Nicolas Loris, Bangor Daily News
This Earth Day, it almost feels like we should be carving some turkey. Why? Because we have a lot to be thankful for since the first Earth Day event occurred 49 years ago.
We should be thankful that the gloom-and-doom predictions made throughout the past several decades haven’t come true. Fear-mongering about explosive population growth, food crises and the imminent depletion of natural resources have been a staple of Earth Day events since 1970. And the common thread among them is that they’ve stirred up a lot more emotions than facts.
“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,” ecologist Kenneth Watt warned around the time of the first Earth Day event. “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.’” Watt also warned of global cooling and nitrogen buildup rendering all of the planet’s land unusable.
The issue, however, is that present trends do not continue. They change dramatically for a number of reasons. Innovation happens. Consumer behavior changes. Importantly, price signals play a huge role in communicating information to energy producers as well as consumers. Higher prices at the pump encourage companies to extract and supply more oil. Expensive gas prices, meanwhile, motivate entrepreneurs to invest in alternatives to oil, whether that’s batteries, natural-gas vehicles or biofuels. Drivers will examine their consumption options as well, whether carpooling, finding alternative modes of transportation or, over time, purchasing a more fuel-efficient vehicle.
Here we are, 19 years past Watt’s arbitrary deadline, and drivers are pulling up to the pump saying, “Fill ’er up, buddy” (figuratively speaking, as Watts also didn’t foresee self-service stations) without any cause for concern. Thanks to human ingenuity and the entrepreneurial drive of energy producers, the United States is now the world’s largest oil producer, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — and continually breaking records.
While global energy poverty and food insecurity remain a pressing challenge, the problems are getting much better, not worse. World Bank and United Nations data show extreme poverty and global hunger has noticeably droppedsince 1970. And according to the International Energy Agency, the number of people without access to electricity fell to below 1 billion people for the first time.
Clearly, there’s work to be done. But signs are pointing in the right direction.
In the United States, the common perception is that the country’s environmental state is deteriorating. On the contrary, through investment in new technologies, and through legislation, environmental trends have improved significantly in the United States. Pollutants known to cause harm to public health and the environment are declining. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest air quality trends report, the combined emissions of the six common air pollutants have decreased 73 percent between 1970 and 2017.
We should be thankful for economic liberties that provide people with the means to protect the environment. As a country grows economically, it increases the financial ability of its citizens and businesses to care for the environment and reduce pollutants emitted from industrial growth. Countries with greater economic freedoms have cleaner environments and greater environmental sustainability. The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom and Yale University’s Environmental Performance Index show a highly positive correlation between a country’s environmental performance and its economic freedom.
Freer economies have access to more products and technologies that make our lives healthier and the environment cleaner. For instance, the availability of simple products such as soaps, cleaners and detergents makes our homes dramatically cleaner and healthier. The development of sanitation systems and availability of garbage collection greatly reduce many types of diseases and curb toxins in the air and water.
These products and services may not be what immediately come to mind on Earth Day, but they’ve have an enormous impact on cleaning up the planet.
And we should be thankful for clearly defined and protected private property rights. One of the first lessons I learned in economics is that nobody washes a rental car — because you don’t care for what you don’t own.
Property rights are a central hallmark in the United States and around the world for improved environmental stewardship, conservation and health of species, wildlife, habitats, forests and other resources. The absence of enforced private property rights in developing countries remains one of the largest barriers to improved prosperity and environmental well-being.
“And we should be thankful for clearly defined and protected private property rights. One of the first lessons I learned in economics is that nobody washes a rental car — because you don’t care for what you don’t own.”
The single best argument against socialism.
Typical twisted logic of smart sounding nuggets of “knowledge”.
You don’t wash are rental car because it was washed just before you picked it up and you only keep it for a day or two. People do not wash car because they “care” for them, it for appearance sake. If you hired a flashy car for a wedding to impress those you were going to meet , you would wash it just before you went there.
There isn’t anything that doesn’t go right over your head.
The base logic is sound actually. Most folk do not treat stuff they own and stuff they dont the same, we all know that, we have all experienced that when loaning tools, etc. It is the same when we say BS on the global warming claims, we DO KNOW that the earth is warming, but everything will not melt tomorrow as some folks like to infer. We DO KNOW that Bill M. picked 350 ppm for 350.org completely out of his ass, with no scientific basis whatsoever. We DO KNOW what Rick is saying.
Being “zero for fifty” means God is mocking you.
IIRC, Bill M. picked 350 ppm from James Hansen’s ass, and Hansen used it because we were close to exceeding it.
I have to go with Greg here. Exchange the word “rental” for “leased”.
Well then, consider government housing projects. The epitome of well cared for ownership.
I wish some governmental body would try this experiment: raise government cash benefits to individuals by one dollar, and apply a one dollar ‘tax’ on benefits at the same time. No one suffers an actual reduction of benefits.
Then tell them that taxes may go up in the future to pay for any repairs if the area is subject to abuse and vandalism.
I suspect that, even though they never got that dollar, they are going to consider it theirs, and be much more inclined to protect what their money is paying for.
more inclined to protect what their money is paying for.
+======
Nope. If they pay a tax they reason the government has been paid to take care of the problem. So they don’t need to.
If everyone’s taxes go up due to the damage done by one person, then the person doing the damage isn’t paying. The community (ie government is).
It’s a restating of the well known truism:
If it is owned by everyone, then it is maintained by none.
Tragedy of the Commons or similar.
Greg has never rented a vehicle for more than a day or two, so nobody does. Nor does he wash his vehicle because he cares for maintaining them from things like underbody rust from road salt (don’t buy one of his cars!), so no one does. If Greg doesn’t do it, no one does.
Greg might want to consider that he understands little of reality, and less about allegories.
I enjoyed Greg’s “assurance” that “]f you hired a flashy car for a wedding to impress those you were going to meet , you would wash it just before you went there”.
Presumably Greg buys his used cars from rental firms because the vehicles have been so well cared for.
I’m ashamed to admit I have NEVER washed a rental car… and, as a 2-million-miler on American Airlines, I’ve rented hundreds of cars…
I’m ashamed to admit I have NEVER washed a rental car… and, as a 2-million-miler on American Airlines, I’ve rented hundreds of cars…
So basically you’ve “rented” seats on those airliners, have you washed any of those jets. d;^)
Sure and the massive decay of communally held infrastructure in the former USSR was just an aberration. Maybe you would say it is the exception that makes the rule, however there are all the other Eastern Block countries, Cuba, pre-free-market China, North Korea, and now racing to join the league of exceptional dysfunctional nations – Venezuela.
