Earth Day, 1970: Twenty years to live

The American Thinker Blog ^ | December 04, 2009 | Ben-Peter Terpstra

[Scanian]

Ask a believer: What's the difference between climate alarmism and child abuse? If he pauses to think for more than one second, then that's too long.

Conservatives are American thinkers. Liberals are American feelers.

Remember Earth Day, 1970? Here's Dan Rozek, writing in the Daily Herald, Sunday 22, 1990:

"On the eve of Earth Day 1970, gloomy scientists and environmentalists questioned whether humanity would be around for this year's 20th anniversary celebration.

Some worried mankind could not long survive without fatally fouling the planet and predicted mass deaths from pollution in 15 to 30 years.

Even if man managed to avoid poisoning himself, the world would look radically different by 1990, visionaries predicted. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the Wisconsin Democrat who inspired Earth Day, warned in speeches in 1970 that Americans in a few years might have to filter their water several times daily and don gas masks."

Another organizer behind the early Earth Day religion is now sitting in jail, after years on the run. He murdered his ex-girlfriend.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Fresh Wind]

Another organizer behind the early Earth Day religion is now sitting in jail, after years on the run. He murdered his ex-girlfriend.

No thanks to Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat Arlen Spectre, who turned the bastard loose so he could flee to France.

[Silly]

[The Great RJ]

Ah the good old 70’s when we were all to imminently die of pollution, overpopulation and nuclear winter. Now we only have to worry about dying of global warming.

[Names Ash Housewares]

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/earth-day-predictions-of-1970-the-reason-you-should-not-believe-earth-day-predictions-of-2009

Earth Day 1970.

“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”
• Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist

“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, the day after the first Earth Day

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“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.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling.
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist