By Ron Stein
From predicting ecological collapse and the end of civilization to warnings that the world is running out of oil, all environmental doomsday predictions of the first Earth Day in 1970 have turned out to be flat out wrong.
More than three decades before Greta Thunberg was born — the Swedish environmental activist on climate change — more than 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.
We now look back at quotes from Earth Day, Then and Now,” by Ronald Bailey of the spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions from Earth Day 1970.
Considering the current doomsday predictions scaremonger activists are verbalizing about global warming that will result in the demise of civilization within the next decade, many of those unscientific 1970 predictions are being reincarnated on today’s social and news media outlets.
Many of the same are being regurgitated today, but the best prediction from the first earth day five decades ago, yes 50 years ago, was that the “the pending ice age as earth had been cooling since 1950 and that the temperature would be 11 degrees cooler by the year 2000”.
The 1970’s were a lousy decade. Embarrassing movies and dreadful music reflected the national doomsday mood following an unpopular war, endless political scandals, and a faltering economy.
The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 — okay, “celebrated” doesn’t capture the funereal tone of the event. The events (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.
Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:
1. “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald
2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner
3. “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” — New York Times editorial
4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich
5. “Most of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born… [By 1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich
6. “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day
7. “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…. By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — North Texas State University professor Peter Gunter
8. “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution… by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.” — Life magazine
9. “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
10. “Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich
11. “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate… that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt
12. “[One] theory assumes that the earth’s cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun’s heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born.” — Newsweek magazine
13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt
Watt’s up with THAT, Kenneth?
The frequency of Paul Ehrlich’s “scientific” predictions were brain dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed. Tunnel vision from the outsiders screen.
He wore a shirt of violent green, uh-huh
I never understood the frequency, uh-huh
His was Climate Science De-Jour
Since the trend was cooling for 20 years, “Ice Age imminent”
NOW
Since the temperatures have risen a modest amount “Global Warming Catastrophe” with the same lame projections being regurgitated
Peak Oil
Peak Food
Population Bomb
Unbreathable Polluted Air
Runaway Global Temperature Increase (decrease)
Runaway Global Famine
SS DC
I like #11…that by 2000 we would be out of oil. If I could go back 50 years, I never would have dreamt that 50 years later that the world would be so awash in oil with so many well fed people, that oil would be near worthless and even negative priced for a few days one of those weeks 50 years later. I don’t think many of us would have predicted 50 years ago how much accessible oil and gas there is in the Earth’s crust.
I was even wrong about how soon we might lose our liberties to socialism and Marxism, thinking that would have have also perhaps happened by now, although that one I am still very worried about, maybe more so now than ever. All we have is a piece of paper separating us from freedom and tyranny and as we have seen this last month, some leaders and various groups of people would be happy to see us lose that. There is a very important decision to be made later this year about the next 4 years, and hopefully we get that right. Never has it mattered so much.
I work in an industry supporting the oil and gas industry in Alberta and i can attest that i would never have thought we’d have to sell our oil at negative dollars.
Alice in wonderland territory
Can’t you see that there is nothing positive about oil? Even its price is negative 🙂
Can I get a 5000 gal tank on my property and be paid to store negatively priced OIL
I was wondering if the San Francisco Bay could handle 100 million gallons. With $3.7 Billion in profit, they’d never be able to find me and, if they did, I’d hire Michael Mann as a consultant on how to make a case last 700 years.
Bryan A – a single oil futures contract is for delivery of 1000 barrels, or 42,000 gallons. You will need a bigger tank if you want to play this game!
So all I need is 9 more friends to buy 100 barrels each
Earthling2
Your fears about imminent socialism or Marxism are still no more likely to happen than any of the Earth Day fears from 50 years ago. I really doubt the next US election will bring it any closer, whichever way it goes.
Here in UK, our actual Marxists don’t want the left-aligned political party to win an election, as they think that would push back the time of their glorious revolution.