Greg, last time I rented a car it was for a month. I didn’t wash it. Wasn’t my car, you see?
I have rented many cars over the period of time in my life that I have been a driver.
I can not recall having washed one, although I think I may have done so once or maybe even a few times, many years ago.
I would not use that fact, of possibly having washed one, to dispute the obvious logic of the syllogism that no one washes a rental car.
I just had another thought, and maybe Greg can weigh in on this one: What about leased cars?
We do not own the cars we lease, and normal wear and tear are included in the lease price.
So, does anyone wash leased cars?
I rented a car in Montreal. It was wintertime. The morning I was returning it to the airport to fly home it was -30f. The engine turned over like there was goo in the crankcase. Then it caught and I stomped the accelerator to the floor and held it there for a minute or two. I felt bad but more than that I felt really, really cold. I would have done the same to a leased car. I would never have done that to my own car.
We don’t usually wash rented cars, and yes, at one level it is because they are not ours. But, we pay to rent them and we know that the owners build into the payment the cost of cleaning. Whether we washed them or not, the company that owns them would automatically have them washed anyway. If we borrowed a friend’s car for free, and got it dirty, then most of us would wash it before returning it, even though we didn’t own it. It’s all in the context.
I once borrowed a friends pickup to haul 7 tons of chicken manure for my garden. I dutifully hosed out the truck bed when finished, and returned the truck. My erstwhile friend put his camper on the truck bed to go camping the next weekend, but never could get a good night’s sleep with his family because of all the smell that adhered to the surface and crevices in the truck!
You guys are making me feel I must have a touch of OCD. I have washed rental cars because I don’t like bird crap on them. And then I find a way to park them in a garage because I’m too lazy to wash them a second time.
Then again, my camp and shoot friends insist on leaving a camp site in better shape than we found it. Sometimes (not often) that is not hard to do. But that’s because 1) we like pristine wilderness areas, and 2) abuse of the area may result in BLM closing the area to campers.
On the other hand, my college friends taught me to leave beds at least somewhat messed up in motels for fear that room service wouldn’t replace the sheets – or worse yet – think that we both slept in the same bed! (Like I cared about the maid’s opinion, but the sheets did need to be changed when we left, so they won.)
Greg, are you deliberately missing the point, or are you actually arguing that the premise is somehow false?
Not correct.
The vast majority of my car rentals have been weeks and months.
Several times, I had to rent a car while a car was under repair or destroyed.
Three of those times, my car was hit by by drivers while my car was legally parked, without anybody in them.
There is also the situation where my employment required travel, anywhere on a moment’s notice. That same employer, our lovely Federal government, also considered my position as one that accepted details or reassignment to any location/position.
Meaning that many times, I was sent to work at locations far distant from my home.
Quite a few of those times, cars and apartments were rented for weeks or months,depending upon the assignment or project’s needs.
It is much cheaper to rent cars explicitly for long periods of time, than it is to rent for short periods.
ATheoK: “Three [3!] of those times, my car was hit by by drivers while my car was legally parked, without anybody in them.”
I believe you are now highly qualified to go about the country lecturing on “How NOT To Choose A Parking Place.”
Heh, heh, heh. Verrrrry good!
In a few select cases a person might wash a rental car. But by and large they don’t unless it is forced on them by circumstance, no matter how dirty the car.
How many times have you washed a rental before turning it in?
Many times. When I worked for big oil I’d rent a car, drive it out to a drilling rig every day for a week or two, covering it with mud. Out of courtesy, embarrassment, or just to avoid explaining abused vehicle fees to accounting, I’d run it through a car wash before returning.
Ever heard of the “Tragedy of the Commons”?
You missed the point, Greg. It was analogy. Generally speaking, people don’t take care of things that they have not worked for. To be a contributing citizen in a society, you need to have “skin in the game”. That’s why the welfare system is really a rip-off . It allows people (sometimes generations of people) to get something for nothing and they are not required to use their God-given intelligence and abilities to make their lives better. A hand up is good, but a hand out (especially one with no end date) is harmful. People take better care of their own, hard-worked for “stuff” than those who have not worked hard for their “stuff”. Pretty simple analogy, pretty logical, and definitely, time tested good advice.
Where is Greg?
As a landlord and home owner there is one thing we all know for certain……The vast majority of renters do not take adequate care of rental properties….
In Canada a first nations reservations is a sight to behold because those living there without owning their free accomodations do not have an incentive to take care of their shelter, lawn etc.
A quick trip to a museum in east Berlin show how Communist citizens lived under rigid government control. The human spirit crushed to the point of no longer capable of being creative, efficient, organized, hard working etc. A 2 stroke engine vehicle that was a disaster, cookie cutter pre-fab kitchens that were like prison cells, an undersized electric lawn mower powered by a US manufactured electric drill identical to a Black and Decker drill……etc. Etc.
Weird, I had a rental car for two weeks last year. And I still didn’t wash it. And I wash my car to keep it in good condition, not for appearance and appearance would obviously apply to a rental too.
But if you just dont get it, try the Tragedy of the Commons.
He gives a bad example: he is referring to the Tragedy of the Commons. When property belongs to everybody, nobody takes care of it.
The best off-road vehicle I ever drove was a rental car.
If you hired a flashy car for a wedding to impress those you were going to meet , you would wash it just before you went there.
But you just said they washed it before you picked it up. Wash it again?
It’s like Greg has never seen governement housing before…
It is known as the tragedy of the commons. Self interest over a common resource leads to over exploitation. Look it up in Wikipedia.
Viz: the free for all in whaling led to near extinction of many species.
Similar, but different.
The tragedy of the commons is that the “common good” is often used by very few from the group, but the cost of the good (maintenance) is shared by the many. This leads the group essentially subsidizing the over exploitation of the common good for the benefits of the few.
Such an example are the original common grounds in a small city used by the inhabitants to graze their sheep and live stock. Such grounds are common for everyone to “use” but if you don’t have any animals to graze you receiver no benefit from maintaining a grazing ground.
Since when is it a “tragedy” that a resource owned by the many is not used by them all.?
It’s not a tragedy that people with no sheep do not use common grazing land. It IS a tragedy when people who DO have sheep cannot use common land because it is overgrazed.
