in the monsoonal wind pattern if it continues.
The eastern side of Antarctica is gaining ice volume. The western side is losing just a little. The western side sits on a volcanic rift zone that has become active under that ice.
I haven’t checked sunspots a whole lot lately, but does anyone besides me remember that 18-month solar minimum from October 2008 to March 2010? It took the science peeps by surprise.
So, what does this all mean???? It’s weather. It’s the Earth taking care of herself. It’s a good idea to keep track of your local weather patterns over time. I had a rather normal winter this time after 5 winters (2010-2011 to 2014-2015) of heavy snow, beastly cold, and repeated blizzards.
135 years of taking weather records (and fudging temperatures to suit modern theories) is not climate, my dears. It’s weather. But it’s nice that they’re at least doing research that gives us better and more accurate weather forecasts. We need that very, very much. I just detest the politics and greed that have crept into it.
Happy Earth Day!
These fruitcakes also believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
NJGiant
And they firmly DON’T believe in that elusive nemesis of Einstein’s, the Ether Bunny.
My favorite of their predictions is the one in which they said that we had to do X, or else it’d be too late to save the planet. They made that one several times, and we didn’t do whatever it was they were blackmailing us into.
So if we take them at their word, it’s already too late. We may as well eat, drink and be merry!
Lol, indeed :), Mr. Fine.
That reminded me of this Abraham Lincoln quote:
“There is something so ludicrous in … threats of evil, a great way off. — ‘Better lay down the spade you’re stealing, Paddy, if you don’t, you’ll pay for it at the day of judgment.’
‘Be the powers, if ye’ll credit me so long, I’ll take another jist.'”
(Source: Abraham Lincoln — The Prairie Years and The War Years (one vol. ed.), 1982, Harvest, p. 74)
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The commonsense of the average Joe and Maria will save the day. It did in the 1970’s. It is doing it in the 20-whatever-you-call-years 1 – 19. Chevy trucks and Suburbans and barbecue grills and steaks, etc., etc., are doing very well.
And they will continue to do so.
CO2 UP. WARMING STOPPED.
Game over.
Ummm… it’s not very logical to pull out a handful of the worst predictions over the past fifty years, and try to use that as evidence that all predictions are worthless. Anyway….
#2, #3, & #4 came partially true. Many many millions of souls died of starvation in famines that extended across large sections of Africa and Asia in the 70s and 80s. Even today, millions of people starve to death each year.
#5 & #6 came true (in China).
Appropriate tag. Most (all?) famines in the last 40 years were due to authoriarian (mostly communist) governments, not climate or real shortages.
“#5 & #6 came true (in China).”
Worked in China before retiring. No one needs to wear a gas mask to survive air pollutions. It is sad that China did not adopt policies that cleaned up the air in North America. The one child policy has been rescinded.
Retired:
I am in Beijing at the moment and it is its usual sunny bright self with some haze. The air pollution question was largely solved years ago within the city. The main problem now is pollution from the surrounding countryside and vehicle emissions within the city. The number of electric vehicles is mind-blowing. Today I saw a tiny electric small-wheeled scooter. Perfect personal transportation when not using public transport or a cheap taxi.
The reason people malign Beijing air is a) they don’t know what they are talking about, b) they have never seen it on TV except the BBC long distance shots of fog and smoke from burning field stubble that blows in from Hebei farms, and c) they have no idea how bad the pollution is in other cities like Harbin and Taiyuan.
What I observe is that the Western press uses Beijing as a bludgeon against coal, even though there is hardly any coal burned in Beijing. In other words, the meme relies on ignorance and provincialism.
One child only applied to some urban areas and was not a national policy as many assume (in ignorance). China has decided to tackle their vast air, soil and water pollution problems. Does anyone think they will not succeed? Devoting treasure to improving the environment is a far better choice that conducting frivolous wars on people and coal.
These scratch the surface – how about acid rain? What happened to that? No one even remembers this – it is like nuclear winter – a nothing issue just so that the media can say thety still own us.
Blake Davis…
Acid rain killed common sense. Some say it was a mercy kill as common sense was just languishing around refusing to die but Frankensteinien physiologists swear that with enough expensive “free” energy, it might be possible to bring it back to life. 🙂
Environmentalism is all about money, power and control. And anyone who doesn’t believe this just wants your money!
ONE PREDICTION DID COME TRUE: By the year 2008, a foreign born, Muslim raised, African-American racist will assume the office of President. With the help of the media, this America-hating narcissistic despot will actively seek to destroy the economic system, decimate the military, alienate allies, give aid & comfort to enemies, disarm the American people, and do away with America’s borders. All the while sporting a despicable $hit eating grin on his face.
…Everything that Obama touches turns to Shiite’ !