I beg to differ. We just let the government control the entire economy for over 30 days based solely on unproved models. Many are expecting to be paid by the government for sitting at home this past month. Socialism/Marxism is very much a real threat and never far away because so many believe they are entitled to wealth created by others’ efforts.
Yes, yes. What we have now is exactly what Socialists want–a controlled economy. Of course, it is a badly controlled economy, i.e., an economy forced to fail, but that is deliberate. The proletariat is at last riveted to the government teat, exactly as Marx wanted.
We currently have a chaotic mess of an economy, riddled with irreparable unfairness everywhere, at all levels. The true hideousness of US Marxism won’t be revealed until we simultaneously take the lid off AND try to fix the inequities retroactively AND prevent a second peak of infections.
The Democrats keep talking about nationalizing the health insurance industry, the health care industry, the energy industry, and the telecommunications industry. That *is* Socialism.
The government deciding what businesses can operate and which ones must close is Fascism – the first stepping stone to Socialism. First it is control of business and capital and then ownership of business and capital follows.
This doesn’t even begin to address the authoritarianism associated with telling people what attire they must wear in public or face imprisonment and fines. It’s no different than Muslim countries requiring women to wear hijabs – both are justified using safety as the rationale. It is that authoritarianism that is a prelude to both Fascism and Socialism.
Here in America we achieved a lethal level of socialism in 1935, then consumed more marxist poison in 1964. More in 2010. Our period of “imminent socialism” happened when my father was a baby.
Agreed, the immediate threat to democratic government nowadays is not Marxism but the drift to a form of corporatism as predicted by James Burnham and the growth of a new dominant class of technocrats as can be seen in the EU, that could be identified as ‘the deep state’.
The word you’re looking for is ‘fascism.’ And I don’t mean it in the throwaway, ignorant fashion the Left uses it. That is literally what they want.
That would be fascism, which is of course nothing more than another form of socialism.
Fascism is government control of business and capital.
Socialism is government ownership of business and capital.
Communism is collective ownership of business and capital.
Of course there has never been true communism instituted in modern history. Once the government gains ownership of business and capital, with its adjunct control of society, government NEVER, EVER gives up the power that provides.
Compare the number of government regulations and total tax rate today compared to 50 years ago.
Socialism is creeping in one Democrat at a time.
ObamaCare was a huge leap in that direction.
Earthling2, the piece of paper is not what counts. There are many millions who know the spirit of our laws and rights. And in the US we also have the 2nd Amendment and over 100 million guns to back up those rights. I don’t think Socialism has a chance until all the citizens are either disarmed or lose their minds.
I sincerely hope you are right, in that the majority don’t lose their mind and we wind up in some type of intended or unintended civil war. But the demographics suggest that at some point, a new majority will at some point overrule the present majority. The Constitution and the Electoral College even tries to address that at least for deciding elections, some of these issues regarding urban vs. rural which provides some protection of the rule of the mob and concentrations of populations within certain states.
While it will take a vast majority (66% and 75%) to change the Constitution, it can be done and then it is legal, so then what? A 100 million guns…not a good recipe for settling a dispute but maybe a final hope, but certainly which was intended to control a corrupt Gov’t, not a citizenry that has lost its mind which is looking more pessimistic every decade. Which is why some would want unlimited immigration to change the population demographic and ultimately change the Constitution. Their first target might be the 2nd Amendment, to abolish it or radically change it.
The Fifth Amendment provides two ways the Constitution can be changed. One of them has never been used. First: A bill can be passed by a two-thirds majority of the Senate and the House, after which it is set to the states. It must be approved by three-fourths of the states, either by the legislature or by convention; the bill can specify which.
Second: A Constitutional Convention can be called by two-thirds of the states’ legislatures. There, one or more amendments to the Constitution can be proposed. Those amendments are then sent to the states, and three-fourths must approve before the change is made. This process has never been attempted.