You don’t “subsidise” somebody by declining to compete with them. That is a clear and obvious abuse of the term.
Errr… No. There is nothing about inequality, in- and out-groups, benefits to a few costs to many.
The “Tragedy of the Commons” is the contrast between
(1) when people graze livestock on exclusive land, they are likley to choose the number of animals so as to mazimise long-term output, factoring in the re-growth of the grass vs..
(2) when people are grazing livestock on common land, they tend to over-graze, because the benefit of grazing one more animal goes to the individual but the reduction in current and future grazing capacity is shared across all.
This applies even if everyone starts with the same number of animals and even if they all realise that the common is being over-grazed to everyones long-term detriment. Without some allocation of grazing rights over the common this outcome is all but unavoidable.
It can be understood as a multi-party Prisoners’ Dilemna game.
I rarely wash my own car, so no point in washing a rental.
Another way of expressing it: drive it like a rental!
Alternatively: drive it like you stole it!
Ric, I haven’t washed mine in 10 yrs — let the rain do it. But I do maintain it mechanically.
In a power plant you didn’t care what something looked like, you just made sure it ran well.
That is why private property rights have been under assault for many years. It is one of the true bastions of freedom, and the globalists can’t have that. That’s why you have egregious regulations like the EPA trying to define any standing water as a navigable waterway controllable by the government. Examples of govt overreach abound.
Hell, I don’t even remove my trash from a rental car, it goes mostly on the back seat floorboard. When I get to the airport I take my bags out of the car and get on the shuttle bus, everything I don’t want I leave in the car. They’re gonna clean it all the way up to and including vacuuming, whether or not I take my trash out of it. And this is the problem with socialism, not just the ownership, though that’s the biggest thing, but anything you can convince yourself is someone-else’s-job, you’re not going to do.
A better example would be people who rent their abode. They rarely (and I mean rarely) return it in anywhere near the condition it was in when they moved in. My own record has been spotty. In only two of the places we’ve rented did we actually leave it in better condition than when we moved in. It didn’t matter to the landlords, who kept part of our security deposits.
Rick….socialism…we already have socialism in the US…firefighters, police, schools, libraries, roads, bridges and highways, the military, that is socialism. But we now have a new form of socialism…corporate socialism…where corporations pay no taxes when they make millions and billions in profits and actually get TAX REBATES from the pool of tax dollars paid by the middle and working classes! Amazing. Yep. Corporate Socialism in the USA. Read up on the latest economic reports, including the concerns expressed by thoughtful billionaires about the extreme lack of wage increases for the working people…while CEOs have increased salaries over 500 percent in the past few decades.
Actually, in the US, corporations are taxed more than any other country in the free world. Income tax on corporations should be zero, because otherwise it destroys economic activity, rippling through the economy causing much more cost to the people than the tax revenue provided to the government. Due to the tax, the government has to subsidize things like oil “for the common good”. Also, corporate taxes are a double tax on the same money because shareholders are taxed again on dividends. Most of the people in the US are shareholders. And any taxes are substantially passed on to consumers. Corporations are us.
Laura — the corporate tax is a mirage to sound good and keep you from realizing how much total tax you’re actually paying. Ultimately, *all* taxes are paid by individual taxpayers. ” Corporate taxes” are simply an expense of doing business and get passed along to individuals further down the line, as the price to consumers of whatever the corporation sells, or as lower wages for its workers, or as reduced earnings for its shareholders.
Bingo, Rick!
You truly are a genius Rick. The World’s capitalist economy is safe in your hands 😎
Well….maybe that explains why people in my town are so trashy and Litter? I pick up litter each time I walk my dog…only because I care and I don’t OWN the park I walk in?
What kind of comment is that… WE all are responsible for this planet…whether we own it or not.
Or did you forget how this was Gift from GOD?
Reading this article – actually does not address the real problems that do exist. Or course we are not going to RUN out of Oil, you morons… The Govts. of this world won’t allow that to happen because it MAKES MONEY.
Oh…but we are destroying precious land areas to keep LOOKING and Producing OIL, right?
No matter whether these predictions can true or not… the truth is that the WORLD has NOT gotten any better…and some of the issues are very clear. Our oceans, air, and drinking water is polluted worse than decades ago. Any Fool would know this. And I’ve lived long enough to know what was talked about back in the 70’s compared to now…may have changed, good or bad. Still the PLANET EARTH HAS NOT GOTTEN BETTER over the past decades – no matter how you want to look at it.
I actually believe IT will get WORSE – given the state of the mental attitude of people toward Life in general. We are living in times of Distress… Even IF you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist…
…. that is, second only to the body-count racked up by the various “Collectives” that grabbed power in the 20th Century, namely Union of Soviet and Socialist ‘Republics’, Nazi Germany, Communist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Kampuchea….
120 million dead..?
They have been lying for 50 years. Environmentalism is a remarkable science.
There’s environmental science, and then there’s environmentalism. Environmentalism has more in common with scientology than science.
The latter caught on and became the rage at Bethel Woods in 1969 Robert. The irony is that hundreds of thousands of groovy environmentalists came together and trashed an otherwise pristine environment.
A fundamental premise of this newly formed religious movement was that only those claiming the mantle of Environmentalism are allowed the privilege of using and or abusing Mother Gaia. The rest of us non-believers must step lightly.
Preservation and sacrifice for thee but not for me as Emma Thompson recently demonstrated with her carbon footprint to denounce carbon footprints. If ever hypocrisy took form it has been made into statuary resembling ALGORE, Hansen and Mann for this 20th Century Church of the Duplicitous.
The 1st Commandment of this Organization is: Thou Shalt Do as I say not as I do. and all the way down to their 10th: Thou Shall Maketh the data upeth are intended to demonstrate the proper path of life for the believer and how to evade the facts at the foundation of real science.
But the IPCC is certain now we only have 12 years to avoid climate catastrophy.
Who in their right mind believes this stuff?
“Who in their right mind believes this stuff?”
Noone in their right mind believes it. Why should they believe it when their own eyes show them there is nothing unusual happening with the Earth’s weather.
For the chronic doomsdayers this was a wish list rather than predictions list.
Did not someone predict a larger population.
That’s come true. Give the doom-sayers 1/2 point.
The other half of that prediction hasn’t happened.
I agree with Rick at 6:44.
Also, “ The absence of enforced private property rights in developing countries remains one of the largest barriers to improved prosperity and environmental well-being..
