Predictions from the first Earth Day, April 22 1970

[Homer]

Politicians and scientist trying to scare the public into making massive changes in their lives haven't haven't done well since the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Maybe the lack of success has to do with poor predictions. Maybe it's because the changes required are aligned, if not identical, to the changes the far left wanted before sounding the eco-alarms.

The Earth Day movement was started by a Wisconsin Senator. He chose April 22 because it's the vernal equinox AKA the first day of spring, but he got the date wrong. The vernal equinox is usually the 20th or 21st. About once a millennium it happens on the 19th or 22nd, IIRC. None of the organizers corrected the error. Were they ignorant or filled with hubris? April 22nd is the birthday of Vladimir Lenin.

Quotes from 22 - 4 - 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

"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

"It is already too late to avoid mass starvation," — Denis Hayes, Chief organizer for Earth Day

"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

"Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone." — Paul Ehrlich

"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

"[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

"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

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/13- ... h-day-1970

[Dannie Boy]

Well you can't get it right all the time!!

[blue05]

predictions- like my betting patterns

[dozer]

They lie because they get away with it, it's that simple.

They need to be called out on every lie.

As Margaret Thatcher said " Global Warming Provides A Marvellous Excuse For Global Socialism"

[richard]

As we say in the UK.......'what a load of twaddle'

Twaddle = US Bullshit

[STEVE G]

As Margaret Thatcher said " Global Warming Provides A Marvellous Excuse For Global Socialism"

She also said:

"The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations."

[dozer]

As Margaret Thatcher said " Global Warming Provides A Marvellous Excuse For Global Socialism"

She also said:

"The danger of global warming is as yet unseen, but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations."

She clarified her position in her 2003 book, Statecraft.


"The doomsters’ favourite subject today is climate change. This has a number of attractions for them. First, the science is extremely obscure so they cannot easily be proved wrong. Second, we all have ideas about the weather: traditionally, the English on first acquaintance talk of little else. Third, since clearly no plan to alter climate could be considered on anything but a global scale, it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism. All this suggests a degree of calculation. Yet perhaps that is to miss half the point. Rather, as it was said of Hamlet that there was method in his madness, so one feels that in the case of some of the gloomier alarmists there is a large amount of madness in their method."

[STEVE G]

....it provides a marvellous excuse for worldwide, supra-national socialism.....

The irony of the situation is that if everyone had accepted the theory when it was re-discovered about thirty years ago and cut down on fossil fuels, there wouldn't be so much of a problem now. By refusing to accept that it's happening until the situation is much worse is far more likely to bring about that kind of supra-national stuff that you fear.
Would halving the amount of fossil fuels used really have caused such a change to lifestyles? Germans use about half as much per capita as Americans and they don't seem to be suffering, in fact it just means that you give less of your wealth to other countries.

[dtaai-maai]

They lie because they get away with it, it's that simple.
They need to be called out on every lie.
As Margaret Thatcher said " Global Warming Provides A Marvellous Excuse For Global Socialism"

Has the day really come when we use Mrs Thatcher as some kind of benchmark for the truth...?

It's a shame, but inevitable, that the whole issue has to be tainted by politics.
It's also a shame when you produce a handful of quotes from almost half a century ago and flourish them like some sort of trump card.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but it seems to me that this whole issue is an argument between the scientific majority and conservative politicians representing multinational corporations.

The Earth Day movement was started by a Wisconsin Senator. He chose April 22 because it's the vernal equinox AKA the first day of spring, but he got the date wrong. The vernal equinox is usually the 20th or 21st. About once a millennium it happens on the 19th or 22nd, IIRC. None of the organizers corrected the error. Were they ignorant or filled with hubris? April 22nd is the birthday of Vladimir Lenin.

I'd love to think this was evidence of a sense of humour. Unfortunately, it's probably just more political paranoia. Reds under the bed...

[Rob W]

Read a book called watermelons

[dozer]

They lie because they get away with it, it's that simple.
They need to be called out on every lie.
As Margaret Thatcher said " Global Warming Provides A Marvellous Excuse For Global Socialism"

Has the day really come when we use Mrs Thatcher as some kind of benchmark for the truth...?