We live in interesting times. How do we preserve the intent of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution without descending into civil war again? Having to have 3/4 of the states on board to make any change is probably the best fail safe in protecting the present spirit of the Constitution, assuming that 2/3 of the federal bicameral legislature (or state legislatures) have already set in motion some attempt to change things.
And not one apology from any of them for all their insane prognostications
On the contrary- they never learn and still make the same ridiculous predictions, just add that this time they’re right and that, in fact they weren’t really wrong at all. And the MSM and gullible fools lap it all up.
“…just add that this time they’re right and that, in fact they weren’t really wrong at all.”
This is my favorite, I call it Libsplaining. Apparently it never occurs to people that if you have to work that hard on explaining something then it’s probably a stretch. This is normally applied to explaining how someone or something is racist or cultural appropriation (sorry, if you have to spend hours explaining to me how something someone did was racist, then it wasn’t racist. It may disproportionately affect someone based on ethnicity, or people may be insensitive to issues, but both those things are different from racism!!!), but the same principle applies.
But let’s not get cocky here, the same is true for both sides of the aisle. I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous Trumpsplaining trying to make something stupid the President said sound somewhat okay, kinda, a little bit… Maybe if you squint… That’s just how modern politics work, when politicians can speak right to the entire country without a filter they will inevitably say a lot of things that were poorly considered. Turns out they’re people too.
Those people have less conscience than predictive ability!
That occurred to me, to, Pat. Not one of those people — to my knowledge anyway — has ever apologized or taken any statement back.
Smithsonian Magazine has a, yeah, but story.
It ends with why we must address climate change now, without delay, no time for reflection:
“The truth is more complicated. Climate change won’t destroy the planet, although it will change the environment we’re accustomed to, in ways we can’t predict and with possibly dire consequences. And weaponizing “failed predictions” of the past to justify leaving the climate problem to the market is deceptive. If we don’t act because a previous prediction “failed,” we face an array of human suffering, which will hit the poorest and disadvantaged the hardest. (my bold)”
The bolded comment is especially ironic, because all promoted cures for the claimed AGW involve changes that will not only hit the poorest and disadvantaged hardest, but will vastly increase the population of poor and disadvantaged people.
Hannah Waters, the author of the piece and a Philadelphia-based science writer displays the acute mindlessness of climate crisis mongers. Along with the Smithsonian editors who approved the essay.
Continuing, ““We should try to figure out the relationship between the earlier predictions and the current ones,” says Sabin, “The environmental community and advocates for climate action will be in a stronger position if they can figure out how to explain why climate change is different [from past predictions of resource scarcity] and why we need to take action now.”
Stampede in fear. That’s the answer.
It’s always different this time. And it has always turned out to be the same, that time. This time, too.
Pat Frank, you forget the might power of the word ‘Might’.
It is up there with In My Opinion and Just Playing the Devil’s Advocate in its ability to shut down all opposing discussion on a topic.
In fact some may argue that ‘Might’ – as well as its close cousin, ‘Could’ – are the most powerful words of them all, able to travel backwards in time to find historical statements and force themselves into sentences.
“I didn’t say there would never be any rain, I said their MIGHT never be any rain. So there. Orange Man Bad.”
By using Might and Could – even retrospectively – means you never have to say you are sorry or confess you are wrong.
In My Opinion.
“We should try to figure out the relationship between the earlier predictions and the current ones,” says Sabin”
Easy, they’re all wrong. Next!
They mostly don’t think they were actually wrong.
The only way to fix this is for failed prognosticators to face some consequences.
I keep forgetting to turn out my lights and sit in the dark.
That is Earth Hour. You missed that already.
I turn out the lights and lay in the dark for hours every night. Does that mean I’m a good environmentalist?
Have to take issue with you about the music though- my favourite decade for music. What do we have today? Whining, hand wringing virtue signallers that can’t even play live and seem to actually believe that their opinions are more valid than ours simply because they’re famous. Sure, there were artists like this in the 70s, but not on the present scale. It was all about the music, man!