It is more difficult and important to do anything about this than it is to reduce CO2 emissions.
John F.:
Are you claiming that population predictions are environmental predictions?
Culture, I can understand.
Religion, I can understand.
Societal, I can understand.
Environment? Not a chance. It may be nature, but it is nature as mankind has practised it for eons.
Actually, in the US life expectancy has dropped. The death rate for babies has increased. The US has now been designated a country where the problem of homelessness, lack of employment, wages for the middle and working class have NOT kept pace with the rise in the cost of living, and the corporations and billionaires are making massive profits and paying far less or even zero taxes…we have homeless veterans, we have poor children who do not even have enough food every day, and we have diabetics who cannot pay for their $400. a month insulin that costs $6. to make. Are we doing well in the US? It depends on who you ask and focusing on whether or not one washes a rental car is TOTAL DISTRACTION from the facts.
Garbage. For a start, corporations are assets owned by millions of people, often through pensions and savings. “They” are not rich any more than a big house is “richer” than a small house.
And life expectancy and infant mortality are largely to do with things like immigration and multiple births (caused by fertility treatments) , not inequality. There are also large differences in data methodologies for the US versus other developed countries. The rest is just fake news.
So… given that life expectancy in the US is not even in the top 10 compared to other nations (but still above international average), would you regard dealing with this problem of greater or lesser importance than reducing national CO2 emissions?
Just curious.
John…
A rising population is not, in itself, a negative unless you hate your own species.
What the doomsayers actually predicted is that the population would rise beyond our resources, hence the doom of starvation.
A rising population yes but it didn’t rise as quickly as predicted.
The overwhelming majority of Earth Day observers, climate protesters and similarly-minded “occupiers” never bothered with pesky things like failed predictions made by their ‘heroes’ — far more fun to rant about ‘system change’ and punishing the 1%.
Emotions trump facts in this narrative, which is why it is so dangerous.
The overwhelming majority of Earth Day observers are elementary-school children assigned environmental themes to draw and color by their lefty teachers. Proof: No mention of it on either Breitbart or Drudge this morning. The Deplorables don’t even know it’s a “thing.” Or care.
I don’t believe the vast majority of those school kids are voluntarily observing Earth Day.
Nor are those children making environmental predictions.
Most are simply echoing or parroting the doom filled predictions of others.
I find it sad that the populace seems to have completely forgotten the warnings of prior generations, such simple things as the children’s stories of The Emperor’s New clothes, Chicken Little and The Boy who Cried Wolf are all lost, yet apply perfectly to Climate Alarmism. It seems it will take some time to re-educate people on the critical importance of skepticism, but I have no doubt the house of lies that the Cult of Climate Change is built on will burst soon.
You could call them warnings. I prefer to call them lessons.
Hey wait a minute… It seems like the Earth IS starting to cool… Can they claim they got that one right?
(How can they not get any right when they predict absolutely everything?)
Where is your cooling? Please state exactly what you mean, we’ve had enough non falsifiable claims.
2018 cooler than 2017.
2017 cooler than 2016.
If I created a computer model using this data, I am sure I could predict an ice age in the not so distant future. /s off
Pillage your model is not an IPCC Deluxe model though 😉
Deluxe model! I love it!
I’m waiting (just WAITING!) for them to claim that their “activism” is the reason for the observed cooling. Just like they took credit for the “end” of the ozone hole, acid rain, deforestation, etc. How long before the 2020 candidate gets up and howls that they’ve HEEEEALED THE PLANET and caused the rising seas to recede . . . oh wait, that was Obama.
Salute Pillage !
And if we could only use actual temperature instead of all the “anomaly” crapola, most folks would see the real trands and use their own lifetime and background to draw their own conclusion.
I do not pay any attention to the “warmest” or “coldest” or whatever claim if the chart is based on an “anomaly”. Use actual values!! PLEASE!! If you post using a baseline value for the “anomaly”, then please show the source and also provide right next to it a chart using actual absolute values for the last 2,000 years as well as today.
Yeah! That’s the ticket! Our anomaly graphs with fractions of a degree change would show up dramatically when plotted against the last 2,000 years, wouldn’t they?
Gums whines….
The prediction about air pollution requiring masks and blocking out half of sunlight has actually happened China.
Today China has reached a level of affluence where they are able to make great efforts to reduce pollution (real pollution, not co2). Same happened in Europe after the 19th / early 20th century, same in post-war Japan.
And so, Loris is right:
” As a country grows economically, it increases the financial ability of its citizens and businesses to care for the environment and reduce pollutants emitted from industrial growth. Countries with greater economic freedoms have cleaner environments and greater environmental sustainability.”
A large portion of the “pollution” in China is dust blowing into cities from the Gobi Desert, which is increasingly moving its eastern boundary toward Beijing.
The dust is an issue, but, having spent a lot of time in Xi’An over the last ten years, I can assure you that the pollution that limits visibility to <100m in the winter is most definitely coal and wood smoke from people trying not to freeze to death.
What was Earth Day conceived for back then? That was at the time of the “coming ice age” scare.
To honor Vladimir Lenin .
On his 100 th birthday anniversary .
I heard an interview on NPR about a year ago with the daughter of an ad-man (a critic of fabulist ad-man George Lois) who said that her father was in charge of organizing the first Earth Day and chose April 22 for some other reason, such as it being a relative’s birthday. She sounded believable.
I dunno. The odds of it just randomly happening to be on Lenin’s birthday is 1/365.
Funny how Watt predicted that we were going to run out of oil by the year 2000, but what he didn’t predict was, that there wouldn’t be any gas station attendants by the year 2000. He made two assumptions, and they were both wrong.
I keep saying that I will take eco-warriors more seriously when their prophecies improve to 1% accurate.
I was on a business trip in Louisiana and driving along a levy, I didn’t realize that the road had been recently oiled and was coating the lower half of the rental car. Before I went to the airport, I did wash that car, otherwise I’m sure I would have been charged.
The exception that proves the rule, as it were.
But did you wash the car because you cared for its maintenance, or cared for your wallet?
Valid point.
So you drove your Chevy to the levy. But was is it dry?
Going 30 mph in a rental car, I shifted it into reverse to see what would happen. Hertz, if you want to know.
In today’s cars with computer controlled transmissions, it would just refuse to shift into reverse at that speed.
Up here in the far North East, you have to pay people to oil the underside of a vehicle so it won’t rust from all the salt they apply during the winter.
