{"id":201357,"date":"2020-01-25T07:07:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-25T07:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201357"},"modified":"2020-01-29T06:48:40","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:48:40","slug":"the-great-die-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=201357","title":{"rendered":"The Great Die Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

… that never happened.<\/em><\/h2>\n

The Aetheist Conservative — 2016<\/h1>\n

On the first Earth Day in 1970, environmentalists predicted the direst imaginable consequences, including the possible extinction of the human race, within 30 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is, if we earthlings didn\u2019t obey them<\/em> and go back to living the life of the savage: \u201cpoor, nasty, brutish, and short\u201d<\/em>. \u00a0They didn\u2019t put it that way exactly. But that\u2019s what their wishes would have brought us to.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSolitary\u201d should also be in that quotation <\/strong><\/span><\/a>from Thomas Hobbes, but that wouldn\u2019t be the case because the doomsday environmentalists are collectivists<\/strong> to a man and feminist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not a single one of their predictions has come true.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute writes<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled Earth Day, Then and Now<\/em>\u00a0to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day, and in the years following, there was a \u201ctorrent of apocalyptic predictions\u201d and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article. Well, it\u2019s now the 46th anniversary of\u00a0 Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 16 years ago: How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970? The answer: \u201cThe prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly<\/em> wrong,\u201d according to Bailey. Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the \u201cgreen holy day\u201d (aka Earth Day) started<\/strong>:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that \u201ccivilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. \u201cWe are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation<\/strong>,\u201d wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, \u201cMan must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. \u201cPopulation will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,\u201d Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 Mademoiselle. \u201cThe death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. \u201cMost of the people who are going to die in the greatest cataclysm in the history of man have already been born,\u201d wrote Paul Ehrlich in a 1969 essay titled \u201cEco-Catastrophe! \u201cBy 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 1980<\/strong>s.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the \u201cGreat Die-Off\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  7. \u201cIt is already too late to avoid mass starvation<\/strong>,\u201d declared Denis Hayes, the chief organizer for Earth Day<\/strong>, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. Peter Gunter, a North Texas State University professor, wrote in 1970, \u201cDemographers 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\u2026.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<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. In January 1970, Life reported, \u201cScientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support \u2026 the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution\u00a0<\/strong>\u2026\u00a0by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half<\/strong>. \u2026\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. Ecologist Kenneth Watt told Time that, \u201cAt the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it\u2019s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  11. Barry Commoner predicted that decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America\u2019s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  12. Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in his 1970 that \u201cair pollution\u2026is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone\u201d.\u00a0Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during \u201csmog disasters\u201d in New York and Los Angeles<\/strong>.<\/span><\/li>\n
  13. Paul Ehrlich warned in the May 1970 issue of Audubon that DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons \u201cmay have substantially reduced the life expectancy of people born since 1945\u2033. Ehrlich warned that Americans born since 1946 \u2026 now had a life expectancy of only 49 years, and he predicted that if current patterns continued this expectancy would reach 42 years by 1980<\/strong>, when it might level out.<\/span><\/li>\n
  14. Ecologist Kenneth Watt declared, \u201cBy the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate \u2026 that there won\u2019t be any more crude oil<\/strong>. You\u2019ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill \u2018er up, buddy,\u2019 and he\u2019ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn\u2019t any\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  15. Harrison Brown, a scientist at the National Academy of Sciences, published a chart in Scientific American that looked at metal reserves and estimated the humanity would totally run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver would be gone before 1990.<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  16. Sen. Gaylord Nelson wrote in Look that, \u201cDr. 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<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  17. In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that \u201csince more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it\u201d.<\/span><\/li>\n
  18. Kenneth Watt warned about a pending Ice Age in a speech. \u201cThe world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,\u201d he declared. \u201cIf 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<\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Daily Caller notes<\/strong><\/span><\/a> just how wrong<\/strong> some of those predictions have turned out to be:<\/span><\/p>\n

    1:\u00a0\u201cCivilization Will End Within 15 Or 30 Years\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald\u00a0warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970\u00a0that civilization would soon end<\/strong> \u201cunless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind\u201d. Three years before his projection, Wald was\u00a0awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Wald\u00a0was a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. He even flew\u00a0to Moscow at one point to advise the leader of the Soviet Union on environmental policy. Despite\u00a0his assistance to a communist government, civilization still exist<\/strong>s. The\u00a0percentage of Americans who are concerned about environmental threats has fallen\u00a0as civilization failed to end by environmental catastrophe.<\/span><\/p>\n

    2: \u201c100-200 Million People Per Year Will Be Starving To Death During The Next Ten Years\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970\u00a0that mass starvation was imminent. His\u00a0dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty\u00a0has significantly declined\u00a0and\u00a0the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth<\/strong>. The world\u2019s Gross Domestic Product per person\u00a0has immeasurably grown\u00a0despite increases in population.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Ehrlich\u00a0is largely responsible for this view, having co-published The Population Bomb<\/em>\u00a0with The Sierra Club in 1968. The book made a number of claims including that millions of humans would starve to death in the 1970s and 1980s, mass famines would sweep England leading to the country\u2019s demise, and that ecological destruction would devastate the planet causing the collapse of civilization.<\/span><\/p>\n