Best time for music ever, end 60ies to max 80ies plus the one or the other outlier still active today 😀
Absolutely right. Lots of incredible music in the 70’s.
Love the music of the 70s! “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen”, “Battle of the Boyne”,”Silver Threads Among the Gold”, plus anything by Sousa.
You were talking the 1870s, no?
Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Souuuuusaaa!
(as in “Ahhhhh! Baaach!” —Radar on MASH.)
Those were the 80’s!
Former Sousaphone player, me.
Ron Stein doesn’t know schist from shinola, when it comes to good music!
The best news this “Earth Day” is that “Earth Day” creator and “Unicorn Killer”, Ira Samuel Einhorn, is no more.
The man is dead
The man is dead
This is no joke
The man did croak
And now he’s dead
He’s breathed his last
He’s in the past
He’s lost his lease
So rest in peace
The man is dead
When the left celebrates the death of a skeptic, we castigate them. You’re doing the same.
It’s OK to celebrate the death of a murderous hupocrite who actually killed someone…. At least I think so…
it is soo sad that that scumbag psycho was able to run free and that there were so many people that wanted to be fooled by him; or they simply accepted him because they felt they were on the same side.
His supporters deserve a nasty fate as well. People like him deserve the absolute worst that could be put upon them. His blind supporters, were I king of the world, would literally be blinded as a lesson to others.
He deserves no protection in death, it should have come sooner.
I didn’t know the name. I looked him up. My apologies. Rip him a new one.
That said, your comment was correct.
Unfortunately, the left doesn’t generally care about dignity.
At least he wasn’t a hypocrite with regard to composting.
My N.CA middle school was soooooo environmentally conscious, that they stopped school at noon, and had all the students “march” through the downtown of my little suburban city. To raise the consciousness of our wealthy upper middle class parents, who had “created a horror show of a culture that was killing us all” (long before EPA Co2 findings, and fine particulate matter). We students were happy for a half-day of instruction.
Earth Day was the very first day I discovered that science was hard (homework, study, grades), but sociology was easy (stroll the sidewalks with a placard and a raised fist). I learned that creativity was hard (math, science, and art), but destructivity was easy (tear it all down maaaan). My parents thought the school administrators were stupid people (for pulling a political stunt with captive students) … my peers raised their kids to be “Greens”.
I have since learned that science can be held captive by sociology.
Kenji, the 2018 National Academy Report on sexual harassment in STEM fields, is exactly a major attempt by sociologists to grab control of science.
I posted about it here on WUWT.
They want to set themselves up as political commissars overseeing hiring, promotion, behavior, and, ultimately, permitted research topics in science, medicine, engineering, and technology.
Frank Zappa, Hatfield and the North, Gentle Giant, Isaac Guillory(look them up on youtube please)to name a few …. dreadful music? You sure must have missed a lot!
Klick on my name and follow some of my playlists 😀
Hatfield and the North named after a road sign on the M1
Yes. But also Van der graff generator and early genesis.
I’m so glad those eco worriers were so wrong.
Typed on phone with fat old fingers after a few drinks.
You know that ?
Genesis: Live 1973 – First time in HD with Enhanced Soundtrack
Roxy Music: a Song for Europe ….. timeless
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auOBhaXEDvA
Through silken waters my gondola glides, and the bridge ….
…. it sighs.
https://soundcloud.com/fooledagainmusic
worth an ear, or two 😀
some more:
https://fooledagain.bandcamp.com/releases
“New” from France:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_VXx_WkOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW8ZM_NEIMY
Not to forget Snowy White
Sorry for OT
Saw the late Isaac Guillory 3 times in Scotland. Amazing performer (watch Swinging Little Guitar Man) and daddy of actress Sienna (Fortitude, Resident Evil etc). A great loss.
I ended the decade with Led Zeppelin at Knebworth Park. Happy days indeed.