It's a shame, but inevitable, that the whole issue has to be tainted by politics.
It's also a shame when you produce a handful of quotes from almost half a century ago and flourish them like some sort of trump card.

Perhaps I'm oversimplifying, but it seems to me that this whole issue is an argument between the scientific majority and conservative politicians representing multinational corporations.

The Earth Day movement was started by a Wisconsin Senator. He chose April 22 because it's the vernal equinox AKA the first day of spring, but he got the date wrong. The vernal equinox is usually the 20th or 21st. About once a millennium it happens on the 19th or 22nd, IIRC. None of the organizers corrected the error. Were they ignorant or filled with hubris? April 22nd is the birthday of Vladimir Lenin.

I'd love to think this was evidence of a sense of humour. Unfortunately, it's probably just more political paranoia. Reds under the bed...

Thatcher clarified her position on climate change in 2003, which is hardly a quote from "almost half a century ago"


I think you are oversimplifying it when you say it is an argument between the scientific majority and conservative politicians representing multinational corporations.

Take Professor Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who is recognized as the world's top atmospheric physicist.
Who when appearing at the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee on the 28th of January this year, stated the following when he was asked what he thought of the "consensus” amongst scientists
"I think the majority of people working in climate science will go with the view that climate science is serious. I don't think that would be surprising to anyone. There are very few people in any scientific field who say 'My field is not serious'. Other than that there is so much penalty for saying that this is not an important problem that I don't think people would go out on that limb, either.I've asked very frequently at universities: 'Of the brightest people you know, how many people were studying climate or meteorology or oceanography?' and the answer is usually 'No one.You look at the credentials of some of these people [on the IPCC] and you realise that the world doesn't have that many experts, that many 'leading climate scientists'".
Lindzen was then asked if he believed that scientists in the field of climate were academically inferior.
"Oh yeah," said Lindzen. "I don't think there's any question that the brightest minds went into physics, math, chemistry"


As for me, I am a climate change skeptic, who like most skeptics feel that it’s perfectly normal to believe that in the development of humankind there has been an impact on the natural world, but don’t feel the need to go back to the dark ages in order to lessen the impact.

[dtaai-maai]

Thatcher clarified her position on climate change in 2003, which is hardly a quote from "almost half a century ago.

Sorry, I meant the OP - I confused the issue by using 'you'.

Take Professor Richard Lindzen ..."I've asked very frequently at universities: 'Of the brightest people you know, how many people were studying climate or meteorology or oceanography?' and the answer is usually 'No one...".
Lindzen was then asked if he believed that scientists in the field of climate were academically inferior.
"Oh yeah," said Lindzen. "I don't think there's any question that the brightest minds went into physics, math, chemistry"

This is the same Professor Richard Lindzen who is Professor of Meteorology at MIT?

As for me, I am a climate change skeptic, who like most skeptics feel that it’s perfectly normal to believe that in the development of humankind there has been an impact on the natural world, but don’t feel the need to go back to the dark ages in order to lessen the impact

I really shouldn't be butting in on this topic, as I simply don't know enough about it. However, all of my instincts scream at me that the reasons for big business to dismiss climate change far outweigh those of scientists to behave so unscientifically by lying about what they genuinely believe.

[dozer]

As for me, I am a climate change skeptic, who like most skeptics feel that it’s perfectly normal to believe that in the development of humankind there has been an impact on the natural world, but don’t feel the need to go back to the dark ages in order to lessen the impact

Quote from DM "I really shouldn't be butting in on this topic, as I simply don't know enough about it. However, all of my instincts scream at me that the reasons for big business to dismiss climate change far outweigh those of scientists to behave so unscientifically by lying about what they genuinely believe".[/quote]

I do not believe that climate change issues have a major negative impact on “big business”. They are the ones who design, engineer, and manufacture and install the equipment, which monitors and mitigate the harmful effects hydrocarbons have on the environment.
And the Power and Oil & Gas companies simply pass any climate change related costs onto the customer.

[STEVE G]

Incidentally, there's a fair chance that this year is going to be the hottest since records began.

[sateeb]

/\...Yes.....probably due to that pesky natural phenomenon that is known as El Nino.


http://qz.com/147455/el-nino-may-make-2 ... -year-yet/