13 Most Ridiculous Predictions Made on Earth Day, 1970

Ricochet ^ | 4/21/2017 | Jon Gabriel

[freedumb2003]

Saturday is Earth Day — an annual event first launched on April 22, 1970. The inaugural festivities (organized in part by then hippie and now convicted murderer Ira Einhorn) predicted death, destruction and disease unless we did exactly as progressives commanded.

Sound familiar? 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

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A version of this article was posted in 2014.

[Telepathic Intruder]

"Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources"

The NYT was clearly sexist in 1970. It should have read "conserve his/her/transitioning/yet-to-be-determined resources".

[Enchante]

btw, Holdren's bio at Harvard claims that he has

"a Ph.D. from Stanford in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics"

I'm no scientist but I think that "aerospace engineering" and "theoretical plasma physics" are very very separate disciplines. Normally they are not even in the same graduate school, since engineering disciplines are usually quite separate in academic bureaucracy from the "natural sciences" including physics.

Surely it is not possible to do one doctoral dissertation that could satisfy requirements in both of those fields. I find this extremely unlikely at best.

Perhaps Holdren is guilty of some serious embellishment of his credentials here, to sound more impressive. Possibly he took some course in both fields, but I doubt that he has a PhD that was granted in both fields.

[Trillian]

They are being paid to lie to us several times a day.

[PROCON]

Happy ERF Day FReepers!

[Safetgiver]

Where are these “experts” today?....Ehrlich is still spouting out of ass today, I believe.

[Slyfox]

Back in 1970, my parents asked us if we wanted to see a bonafide freak show. Us kids thought we were going to the zoo. It was instead the local rendition of Earth Day on Belle Isle in Detroit. We drove past the mass of hippies in our Suburban. Mom and Dad supplied us with appropriate commentary designed to enhance the experience of being a witness to history, of sorts.

Sure enough it was a freaking freak show. And these people who yammered on and on about saving the Earth, completely trashed Belle Isle and guess who had to pay for their freaking mess? Just like now.

[Rebelbase]

Not one of them predicted the ad nasueum of 80’s keyboard music or 90’s-00’s rap and hip hop.

[Safetgiver]

ALL are surprisingly silent today about their predictions...I wonder why?.....They just haven’t found anything sufficiently ridiculous and far off in the future to raise funds for.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

As a Warmer Fan, I just finished our celebratory burning of tires!

I love Earth Day and doing my small part to warm her up for a new age of comfort and prosperity.

[sodpoodle]

Pompous know-it-alls clearly did not study the history of the Universe, geology, meteorology, flora, or fauna for the eons of change/metamorphosis and all the other miracles of rebirth and natural recycling.

Humans use & change earth’s resources - we call it consuming or farming or manufacturing. We also have mass deaths through wars, plague and catastrophes...after which there is an increase in births. The ENDLESS rhythm of life death and change in the hands of a Greater power or Mother Nature (for the greenies).

I expect scientists to study all aspects of a subject before running their mouths; otherwise known as pontificatin’ pollutin’.

[rlmorel]

Great post, Freedumb2003!

Great post!

[Rinnwald]

By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions…

It's eerie how prescient they were about Venezuela.

[ifinnegan]

Good one. Should be a meme.

[plain talk]

... nor did people imagine that a prominent Republican Senator would defend Ira Einhorn of his murder of Holly Maddux .... Ah yes .. Earth Day.

[DirtyDawg]

So they are all concerned about the food supply ... righhht ... i am a farmer in California and these leftist politicians are doing everything they can to put us out of business. We have a sad saying around here “grow food, go to jail”. Hope they enjoy getting their food from Mexico and China.

[knarf]

PERFECT place for this

[3boysdad]

Save da erf!

[Impy]

Exhibit A in the case against chicken little psychopaths.

[heights]

I remember that day, my High School was pushing it Big Time.

[Theodore R.]

At least Arlen finally signed up with the party of his choice, not that it helped him much politically.