At least we get some extra years out of vehicles if we do so. Without that my trusty F150 finally rusted out after 13 years of faithful service. The 2014 RAM 1500 that replaced it gets oiled every year in early December. I’m hoping to get 20 years out of it.
There were very few environmental or pollution laws or regulations in April 1970, and if the trends to that point in time carried on the world and the United States would have led to much greater pollution than even existed in 1970. 1970 was indeed a beginning of a political process that led to most of what we take for granted today as environmental protections. Only NEPA – the National Environmental Protection Act – had been enacted by Earth Day 1970, and even that law was not a pollution control law, but simply required that all major Federal actions be preceded by a proper environmental assessment.
It was not until 1972 that we enacted the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, and the 1970 amendments to the Clean Air Act (though each of those laws had been enacted previously, but with relatively few active measures). Additional hazardous chemicals pollution laws came in 1980 with Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and the “Superfund” law, Comprehensive Environmental Compensation and Liability Act. And again in 1990 a Clean Air Act Amemdments law was enacted.
So a whole host of environmental laws were enacted after the first Earth Day to change individual and corporate behavior, with respect to pollution controls.
And economic factors have obviously changed tremendously since 1970 – indeed, all of society is organized in ways today that nobody could have predicted in 1970. From the invention of personal computers, the internet, cell phones, to the end of the Cold War, the rise of international terrorism, and to social standards involving sex, marriage, human rights, etc. etc. etc.
Humans just aren’t very good at predicting stuff. Heck, most people aren’t even very good at understanding what’s already happened.
You’re full of $h1+.
Typical troglodyte extreme right wingnut response.
Typical leftwing non-thought response.
Assume anyone who disagrees with you must be a right winger.
BTW, you are still full of shit.
Wow you can tell somebody’s sanity and politics from being told one thing? Pretty much proves the point don’t you think?
No, Jim, he’s correct and you are just plain rude.
No Sara, rude or not Jim called it like it is. Duane’s posts started with a BS assertion and it only rolls down hill from there.
Folks who denigrate the early environmental movement for its role in cleaning up the environment are clueless. Our air and water are much cleaner now because of those efforts.
Agreed, early efforts did bear fruit (whaling ban, catalytic converters, etc). Now if all the Climate Scientist and Politicians could stop poring billions of dollars into preventing a life giving trace gas, those billions could be put to much better/smarter use as they were back then.
I remember what the skies in Los Angeles looked like back in 1970. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Orange and yellow and smelly.
Same with Denver during temperature inversions, particularly in winter.
Yes. I lived in LA during the seventies. My kid was in grade school. Schools did NOT let kids run or play actively during recess, but required them to sit on benches outdoors because the smog was so severe it would damage their lungs if they were active. I remember the LA newspaper with a front page headline…KEEP YOUR KIDS INDOORS…and the article explained the severe dangers of the smog. The article included doctor’s reports and warnings. Today LA is quite a different city due to regulations put in place to protect the air.
The same with New York City. (The old joke was that New Yorkers didn’t trust air they couldn’t see…)
I have to state that one of my biggest pet peeves is when young know-nothing Greens tell me that “pollution is getting worse all the time” when they really have no basis to make that claim. When I tell them what it was like in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, they invariably think I’m either crazy or a liar. They have no concept how bad the air was in metro areas and downwind from those areas, or how bad the water pollution was, even after I show them news reports about how the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio was so polluted that it caught fire in 1969.
Autos and trucks emitted large amounts of unburned hydrocarbons (and stank to high heaven) which made the smog that much worse. (About the only time I catch a whiff of that aroma these days is when classic cars/trucks drive by me. It’s a smell I do not miss.)
Can we cut pollution of air and water more than we already have? Most likely, but at what point does one reach the point of diminishing returns? How far do we go? I know some Greens who believe that absolutely no amount of pollution is acceptable, but ‘zero pollution’ is something that is unachievable, at least to the level the Greens demand.
Crediting the “environmental movement” for the average voter becoming prosperous and comfortable enough to make clean air, food and water a high priority….. is like crediting pagan sacrifices for the end of winter and the coming of harvest.
It takes a high degree of arrogance to claim that no-one would have noticed foul-smelling air or food that caused cancer if you didn’t tell them to…… but this is the same arrogance which insists that we can control the world’s climate.
No matter how often they are wrong…..
So if you were to pick a metric and graph it, could you prove by that graph alone when the Clean Air Act passed? Ditto for the water and groundwater protection acts? You say action was necessary, specifically government action, so there should be an inflection point, the levels of airborne particulates began to decline the very day this legislation took effect, right? Can you show me that inflection point? Hm?
Actually, environmentalists and weathermen aren’t very good at predicting things. Everyone else seems to do pretty well.
But you are correct about clean air and clean water. When we talk about “regulations”, many are done as knee jerk reactions bowing to political pressure by a vocal group of protesters and their apologists in the press. But one of the important jobs of the Federal Government is to defend the people of the U.S., and that includes protection of our resources that no one owns, but which everyone uses – such as air and water.
As I wrote, humans period, no matter their politics or religion or ideology are very good at predicting stuff.
Correction – humans period are NOT good at predicting stuff.
Do you include ISIS or the F!at Earth’ers in your above assertion? Just wondering out loud.
Those darn typo’s 🙂
Ignoring Jim’s eloquently articulated rebuttal for a moment, if the environmentalists had so many wrong predictions back then (population bomb, etc), what makes us feel so secure they have it right now? Indeed you’ve made a very good argument why we should be more skeptical than ever. Heck if “most people aren’t even very good at understanding what’s already happened”, we are doomed to repeat it (more failed predictions).
You know, this country did exist before you were born.
The Rivers and Harbor Act, considered the first environmental law, was enacted in 1899. Before that, environmental concerns were addressed by common law (nuisance and public trust doctrines). The Clean Water Act, itself, was a re-write of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, passed in 1948. Pollution on the Cuyahoga River in the late 1960s helped create the CWA.
Earth Day started nothing (but a plethora of failed predictions).
Nope, nope nope, the various “Rivers and Harbors Acts” that began back in early 1800s had nothing to do with pollution control – they were totally about marine improvements, including dams, channels, dredging, etc.
Earth Day was not a beginning to the environmental movement – and I did not write that either. I wrote correctly and factually that it preceded virtually all of the important pollution control legislation that we still have in effect today, amended at various times since the early 1970s.