Peter I’m surprised that David Middleton hasn’t posted an appropriate music clip by now 🙂
Sure there was disco in the 1970’s, but also Boston, Foreigner, Kansas, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Rush, Queen, Led Zeppelin, The Doobies, Yes, Billy Joel, The Doors, Santana, Golden Earring, The Eagles, and on and on. Hell, 90% of my music collection is from the 70’s.
The 50th anniversary of the 100th birthday of Vladimir Lenin. No possible coincidence.
The world is not running out of oil. The world is running out of people who can think rationally.
Well said!
More from one of ‘The Daves”…I tend to agree, but I am encouraged by the number of people protesting the authoritarian edicts put in place by state governors. Despite the sheeple mindlessly gloming onto socialist twits like Sanders and the Squad of Idiots, there seem to be plenty of people unwilling to take ideas such as turning in your neighbors for ‘social distancing’ infractions, snitch hotlines, police drones broadcasting Orwellian nonsense, closing parks, lakes, mountain trails and ski areas, surf breaks, and other socialistic / Marxist control tactics our ‘leaders’ have foisted on them. This is a healthy and sane response to these kinds of overreactions government is so famous for.
In Washington State, there were a few protests. One with approx 2500 people.
The Democrat governer, Jay Inslee, made a point to say that 6 million+ people in the state weren’t protesting, therefore the protest was without significant backing.
By that logic, the meager XR and other climate protests means that 7 billion people weren’t protesting, therefore they have no significant backing, and can be ignored.
Inslee tried to run for president solely on a climate change campaign. He didn’t even get to 1% in the polls. He dropped out.
The more those clowns are proven ridiculously wrong, the more they are acclaimed as prophets.
See how after having proclaimed so many nonsense during 3 decades J Hansen is recognized by the MSM as a prophet.
I don’t know any so called phrophet having been right in history. (Exception Leonardo da Vinci :D, but that’s an other story)
Finally gang green has a success.
For being 100% wrong on every prediction/projection of doom is statistically quite the achievement.
Quite strange really as most cons including doom use plausible catastrophes.
Which is why the current Pestilence has driven the Cult of Calamitous Climate from the stage.
What is next?
The climate communicators will assure us that they are so wrong they are right?
JR – I am waiting to see if the ‘gold standard’ Mauna Loa CO2 measurement shows a proportionate drop due to greatly reduced fossil fuel use during the global Coronavirus lockdown period. If it doesn’t this is a unique opportunity for sceptics to demonstrate that the claimed link between fossil fuel consumption and atmospheric CO2 levels is bunkum. We should know in a few months.
13. “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt
Let’s see, a quick calculation says that if the temperature drops 4 degrees from 1950 to 1990 the “present trend” is -1 degree per decade and the temperature dropped 2 degrees between 1950 and 1970.
Funny how that drop has been eliminated from the current historical record.
“Funny how that drop has been eliminated from the current historical record.”
Yes, the Late Twentieth Century bastardized Hockey Stick global “temperature” chart has reduced the cooling into the 1970’s (The Ice Age Cometh!) into insignificance. They disappeared the warmth of the Early Twentieth Century, too in order to create the false reality of the Hockey Stick global “temperature” chart (see Climategate).
Unmodified regional temperature charts show the cold of the 1970’s and the warmth of the 1930’s, which puts the lie to Human-caused Climate Change, and that’s why they reduced those two periods to insignificance.
The Dishonest official global “temperature” record is the only thing alarmists can point to in order to support their CAGW claims. The *only* thng.
The real global temperature profile is the U.S. surface temperature record (Hansen 1999, link below) where both the warmth of the 1930’s and the cold of the 1970’s show up clearly
The Hansen 1999 US chart is on the left on the webpage and the bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart is on the right. The Climategae Charlatans changed the temperature profile from the one on the left to the one on the right. The profile on the left resembles all the other regional temperature charts from around the world. The Hockey Stick profile on the right does not resemble any regional surface temperature chart. That ought to be evidence enough that the Hockey Stick chart does not represent reality.