Data on U.S. oil and gas production is available at EIA using the following links:
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRFPUS2&f=M
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9050us2a.htm
The data clearly shows the huge impact of fracking on U.S. oil and natural gas production which made a mockery of doom and gloom claim #7 in the subject article.
Global warming (aka climate change) is the religion of the stupid.
Sheep, lemmings, and Leftists are easily manipulated.
http://www.zazzle.com/FirstPrinciples?rf=238518351914519699
Think about it. Why write such an article in the first place? The warning of Earth Day founders are far more intelligent and far broader in historical or geologic terms, than your 30-year window of quite citations allow. Why dismiss that now, if they were only off by a few decades?
Only stupid, twisted liberals can come up with stuff like this. Look at all the failed dire predictions about climate change. What is sad is these idiots keep believing this stuff. They just got smarter and made the predictions for 100 plus years from now so no one will be around from today to call them idiots again.
I find it interesting to note that Bill Nye, the ‘Science Guy’, agrees with Bobby Kennedy, Jr., that people who disagree with climate scientists’ opinions should be treated as criminals and thrown into jail for it.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/14/bill-nye-open-criminal-charges-jail-time-climate-c/
As I said, I detest the politics and greed these people have. It shows their true nature when they say things like that. It’s always about money, you know, plus the power that money represents.
What is the point exactly? While the time line on these predictions may have wildly missed the mark, any fool can see that they loom out on the horizon. But this article will no doubt comfort many, as they reposition their heads securely in the sand.
The point is that these claims were nothing but alarmist baloney designed to push costly and unnecessary government mandated “solutions”.
An example was the idiotic concept of “peak oil” that was supposed to show we were running out of fossil fuels and needed governments to provide trillions of dollars to push costly, unreliable and unrealistic renewable energy schemes.
They loom out on the horizon? Really? Do they? Are you aware, John Archer, that 7,000 years ago, geological records show that the Alps were bare of ice and snow? Has it occurred to you that this warm period is just a small part of a cycle within a larger cycle? How can you have such narrow vision?
Well, something looms on the horizon.
And you don’t know what it is. And I don’t know what it is either.
You can not tell me whether I should be most afraid of Islamic expansion into Europe, Vladimir Putin, international socialism, or the growing power of China, or whatever else may bring an end to our comfortable way of life, or that of our children.
Meanwhile you would probably want me to concern myself with sea level rise or somesuch irrelevant and non-worrying non-problem.
Perhaps you are comforting yourself by imagining that sea level rise is your greatest threat.
Perhaps that, for you, is the equivalent of having your head in the sand.
And the fools with their heads in the sand instead of in front of open books on the scientific method and proper data analysis will be muttering, “The world is ending and we are all going to die and it is all our fault because we sinned against Mother Nature!”
Good grief, John Archer, can’t you recognise a scam when you see one? Start with the history of peak oil over the past 120 years. George F Will wrote a pretty good one. There are many others.
Next look into the amazingly persistent and completely natural Ozone Hole and the brainless claims made about its genesis.
How about the desertification of the planet caused by rising temperatures and the starvation of millions in Africa as a result, with a particular emphasis on the Sahel? That’s worth discussing.
The starvation in Ethiopia in the early 80’s was caused by the deliberate policies of the Miriam government which even went so far as to attack UN food convoys killing international volunteer drivers saving his population. The Sahel’s northern farmable border has moved north by more than 500 km since global temperatures started rising in earnest (1977-1997) and continues to move north due to higher CO2 making the flora more water efficient.
Just review those two items: the Ethiopian drought was natural but the deaths were due to political interference in the mitigation response. The Sahel started taking over the Sahara as global temperatures rose, and after the temperature stopped rising, the desert is retreating still because of the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The apocalyptic disasters that await us around every corner are the promises of the willingly ignorant and the carpetbaggers trying to turn con into coin. They have always been with us.
Here is my prophecy of doom: if we give them the keys to the planet the destruction and suffering that follows will be literally unparalleled in human history. They are not interested in recycling your garbage. They are interested in recycling their waning influence in an emerging global society that refuses to be cowed into little pockets of fanatical national isolation. This emerging global society is distinct from ‘globalisation’ which is nothing more than economic hegemony with a cute name. Be clear, very real power is threatened by deep-seated changes in how we perceive ourselves as citizens of planet Earth. Just because someone shouts ‘global’ doesn’t mean they are interested is you or me, any more than shouting ‘green’ means something is environmentally benign.
Shouldn’t number for say, “97% of demographers agree…” ?
Doh. I meant four. Not for.
“The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.” Paul Johnson (1928)
A few decades from now, people will be laughing at the greenie weenies and their silly nonsense.
https://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&client=ms-android-verizon&source=android-browser&q=how+much+plastic+is+in+the+ocean