    3: \u201cPopulation Will Inevitably And Completely Outstrip Whatever\u00a0Small Increases In Food Supplies We Make\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Paul Ehrlich also made the above claim in 1970, shortly before an agricultural revolution that\u00a0caused the world\u2019s food supply to rapidly increase<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Ehrlich has consistently failed to revise his predictions when confronted with the fact that they\u00a0did not occur,\u00a0stating in 2009 that\u00a0\u201cperhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

    4: \u201cDemographers Agree Almost Unanimously \u2026 Thirty Years From Now, The Entire World \u2026 Will Be In Famine\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Environmentalists in 1970 truly believed in a scientific consensus predicting global famine due to population growth in the developing world, especially in India. \u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

    [But] India, where the famines were supposed to begin, recently\u00a0became one of the world\u2019s largest exporters of agricultural products\u00a0and\u00a0food supply\u00a0per person\u00a0in the country has drastically increased in recent years. In fact, the number of people in\u00a0every country listed by Gunter\u00a0has risen dramatically since 1970<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    5: \u201cIn A\u00a0Decade, Urban Dwellers Will Have To Wear Gas Masks To Survive Air Pollution\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    Life magazine stated in January 1970 that scientist had \u201csolid experimental and theoretical evidence\u201d to believe that \u201cin a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution \u2026 by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by one half\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Despite the prediction, air quality has been improving worldwide,\u00a0according to the World Health Organization. Air pollution\u00a0has also sharply declined in industrialized countries<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas environmentalists are worried about today, is odorless, invisible and harmless to humans in normal amounts.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    6: \u201cChildbearing [Will\u00a0Be] A\u00a0Punishable Crime Against Society, Unless The Parents Hold A\u00a0Government License\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    David Brower, the first executive director of The Sierra Club\u00a0made the above claim and went on to say that\u00a0\u201call potential parents [should be] required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing\u201d. Brower was also essential\u00a0in founding Friends of the Earth and the League Of Conservation Voters and much of the modern environmental movement.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Brower believed that most environmental problems were ultimately attributable to new technology that allowed humans to pass\u00a0natural limits on population size.\u00a0He famously stated before his death in 2000\u00a0that\u00a0\u201call technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent\u201d and repeatedly advocated for mandatory birth control<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Today, the only major government to ever get\u00a0close to his vision has been China,\u00a0which ended its one-child policy last October<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    7: \u201cBy The\u00a0Year 2000 \u2026 There Won\u2019t Be Any More Crude Oil\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    On\u00a0Earth Day in 1970 ecologist Kenneth Watt famously predicted that the world would run out of oil saying, \u201cYou\u2019ll drive up to the pump and say, \u2018Fill \u2018er up, buddy,\u2019 and he\u2019ll say, \u2018I am very sorry, there isn\u2019t any\u2019.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

    Numerous academics like Watt predicted that American oil production peaked in 1970 and would gradually decline, likely causing a global economic meltdown. However, the successful application of massive hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, caused American oil production to come roaring back and\u00a0there is currently too much oil on the market<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    American oil and natural gas reserves are at their highest levels since 1972 and American oil production in 2014\u00a0was 80 percent higher\u00a0than in 2008\u00a0thanks to\u00a0fracking<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Furthermore, the U.S.\u00a0now\u00a0controls the\u00a0world\u2019s largest untapped oil reserve, the Green River Formation in Colorado. This formation alone contains up to 3 trillion barrels of untapped oil shale, half of which may be recoverable. That\u2019s five and a half times the\u00a0proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. This single geologic formation could contain more oil than the rest of the world\u2019s proven reserves combined.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    We\u2019ll give Mark Perry the last word<\/a><\/strong><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Let\u2019s keep those spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day 1970 in mind<\/strong> when we\u2019re bombarded [around Earth Day 2016] with media hype, and claims like this from the 2015 Earth Day website:<\/span><\/p>\n

    Scientists warn us that climate change could accelerate beyond our control, threatening our survival and everything we love. We call on you to keep global temperature rise under the unacceptably dangerous level of 2 degrees C, by phasing out carbon pollution to zero. To achieve this, you must urgently forge realistic global, national and local agreements, to rapidly shift our societies and economies to 100% clean energy by 2050<\/strong>. Do this fairly, with support to the most vulnerable among us. Our world is worth saving and now is our moment to act. But to change everything, we need everyone. Join us.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Finally, think about this question, posed by Ronald Bailey in 2000: What will Earth look like when Earth Day 60 rolls around in 2030?<\/strong> Bailey predicts a much cleaner, and much richer future world, with less hunger and malnutrition, less poverty, and longer life expectancy, and with lower mineral and metal prices.<\/span><\/p>\n

    But he makes one final prediction about Earth Day 2030: \u201cThere will be a disproportionately influential group of doomsters predicting that the future \u2013 and the present \u2013 never looked so bleak.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

    In other words, the hype, hysteria and spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions will continue, promoted by the \u201cenvironmental grievance hustlers\u201d.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    On the first Earth Day in 1970, environmentalists made a string of dire predictions for the next 30 years. Not one has come true and some have proven spectacularly ill-judged<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[72,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ClimateGate","category-Predictions_from_the_past_or_for_the_future"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201357"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201398,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201357\/revisions\/201398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}