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.

[bert]

#7 was right

there’s starvation in Venezuela

[Diana in Wisconsin]

And not a ONE has been taken to task over their stupid, politicized predictions!

Even ‘Miss Cleo’ was made to pay for her phony predictions!

I demand justice!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

What is it with blood-red Socialists and their TOTAL disregard for the sanctity of Human Life? It’s a freakin’ CULT with those people. *SPIT*

[Diana in Wisconsin]

LOL! Yet another reason to love you, PROCON! :)

[SE Mom]

I was in high school for the first “earth day”. Our science teacher was highly skeptical of the dire predictions and so turned it into a day about being careful and conscientious stewards of the earth. Looking back, he was a big proponent of personal responsibility. He hated litterers so for our class that day we walked around the campus picking up trash etc. A good teacher with a sense of humor and civic duty.

Our French teacher, on the other hand, bought it hook, line and sinker. She had us reading dire predictions in French! Hilarious. Though we trusted adults and were worried she and another lib at school took it so seriously.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I LOVED my H.S. Science Teacher, Mr. Potter. He was a skeptic about EVERYTHING unless he could prove/disprove it, himself. We had some great classes building lots of ‘scientific’ stuff. I especially remember building our own batteries and using them to race cars.

When asked what he wanted for Christmas, he said, ‘A brick for my toilet.’

Took me YEARS to understand that he wanted one to displace water in his toilet tank so it didn’t use so much each flush, LOL! This was LONG before the EnviroWeenies got a hold of us and destroyed all hopes of future generations having an effectively flushing toilet! ;)

And that’s about all I remember from High School. *SMIRK*

[TalBlack]

I remember the first Earth day and this sort of apocalyptic nonsense. When the prognostication is that over the top people shrug and say “Well, we’ll see. ..Experts damage their credibility with this crap.

[ssaftler]

And this was before Al “Fever” Gore joined the tin-foil hat brigade. Guess he was too busy at the time inventing the Internet.

[wally_bert]

It’s been a learning experience so far. It was on CL cheap.

Worst case I don’t get it going, there is a guy (pricey) around Atlanta that works on vintage stuff. That might be a while.

In the meantime I’ll save up maybe buy a newer later era rice rocket.

I’ve learned tons about motorcycles in general from the guy in the office across from mine. That’s where the idea of a learner old bike came from.

[pluvmantelo]

VATICAN CITY, February 27, 2017 ( LifeSiteNews) – Leading population control activist Paul Ehrlich spoke at a Vatican conference on “how to save the natural world” today despite an outcry by members of the Catholic faithful.
The conference, Biological Extinction, is sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of the Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. It takes place from Monday to Wednesday and is closed to the media - an unusual prohibition for Vatican conferences with outside expert speakers on matters of significant public

[JBW1949]

“...activist Paul Ehrlich...expert speakers on matters...”

*ROFL*

[Steve_Seattle]

Libs will just say that the predictions didn’t come true because of all the environmental legislation they passed.

[Moonman62]

These bad predictions weren’t the first to predict doom.

It’s ironic that Norman Borlaug won the Noble Prize in the year of the first Earth Day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug

[ssapro]

72’s are nice C3’s. The last year for the front chrome bumper. I like the look of the early Trans Ams too. Never owned a C4, but I can see where owning one would be fun. Lots of changes over the C3.

[ssapro]

I think if you look around you’ll find somebody who may charge less to fix it. Especially considering the size of Atlanta. My first bike was a 67 Honda 160. Lots of fun and I always have to laugh when I think of the Honda Dream. More like a nightmare.

[SaveFerris]

Yeah, that’s what I liked about her. Chrome bumper, though I like the 1973 about the same.

She was metallic brown, which wasn’t my favorite color. But I think they wanted about $4,300-$4,500 for her at the time. Interior was in decent shape. This was about 6 years after manufacture.

Gosh, I miss the 1970’s.

[Seaplaner]

Where are these “experts” today?...

As a UC Davis undergrad, I took a class from Ken Watt (items 9, 11, and 13 on the list) approx 1973.

Was Dr. Watt a wild-eyed lunatic?

No, he was just a very convincing one (to us unquestioning "kids" in his class, anyhoo.)

As I recall (it's been a few years) Watt's class was titled something like "Environmental Principles", and centered around 10 or so statements of (ha ha) fact.

His favorite one centered around the pending economical fallout from manufacturers' propensity to overproduce in the beginning of a boom cycle; and, his favorite prediction (again, as I recall) was how Boeing was about to overproduce aircraft, leading to the company's peril. (Boeing's order book is stuffed to the winglets, btw.) I might still have his textbook, if I can find it, it will be interesting to see if any of his major "principles" turned out to be correct.

More broadly, Watt took advantage of an implied trust between prof and students, and while we generally regarded him as a hyperbolic clown, we still tended to believe what he said.

Thus, education of college students is often delayed to the time when they encounter facts.

[Pagey]

Historical BTTT!

[wally_bert]

I look at times here and there.

Most won’t touch anything over 10 years old. The story I get the most is that parts might be unobtainable and they sit. I can’t say I blame any repair place.

[Secret Agent Man]

So much for irrefutable scientific consensus.