Nope, nope nope, the various “Rivers and Harbors Acts” that began back in early 1800s had nothing to do with pollution control – they were totally about marine improvements, including dams, channels, dredging, etc.
IE the environment. Your original statement, before you moved the goal posts, did not limit itself to pollution but included laws/regulations about the environment. “There were very few environmental … laws or regulations “
Here’s a good resource cataloging the many laws in place before the EPA.
One key item of note: before EPA, the Feds mostly respected states’ rights to do their own regulation. So there were a few key Federal laws… and then certain states and cities added their own restrictions.
I think I forgot the link:
https://www.lion.com/lion-news/november-2016/pre-epa-us-environmental-laws-before-1970
Initially, those laws were to address known problems. Not to address predictions or make predictions.
The point of Earth Day, contrary to this post, was not about making predictions.
The point of Earth Day was about making more people aware that the environment needed protection from unrestrained human activity. Which it did, and which it still does.
There were very few environmental or pollution laws or regulations in April 1970
When you start off with BS, the rest of what you have to say will be assumed to be BS as well. There were several environmental or pollution laws or regulations on the books by April 1970. Just to name several: 1881 City Smoke Ordinances, 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act, 1910 Federal Insecticide Act, 1925 Oil Pollution Act , 1947 California Air Pollution Control Act, 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act , 1955 Air Pollution Control Act , 1963 Clean Air Act , 1965 Water Quality Act, 1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act , 1967 Air Quality Act
You probably recognize many of the “old” laws listed above. When the EPA was established in 1970, the new Agency took control of the regulatory and enforcement provisions of these laws, carrying them forward under EPA’s flag.
Rivers and Harbor act was NOT a pollution control law. Neither was FIFRA.
And I did not say there were NO pollution control laws then, I said there were very few, as measured by requirements and tens of thousands of pages of regulations that apply now that simply did not exist prior to 1970.
The current pollution control regulatory scheme that we have today simply did not exist prior to 1970s. What existed prior to then bears zero resemblance to today’s pollution control laws.
Rivers and Harbor act was NOT a pollution control law. Neither was FIFRA.
First you started off with BS now you’ve resorted to moving goal posts. You originally said environmental or pollution laws or regulations in Both of those qualify for your original statement.
Google before you speak. The act had a section, frequently referred to as the “Refuse Act”, that forbade the discharge of refuse into navigable waters, except by permit. To wit, in part:
“It shall not be lawful to throw, discharge, or deposit, or cause, suffer, or procure to be thrown, discharged, or deposited either from or out of any ship, barge, or other floating craft of any kind, or from the shore, wharf, manufacturing establishment, or mill of any kind, any refuse matter of any kind or description whatever other than that flowing from streets and sewers and passing therefrom in a liquid state, into any navigable water of the United States, or into any tributary of any navigable water from which the same shall float or be washed into such navigable water…”
There is a problem that is seen with all bureaucracy imposed rules – they have to be regularly tightened to ensure the continuance and growth of the bureaucracy. This often becomes counter productive and is seen all the time in environmental protection.
Problem – unsanitary drains
Bureaucrat Regulation – drains must be flushed clean and kept unblocked
Result – no unsanitary drains
Problem – bureaucracy has no outstanding requirement
Bureaucrat Regulation – drains must be completely disinfected at all times
Result – disinfected drains – some businesses close due to cost
Problem – bureaucracy has no outstanding requirement
Bureaucrat Regulation – drains must be completely sterile at all times
Result – sterile unusable drains all businesses closed
So wait, you aren’t claiming that there wasn’t environmental laws before Earth Day, just that compared to the MASSIVE mission creep and bureaucracy bloat they have had the past 50 years there didn’t SEEM like much?
… I’m honestly not sure where to go with that.
~_~
What Duane, like most socialists, loves to ignore is the role government played in creating all of these messes.
At one time there was a thing called riparian rights, which all property owners had. Riparian rights held that one could not pollute air or water that then flowed onto someone else’s land.
The problem with riparian rights was it made it more difficult and expensive for the newly created factories to expand.
So government vacated the riparian rights of individuals on the behalf of large donors.
Take a look at the book “7 Really Inconvenient Truths” for actual timelines. Eco laws are like how lefties claim the National Firearms Act of 1934 was passed to keep us safe from booze running mobsters, conveniently “forgetting” Prohibition had already been repealed before its passage.
Except there were plenty of environmental laws. And how did the new ones change Peak Oil, mass famine, depletion of resources predictions?
On the very FIRST earth day in 1970, my local middle school decided to march the entire student body (including my 8th grade self) through the streets of our wealthy, clean, safe, suburban town in the San Francisco Bay Area. The very first USE of school children to push a political agenda. We kids couldn’t have cared less … we got out of the classroom for a few hours.
But at that time, the air in Los Angeles was nearly as bad as Beijing’s today. The Cuyahoga river was burning. There were REAL environmental issues that needed correction. As a result, that bad man Richard Nixon created the EPA to place appropriate restrictions and CONTROLS on the polluters. Fines were levied. The clean Water Act established, and a sea change of governmental-environmental regulations were instituted. Imagine that … all established by Richard Nixon … the most reviled president in the History of America. The most reviled Republican ever. So reviled that today’s Presstitutes continually compare Trump to Richard Nixon. Today’s Demoncreeps continually compare Trump to Nixon, Nixon, Nixon. However, they always conveniently forget that Nixon acted swiftly, and decisively in confronting REAL environmental issues.
Today, the eco-Socialists are pushing a FALSE narrative of CAGW as the “environmental” issue of our time. An UNreal, UNproven FRAUD in the name of environmentalism. It is endlessly annoying to hear these eco-FRAUDS claim that anyone who doubts their CAGW hysteria … is not an environmentalist. That I must HATE the planet. That I must HATE clean air and clean water. WRONG! These freaks and creeps with scienci-sounding degrees will NEVER define my environmentalism. My environmentalism is REAL. I care about the REAL environment, which is why I vote (R) instead of (D) … and for the ultimate REAL President – Donald J. Trump. My President lives in the REAL world. And I fully approve of his work to PIVOT the EPA back to its original mission … to protect our environment. Not to be lackeys for a UN Socialist fantasy.
Kenji….well said!! +100
Not the very first use of schoolchildren. Germany did it in 1930s to a great success.
The problems being solved in the 70’s were problems that were caused by government usurping the riparian rights of individuals so that the big industry of the day could expand more rapidly.
Thank you, Kenji!