The US surface temperature charts and all unmodified regional charts from around the world show that it was just as warm in the early 20th century as it is today, which means there is no unprecedented warming today, which means CO2 is not the control knob of the Earth’s climate.
The Hockey Stick chart was created to fool people into thinking the Earth is getting hotter and hotter and hotter, decade after decade and that the Earth is now at the hottest temperatures in human history. But it’s all a lie, meant to sell Human-caused Climate Change. The real temperature profile of the Earth tells a completely different story.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/
The graphs on the page you reference are “mean” temperatures. The “mean” tells you nothing about environmental impact. Environmental impacts occur at the edges of the temperature profile, not at the mean.
Far too many climate “scientists” assume that a rising mean value indicates the Earth is going to turn into a cinder because maximum temperatures must be going up because the mean is going up. And you know what “assume” implies.
Noticeably absent on this thread: Alarmist trolls.
The trolls will be laying low and won’t be saying much, if anything. What can they say, other than admit the truth that every claim made on Earth day has failed to materialize. I don’t think “I’m wrong” is in the troll playbook.
In a normal world, human-induced Climate Change would be a dead idea. Because in a normal world people would look at the record instead of making non-sensical statements based on opinions that have been disproven many times over. However, our world does not seem to be anything close to normal. Because it’s those that have been busted that get the funding, the attention and the bragging rights. And those putting solid science down to prove their point are the deniers. Who has seen the movie idiocracy?
“Who has seen the movie idiocracy?”
It’s getting a little scary, isn’t it. The movie is getting too close to reality in some places and among some people.
It appears all of these “forward” looking predictions were predicated on the assumption humans are naturally stupid, incapable of solving problems and would passively allow their precious lives to slip away without taking any action whatsoever other than to enthusiastically admire the catastrophists for their prescience. Why is is so hard to get rid of the impression that those who made all these childish predictions are now severely disappointed in the real world outcomes? Is the improving status of the human race, the biosphere and the natural environment so horrible for the doomsayers to witness? Is this not some form of psychiatric pathology?
Greta says we need to do more!
——————————–
Greta Thunberg urges countries to pivot to greener policies as COVID-19 decimates world economies
‘If one single virus can destroy economies in a matter of weeks, it shows we are not thinking long term and we are not taking these risks into account,’ she said during an Earth Day event
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/greta-thunberg-urges-countries-to-pivot-to-greener-policies-as-covid-19-decimates-world-economies
No Greta, your Dad is WRONG.
If one single virus can destroy economies then we need to learn to stop panicking at every death filled computer model that comes out. Wuhan Virus didn’t destroy economies. Panicking did.
And oh yes, ‘we needed to act!’ and ‘Isolation Works’ and ‘Save the NHS and to blazes to the population!’
Yes… and no. Acting without an exit is not a plan. It is a desperate reaction to something you have failed to allow for. If you don’t have a plan, then you clearly have not thought this through to the finish and, to put it bluntly, you have panicked.
1/13.
No 10 by Paul Ehrlich is accurate. Air pollution IS a problem in many big cities, so we can’t fairly criticise that.
It’s also a problem in Africa where they’re reduced to burning dried animal dung to heat and cook with, because they can’t get cleaner, reliable coal power stations. Unintended consequences yet again)
…possibly NOT ENTIRELY unintended…
Rousseau’s “noble savages” must be kept in a savage state…
With lives that are “nasty, brutish, and short…”.
The “soft” racism of the left….they are not good enough or smart enough for modern agriculture or disease prevention by means of modern pesticides…or prosperity, or modern societal and technical development. They must be kept as children so the Left can pretend to be “modern adult humans.”
Air pollution in the US, even in the big cities stopped being a problem decades ago. Ditto for Europe.
Only in poor countries is air pollution in big cities a problem.
Allow them to get rich as we did, and they will clean up their air, as we did.
Not really. VISIBLE pollution yes, but there is still NOX/SOX/PM pollution. In London, when there is a bus drivers’ strike, air quality improves.
and in Rio Janeiro when biofuels have to be used pollution is worse.
