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This Earth Day, Remember How Often Environmental Alarmists Are Wrong
The Federalist ^ | 04/22/2017 | Daniel Payne

Posted on 04/22/2017 7:02:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Today is the 47th annual Earth Day. On this day, it is worth reflecting on how completely, totally wrong environmental alarmists often are. Few things tell us more about the environmental movement—where it’s been and, more importantly, where it is now—than its dismal track record in the predictive department.

Case in point: Paul Ehrlich, who is as close to a rock star as you’re apt to find among environmentalists. Ehrlich is most famous for his 1968 book “The Population Bomb,” in which he famously predicted that, during the 1970s and 1980s, humanity would suffer mass famine and starvation due to overpopulation. “At this late date,” Ehrlich wrote, “nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

Spoiler alert: Ehrlich was wrong—so wrong, in fact, that not only did his doomsday predictions fail to materialize, but the exact opposite happened. Readers who were alive during the 1970s and 80s will recall that there was plenty to eat, there was no mass die-off, everything worked out fine, and humanity’s lot continued to improve as it had throughout the rest of the 20th century.

Ehrlich Is Still Making Incorrect Doomsday Predictions

This kind of humiliating embarrassment would be enough to cow even the proudest of men—unless that man is an environmentalist, of course. Incredibly, as NewsBuster’s Tim Graham pointed out this week, Ehrlich was still making his doomsday predictions in 1989—well after the point when it was clear his previous predictions had been utter failures. Ehrlich claimed that, during the 1990s, “We’re going to see massive extinction;” he theorized that rising ocean waters meant “we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin.”

Another spoiler: none of this happened. I visited Florida several times in the 1990s; it was not underwater. I visited Los Angeles shortly after the turn of the century; it, too, was fully above ground. Washington D.C., alas, remains as un-inundated as ever.

For Paul Ehrlich, unfortunately, twice-humiliated does not mean twice- or even once-chastened. Just a few years ago he was predicting that human beings would have to resort to cannibalism to cope with the coming famine. He also claims that “The Population Bomb” was “much too optimistic;” this was a book, mind you, that predicted hundreds of millions of deaths that ended up not happening.

This Earth Day, Rest Assured That Ehrlich Is Wrong

You might imagine that such unprofessional behavior and a miserable track record would render a man unfit for professional scientific society, and that he would be looked upon by his colleagues (if he had any) as “that guy who keeps predicting the end of the world and who keeps being wrong.” Not so: Ehrlich is a well-esteemed professor at Stanford, as well as the president of that university’s Center for Conservation Biology.

A man continually makes outlandishly fake predictions and beclowns himself on the global scientific stage: in what socio-scientific subculture could such a man find any purchase? The answer: environmentalism.

This Earth Day, consider reflecting on the bizarre dichotomy of (a) Paul Ehrlich’s mortifying history of predictive failures regarding the environment, and (b) his continued relevance in the field of environmental studies. Reflect on what that tells you about the environmental movement as a whole, particularly its hysterical climate change wing. And then consider the possibility that you can safely ignore the hysterics and simply live your life without worrying that Tampa, Florida is going to be washed away sometime over the next few decades.

Happy Earth Day!

Daniel Payne is a senior contributor at The Federalist.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: earthday; environmentalists; globalwarming

1 posted on 04/22/2017 7:02:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

We may not have died but if you take a good look around, you will see that about half of this country has serious Mental Defects rendering them incapable from coherent, individual thought and unable to tell truth from fiction in just about every aspect of Life.


2 posted on 04/22/2017 7:06:19 PM PDT by eyeamok (destruction of government records.)
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To: SeekAndFind

A fool is a fool, they never learn.


3 posted on 04/22/2017 7:07:57 PM PDT by Fungi (Please give suggestions for fungal taglines. Merci.)
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To: SeekAndFind

They’ve never been right.


4 posted on 04/22/2017 7:11:52 PM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s all a scam to celebrate Lenin’s berfday.


5 posted on 04/22/2017 7:17:20 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: SeekAndFind

An astounding gathering of the Chicken Little crowd, an incessant screeching of We are All Going to DIE. How many times over the centuries have we heard this drumbeat of doom?


6 posted on 04/22/2017 7:26:58 PM PDT by Neoliberalnot (Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed)
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To: SandRat

We need to fight back by insisting on creating the most coal-friendly regulatory environment ever. We get cheap energy and also get to watch the tree huggers go berserk. It’s going to be great.

The concept of “pollution,” was invented in the mid 19th century by anti-industrialists who opposed the spread of capitalism. Until then, nobody referred to industrial emissions that way. They were and still are a mostly benign symbol of progress, with a few exceptions, of course. Overall, atmosphere is pretty good at cleansing itself.

The bad effects of industrialization have been greatly exaggerated. And the goals of the environNuts has never changed. The ultimate goal is the destruction of industry and a return to a pre-modern agricultural economy.


7 posted on 04/22/2017 7:51:02 PM PDT by GodAndCountryFirst
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To: SeekAndFind
On this day, it is worth reflecting on how completely, totally wrong environmental alarmists often are.

Nothing says how wrong they are better than the those climate models that we were all supposed to take as Gospel…. http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/02/95-of-climate-models-agree-the-observations-must-be-wrong/

8 posted on 04/22/2017 8:09:43 PM PDT by hecticskeptic
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To: eyeamok

This is a spiritual problem, not an abusing-the-urf problem.


9 posted on 04/22/2017 8:26:36 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: hecticskeptic

If a climate model ever went the other way, it would be hooted down as a tool of those dastardly petroleum concerns.


10 posted on 04/22/2017 8:27:25 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: SeekAndFind

George Carlin on The Environment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4


11 posted on 04/22/2017 9:48:16 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: GodAndCountryFirst

Beijing agrees. It is smothered in smog and soot and considers that wonderful progress.

America believed in something more aesthetic and, yes, healthy. Surely we can throw out the bath water and still keep the baby.


12 posted on 04/22/2017 9:55:56 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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Geophysics nonresponsive to the demands of the psychotic libtards...


13 posted on 04/23/2017 12:11:27 AM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: eyeamok

We may not have died but if you take a good look around, you will see that about half of this country has serious Mental Defects,..
The wars this country has fougt for the last 100 years has taken our best and brightest leaving the infirm to procreate.


14 posted on 04/23/2017 3:42:08 AM PDT by lucky american (Progressives are attac Iking our rights and y'all will sit there and take it.)
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To: SeekAndFind
Where are the photos from space showing the crowd of "thousands?" Oh, they don't show up? OK, how about a pic by a guy sitting on someone's shoulders?

15 posted on 04/23/2017 3:53:13 AM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Kill: TWITTER, FACEBOOK, CNN, ESPN, NFL, NPR)
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To: SeekAndFind

Another Erf-Day Has Come And Gone...


16 posted on 04/24/2017 12:55:03 AM PDT by Vlad The Inhaler
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