Saved me from writing nearly the same thing.
I am conservative and environmentally conscious(outdoorsman), have always been, and the escalating pollution of the 60’s needed to be dealt with swiftly. If you grew up in the San Gabriel valley east of LA, you would have experienced days, even weeks of burning lungs and eyes, year round. Storms would clear the air for a few days, so winter did bring some reprieve.
I was a high school senior in 1970, and was allowed to skip class to attend the first earth day at a local Cal Poly University. Learned from a young age how a good cause(controlling pollution) gets sequestered by fringe elements. I mostly just remember the raving and ranting of the anti-capitalists(communists) as they dominated much of the mic time.
That the EPA morphed into the overly powerful/controlling entity we have today is typical of bureaucracies. The initial work needed to be done, though, and I’m not sure there were any other practical means of controlling/reversing the pollution of those times.
Pollution(not just air) was VERY, VERY bad in many ecosystems throughout SoCal…many of us live(d) in it and are glad it has been cleaned up.
I am curious, Kenji, how do you manage to consider Trump doing a great job in the real world and you SAY you are for protecting the REAL environment. How do you square the Trump administration okaying the placing of toxic waste into our rivers and streams? How do you square the approval of cancer causing pesticides being sprayed on the fields where produce is raised for our foods? How does that work for you?
Environmental predictions are like potato chips – you can’t have just one, but nutritionally they are as empty as a Greenpeace End-Of Times forecast. I know – circular reasoning – but that is the basis of most environmental prognosticating.
Well, I predicted the hard jerk into pseudo-religious, Progressive radicalism, riding the green issue like a chariot.
Ah yes, Earth Day, when enlightened people do pointless virtue signaling in order to show how morally good they are.
“I drive SUVs all day, go to vacation every year, eat meat and enjoy modern lifestyle, even though its destroying the Earth or something. But it’s ok, if I turn my lights off for one hour all my sins are forgiven and I can go back to what I was doing with good concience.”
Well, it is a religion. The irony is that most religions are based on faith whilst the alarmists’ religion is based on”scientific facts”. Do i need the /sarc if i use inverted commas?
It’s a religion which worships human knowledge.
It qualifies in that by refusing to acknowledge the very real limits on Human Knowledge, it credits the object of worship with “Super-Natural” character.
The “high priests”, “prophets”, “anointed ones” and “enlightened ones” are those who claim to have the most knowledge, and we who point out how limited and tenuous that knowledge is, are the heretics.
As another poster pointed out, it bears the hallmarks of bad religion – a cult.
As a far older religious tradition points out, proper religion cares for those who are your responsibility and who are in need.
No, I don’t believe it IS a religion. Rather a SUBSTITUTE for religion. Many have written on this. It seems very true to me.
“And according to the International Energy Agency, the number of people without access to electricity fell to below 1 billion people for the first time.”
I am not sure this is strictly true. According to Wikipaedia (World population) : “The Black Death pandemic of the 14th century may have reduced the world’s population from an estimated 450 million in 1340 to between 350 and 375 million in 1400;[25] it took 200 years for population figures to recover.”
On this basis the population of the world would have been about 450M in 1600, and none of them had electricity. QED.
Now you are starting to sound like Greg.
Environmental predictions that didn’t come true? Fish Will Suffocate.
https://indaily.com.au/news/2019/01/29/environmental-catastrophe-as-river-again-covered-in-dead-fish/
https://www.theland.com.au/story/5879390/tonnes-of-dead-fish-removed-from-nsw-river/
http://www.sunraysiadaily.com.au/story/5875077/dead-fish-blanket-darling-river-after-yet-another-menindee-fish-kill/
By contrast we have in recent days seen great science and a WSJ summary of the great science process itself with the greatest subheading lesson for climate science of all time……
WSJ April 20, 2019
Headline: Behind the Black-Hole Image: One Giant Leap for Teamwork
Subhead (the real kicker): How a Global Team of Scientists Used Relentless Bias-Testing to Produce the Black-Hole Image
Find the article. It’s well worth the read as a lesson for what is missing in the climate crusades.
Well, it is a religion. The irony is that most religions are based on faith whilst the alarmists’ religion is based on”scientific facts”. Do i need the /sarc if i use inverted commas?
Only the first time.
My dog pees and poops on nature wherever he wants. For good measure he might even hump your leg to let you know he likes you. He makes Harvey Weinstein look good.
Yet everyone says my dog is cute. Looks like a double standard to me. We look at mother nature with rose colored glasses, while blaming humans for acting like animals.
You need to fix this small typo, to avoid a false self-reference:
“Fill ’er up, buddy” (figuratively speaking, as
WattsWatt also didn’t foresee self-service stations)The idiots in NJ and some parts of Oregon can’t legally pump their own gas.
Pantheism, the worship of the created rather than the creator. A very dangerous false religion, that would murder billions not millions , if their twisted ideology isn’t quickly exposed to all for what it is. Then along with Marxism and communism, relegated to histories trash heap for good.
You have to admit that it is an amazing record on their missed predictions. I would think that just by pure chance one of their many predictions would have come to pass.
Most of us here would ascribe to good conservation practices. That we do not care about the natural environment is a classic straw man set up by our detractors who need easy straw men to knock down. What most of us object to are the abuse and ultimate destruction of the scientific method, free discourse, and the establishment of totalitarianism in the name of… well anything actually. Duane if you are on the side of Extinction Rebellion, Al Gore, Naomi Klein, or are getting down with AOC re-consider your choices. The point of this post is the many, many failed predictions of people who were taken seriously in their time. Why would you defend their extreme positions after the fact.
On a related note I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Mao’s Little Red Book. Many thoughts but one really jumped out. Mao warned that failure to establish socialism would result in revisionism/capitalism. The abandonment of socialism that he warned of did come about after his death. That policy change has lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese out of abject poverty. See Duane. It’s easy to make you a Maoist.
Earth Day?
Horse feathers !
Happy Dyngus Day ! Whip out them pussy willows and let Anderson Cooper giggle again.
Here is a big story from New York, … https://www.foxnews.com/politics/bill-de-blasio-says-green-new-deal-will-ban-inefficient-steel-and-glass-skyscrapers
Just in time for Earf Day: Breaking news: Stanford scientists see link between global warming and income inequality.
Just when you think they can’t get any dumber, they do.