And in the so called rich nations air pollution has a new protagonist reponsible for increasing CO2, NO2, PM2.5 – wood heating in all forms, promoted as “climate neutral” what it isn’t.
John Robinson: yes! Being consistently wrong is difficult, but all their hard work over the years has
made easy for the skeptics: just expect the opposite of whatever they are saying. It would be funny
except it’s so sad that people still listen to their nonsense (and alter public policy based on it!).
I once had a college professor(1970’s) give us a multiple choice test to which we could score it one of two ways:
the ususal way of marking the correct answers OR try to give an incorrect answer to ALL questions. If you got all of them wrong he’d give you a 100; but if you happened to get one (or more) correct that would be your score.
The next week he mentioned that no one tried the second method. Erlich et al would have aced the exam! LOL
And scanning Ronald Bailey’s 2000 Earth Day article: much of what he mentions reads like he wrote
last week. But I wonder what Mr. Bailey would say today about his 2000 assessment since he has voiced a change in his previously skeptical position on AGW. Facts have never gotten in the way of a good narrative for
Ehrlich et al, but Mr. Bailey seems much more rational.
Bailey sure isn’t letting reality get in the way of his concern over global warming. Sure the evidence has contradicted every prediction and the models are grossly wrong, but he’s still convinced it will be a problem real soon now.
If you want rational, go with Matt Ridley. Bailey is a technocrat.
I was at the first Earth day in Washington Square Park. I was 14 and it was just a party. We played frisby and were checking out the girls, the water fountains were on as it was hot. Can’t seem to remember any awful environmental issues except I didn’t get a date. The lies of that day will always be remembered as the beginning of the movement to scare the heck out of us and I for one say cut the s*it.
Kenneth Watt: the serial dud bomb thrower.
If Kenneth Watt keeps making completely goofy predictions at the his current rate he will run out of things to be wrong about by the year 2020.
He will simply start making stuff up, if he hasn’t already.
REAL science produces accurate predictions. A prediction that a meteor shower from the remnants of some comet will occur on certain nights is valid science if , indeed, meteors emanate from the predicted radiant. The mathematics and physics were valid-they predicted the meteor shower. Bonus points are scored if the meteors per hour predictions are close.
The total failure of predictions of doom and gloom shows the “science” behind the theory that the 3% of CO2 increase that is of human origin is the driving force of global temperature is flawed-severely flawed-terminally flawed. The total failure of the predictions shows that the science itself is so flawed that it must be pseudoscience-appears scientific to the layman, but is just gobbledegook and rhetoric designed to deceive. Let us not kid ourselves-this sort of deception has occurred throughout history. Just because we have identified it from the past does NOT mean it is not going to be tried again. The mere fact that dissent is crushed and people that question the narrative are ridiculed points to the deception in the process.
The Emperor is indeed wearing no clothes. Just remember, childhood fables and fairytales have a basis of truth- they are subtle warnings to get under the radar- a warning to children that does not alert the corrupt adults that the kids are being warned.
Failed predictions are also part of the scientific method. But only if you admit that the prediction was wrong, and try to determine why.
The100% failure of predictions over 50yrs and, more poignant, the failure of Climate Science predictions over 40 yrs where deliberate scientific study was applied instead of kumbaya conjecture of Earth Day smurfs, is scientific data for another type of study. It supports the idea that masses and energy that mankind has at his disposal, even for deliberate harm, are too puny by orders of magnitude to do other than localized damage.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings were, to be sure, disasters on a city scale that I by no means intend to downplay here. However, before a year was out, radiation was back down to background levels and the city was rebuilt. Leaving out Chernobyl, the number of deaths from research and peaceful use of atomics since 1950 was not even a dozen. Chernobyl had something like 79 deaths and a number of people with related sickness. The ‘experts’ in UN expected upwards of 4000 deaths (the number of deaths a year in Chinese coal mines)
https://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/energy_watch/china-coal-deaths-03162015103452.html
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone became Europe’s Serengeti-like game park with wolves, deer, bears, etc. and babooshkas have been harvesting berries and mushrooms from the new forest for 30yrs. Even the World Wars which took up 10% of the last century don’t seem to have left a visible mark.
