Posted on 04/22/2013 5:05:51 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:
"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." — Harvard biologist George Wald
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
— Ecologist Kenneth Watt
(Excerpt) Read more at freedomworks.org ...
Newsweek magazine on Earth Day 1970:
“[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.”
:)
"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
Missing George Carlin today!
These guys were amatuers. Algore became the poster boy for scientific psychobabble and it has cost the world billions.
Dang! Liberals obviously can’t hit the ground if it wasn’t for gravity!
The part about “pulling up the the pump” and saying “fill’er up buddy” is about the funniest of all!
Thank goodness we’re able to correctly predict the future now ;-)
It was a pretty depressing book as well. When I was reading it I kept expecting something to happen to make it a more interesting story. About 50 pages from the end I figured out that was not going to happen, but still had to find out the end.
Bumping for later
It is Earth Day. A day to remind everyone that the planet is getting much hotter. I will to my part to spread the word about global warming..
Oh wait, I can’t. We are expecting 6-10 inches of snow here in Minneapolis tonight so I will be out plowing instead.
I sort of miss Nuclear Winter, myself. Ah, those were the days.
You had days? Dang! I'm musta been on the other side of the planet.
I was in 2nd grade when my hippie teacher read those predictions from the old Scholastic Press newsletter. She seemed almost happy about it. Even as an 8 year old, I thought, “this is BS” and I filed that away in my brain for 43 years.
I’m glad that it was 100% BS. I wonder where Ms Shell is today and if she regrets trying to scare children (some kids cried).
Close, but the most depressing movie was “Graveyard of the Fireflies” a Japanese animated film. The only reason more people don’t kill themselves after watching it is because they’re too depressed.
I PREDICT......
That man will refine his use of materials to product products (example - producing can goods from sterilized waste products. The same would hold true of cars, airplanes, houses etc.
Secondarily we would develop adequate space travel to mine planets such as Mercury, Venus, Mars, the moons of Jupiter and the asteroid belt.
I envision Mercury (as well as Venus) having underground cities which use heat to generate refrigeration for underground miners.
Titan and Ganymede would also be viable options with the right technology.
Oddly enough I found Nevil Shute’s “On the Beach” surprisingly hopeful despite the fact that nobody was going to escape death.
I guess the fact that they tried living or at least died on their own terms in the face of hopelessness made it seem hopeful to me.
We are expecting 6-10 inches of snow here in Minneapolis tonight so I will be out plowing instead.
I made it through eleven Minneapolis winters, each of which seemed to last about three years.
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