So I’ve lived in the city I was born in for about 50 out of my nearly 60 years on this planet so far. Like a lot of kids in the sixties I spent a lot of my childhood outside. I’m not out as much now but walk my dogs twice a day year round. The thing is, my personal experience is that the climate here has not changed at all. Sometimes it’s hot, sometimes it’s cold, sometimes there are storms or nice days, but overall nothing seems different than 50+ years ago. I know anecdotes aren’t science and weather is not climate, but I think my experience is common. We read about the crisis of climate change, then go outside and see no crisis. Unless and until that basic reality changes, I think the average person will continue to rank climate change at the bottom of their list of concerns as most polls show, no matter how many IPCC reports and politicians and Hollywood stars claim we must fundamentally change our lives now.
All you need do is look at the same data graphed in terms of ACTUAL “degrees,” not “tenths” of A degree, to see how UN-threatening “climate change” in “average temperature” terms really is.
THEN, apply reasonable “error bars” to the temperatures, and you’ll lose sight of any threat.
Assuming, of course, that “warming temperatures” compared with the horrible cold climate of the LITTLE ICE AGE is a “threat,” which, of course it isn’t.
Earth Day, as fake as Kwanza.
and Christmas, Easter and Thanksgiving. They are all full of lies that prove people would rather believe in FAIRY TALES than the truth.
Why are you trying to drag an alternate topic into this discussion…..RU having trouble convincing yourself that Christianity is a false religion?
I suspect you made up your mind about it without ever opening and reading any part of the Holy Bible…….
Ignorance is less about being educated but more about believing one’s brain is full with no more room to continue learning….
Earth day !!!!
bugger, I missed it, we were going to have all the lights on to celibrate
oh well next year;… we’ll put 50 lights on for 24hrs
Ira Einhorn certainly took drastic steps to reduce his girlfriend’s carbon footprint.
Amazing how individuals SELECTIVELY choose WHICH scientists they will believe. It seems to me that any one of the above naysayers about climate change are going to be very quick to accept the diagnosis and treatment of their various physical problems…physical problems which have been solved by scientific research by researchers following exacting protocols. The work of these scientists on the various human maladies have made a huge improvement in their ability to “fix” problems that we humans encounter, whether accidents, diseases, genetic inheritances, or war wounds. It is very interesting that when scientific advances and knowledge make a very personal difference to individuals, they have NO problem accepting those advances. But, when scientific advances, such as actual facts about the melting of the ice in the Antarctic, do not agree with their political beliefs, they have no problem ignoring those scientists and their published facts. I suppose this is one aspect of the “human condition.” And I am not a promoter of Earth Day, or environmentalism, just an observer of our human condition and our real world.
“Actual facts about ice in Antartica melting!” What is your source of info….? The low lying west peninsula extends far north to a latitude towards equator and melts each summer while the vast continent freezes with snow ice buildup yearrond closer to the pole and much depends on elevation proximity of seamount volcanoes, cold and warm air and water currents….
Not sure what you are really trying to tell us actually….
“But, when scientific advances, such as actual facts about the melting of the ice in the Antarctic, do not agree with their political beliefs, they have no problem ignoring those scientists and their published facts.”
Ice has cycled up and down in the Antarctic over various periods, and they don’t have an actual scientific explanation for any of those changes – plenty of hypothesizing and speculation, but nothing concrete. So where exactly is the “scientific advance?!”
Even if Antarctic ice is melting, that doesn’t mean rising CO2 is the CAUSE of it (nor is “human activity” the “cause” of rising CO2 levels, not “scientifically,” since nobody is taking actual MEASUREMENTS of all of the CO2 sources and sinks). Correlation does not equal causation – one of the most basic foundations of ACTUAL “science.” Or are you a “science denier?”
Melting glaciers and polar bears make good symbolism. The real story is sea level rise as a threat. The result of melt water minus snow accumulation. The result of that has been 3 millimeter or about 1/8 inch per year for a long time. That’s not very threatening so environmentalists sell the sizzle. I’m a retired chemist and research manager so i feel qualified to comment on what is science. Computer modeling of the climate is at best a speculative hypothesis of what might happen. It is not science in itself. Science is about observation and experiment. If observation bears out the hypothesis then and only then is it science. Given the abysmal record of climate modeling we have right to be skeptical.
The real “real story” is that despite the never-ending hysteria about melting glaciers, sea level has not significantly change. Sea level has been consistent for many centuries. So I’m not worried.
Here’s another reason you should not worry about sea level rise — Do you think people would buy oceanfront property is they really believed it would be underwater in a few years, or even a few decades?
Earth Day is one of the high holy days of the radical cult; Progressivism. Like Kwanza and other such celebrations, the purpose is to indoctrinate children, morons and other useful idiots into this fundamentalist religion. Government IS God, bureaucrats are saints and all Progressive politicians are angels. All else are sinners and blasphemers; they must be punished or destroyed utterly. No amount of facts or logic can dissuade the true believers from their beliefs; you are evil for even wanting to question their religion!
Why are American children being taught a state-sponsored religion in our school system?
The cartoon is more informative than the article.
I was expecting a list of predictions (with references) and proof (with references) that they had failed. That would have been useful.
Perhaps you could give us an example of a prediction from 1970 which has been fulfilled.
How many claims has Greenpeace made and how much have they collected in 50 years?
A page dedicated to tracking this organization would be welcome
Oil crisis 1973, the ‘experts’ predicted there was less than 20 years oil left in the world. Oh, and the same experts predicted that in the year 2000 all computers would stop working, planes would fall out of the sky. Yeah right. Over the last 5million years the world has cooled, warmed up, cooled. 3 million years ago humans were not burning coal, using gas or gasoline. Yet the world got warmer.
Humans have polluted the world but not to the degree the ‘experts’ want us to believe.
By the way – Who knew we would be PAYING MORE FOR WATER…than a gallon of GAS????
And polluting the oceans with all the plastics involved?
Anthony, I pretty sure copying an entire article except for the last paragraph and then adding a “full story here” link goes way beyond fair use and violates the original authors copyright.
Environmental disaster predictions are something that never seems to go away, like socialism. Despite the failures of these predictions, the same people continue making them. Despite the failure of socialism everywhere, in every form, it lives on and will likely continue after all our lifetimes.
Another thing environment disaster prognosticators and propagators have in common with socialism advocates is the belief they are smarter than everyone else who tried and failed.
No surprise that a day named for the BD of Marxist Vladimir Lenin would produce any truth. Saddest Birthday April 22.