Large bolides colliding with earth have caused mass extinctions that the planet recovered from and life continued. If we didn’t study geology, we would not be able to have detected a sign of these events ever having happened. These are probably 10s of thousands of orders of magnitude greater in terms of the energy commanded by humans.
I think we have an axiom here. ‘It is impossible for humans to mount even a deliberate assault on the planet that isn’t quickly heeled and erased within a decade or less.
We’re too early. According to the club of Rome wikipedia entry:
‘A study by Graham Turner of the research organisation CSIRO in Australia in 2008 found that “30 years of historical data compare favorably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the “standard run” scenario, which results in collapse of the global system midway through the 21st century.”‘
Not a problem, ‘collapse’ implies a sudden event, Dr Turner did his science degree 1982 -1986 so probably as a tenured academic by midway through the 21st century he will be safely and comfortably retired, if around at all.
Need some review. NOAA’s website for CO2 emissions has a blurb about detecting the change in atmospheric CO2 due to COVID-19. Parentheses are my comments. 25% reduction in worldwide emissions would result in 0.2 ppm per year (0.8 ppm/yr if 100% reduction). From 2010 to 2020 CO2 increased by 25 ppm (2.5 ppm/yr, or 3 times that from emissions). Where is the other 1.7 ppm from?
What’s the measurement margin of error?
From IPCC AR5 summary: “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of observed warming since 1950, with the level of confidence having increased since the fourth report …”
From IPCC AR4 summary: “The primary source of the increase in carbon dioxide is fossil fuel use …”.
Seasonal changes are clearly seen on the year-to-year comparisons and “variability caused by how plants and soils respond to seasonal and annual variations of temperature, humidity, soil moisture, etc.” although large, follow a clearly repeating pattern.
It is the underlying trend that is claimed to be primary sourced from fossil fuels and that is where an observable change ought be apparent.
The statement that “… only measurements of carbon-14 in CO2 would enable us to cleanly separate fossil sources of CO2 from ecosystem sources and sinks …” is a bit of a smokescreen IMO.
https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/index.html#co2change
p.s. If there is no apparent change in the underlying trend the obvious question is what economic and social changes are needed to effect the *needed* change?
“Childbearing Will Be A Crime”
Still is, “they” just haven’t worked out how to prosecute in mass yet.
I think you mean “en masse”…
+1
5O years of failed predictions of doom. Ironically, we now have a global pandemic caused by the practice of running wet markets in China and doom is now descending upon us. Not only wasn’t this predicted by any of the earth days from the past, but the WHO has no intention of trying to stop the practice of wet markets, so we learn nothing and continue running with the fake doom predictions instead
“failed predictions of doom”
“doom is now descending upon us”
You can’t even see a failed prediction in real time and you complain about lack of learning?
Something few have recognised- Earth Day is Lenin’s birthday. 150 years this year. Kind of symbolic really- a covid operation.
May Day (May 1) is the formation day of the Illuminati in 1776.
The treachery is hidden in plain sight. We just have to open our minds.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-co2-emissions-likely-to-fall-6-due-to-coronavirus-11976910
So says the WMO
“The 1970’s were a lousy decade. ”
What a moron.
Well that was a useful and intelligent comment that can be totally ignored.
There was a guy by the name of Ray Avery who at fourteen was living under a bridge in London and yet he became New Zealander of the year because of his work. I can’t see you ever claiming that fame.
Where’s Loydo, Jack Dale, and the other sycophants on this post?
This one is a beauty:
“9. “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Ecologist Kenneth Watt”
But earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen and has been for millions of years. Obviously Kenneth Watt (idiot) is no relation to Anthony Watts (smart dude).