1970 Earth day scientific predictions

[Gnarly Gnu]

Twenty million Americans participated in the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Fifth Avenue in New York City was closed to automobiles as 100,000 people joined in concerts, lectures, and street theater. More than 2,000 colleges and universities across America paused their anti-war protests to rally instead against pollution and population growth. Even Congress recessed, acknowledging that the environment was now on a political par with motherhood. [Jon Gabriel]:

 

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
     
     
    

 

 

 

And a bonus, also 1970:

 

 

 

 

 

[rankamateur]

Hard to justify flying for recreation in the face of all this evidence of impending doom!

 

 

[red750]

And how many of those "dire predictions" due 15 years ago actually came true? Temperatures plunging, a new Ice Age. Now it's temperatures rising, global warming. Alarmist bs?

 

 

[kgwilson]

Now it's temperatures rising, global warming. Alarmist bs?

Not alarmist just fact. Its the rhetoric that goes with it that can be alarming, and as that relates to what is going to happen then it is just a prediction from someone, like all those in the 1970 Earth day post.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

Hard to justify flying for recreation in the face of all this evidence of impending doom!

Yes in all seriousness I know of people that grew up in that era and were so spooked by the crazy predictions they genuinely believed the planet was about gone and put off marrying and having children etc, only to realize some years later they had been deceived.

 

 

[Jabiru7252]

I remember in 1971 a teacher at school saying how we (Australia) will be invaded by starving millions because food and productive land will have run out in most other countries.

 

 

[Yenn]

Boat people. that is the invasion.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Gnu you forget the wild predictions of the domino effect from the loony right if we didn't carpet bomb Laos and Cambodia. We are now at war with Iraq again because the loony right is polling poorly. Somethings never change.

 

 

[turboplanner]

Careful FT, your fearless leader is standing shoulder to shoulder with the PM, so surely he wouldn't be following the loony right.

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Shorten is cunning, supporting the war now means Abbott can't back out of it, if/when it turns bad.

 

 

 

[pmccarthy]

You may not realise that Hermann was a member of the Kyneton Aero Club. Here he is in our blue club cap.

 

 

 

[fly_tornado]

No surprise then that he prefers Rotax

 

 

[dazza 38]

Gnu you forget the wild predictions of the domino effect from the loony right if we didn't carpet bomb Laos and Cambodia. We are now at war with Iraq again because the loony right is polling poorly. Somethings never change.

We are not at war with Iraq at all. We are at war with a few knob jockeys who are currently residing in Iraq.

 

 

[geoffreywh]

Loony right? Weird Greeny, or Union run left or That really strange person Jacqui Lambie ( who claims to be the descendant of an Tasmanian Aboriginal High Someone ) Who would you prefer to be in charge of combatting I.S. Or would you leave them to their own devices?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

Well ISIL have a plan and that plan involves dragging America back into another Iraqi war, executing a handful of foreign journalists and aid workers was a successful ploy. If you remember your history, Bin Laden's original plan was to keep America at war until it was bankrupt.

 

 

[Marty_d]

Here we go again, pick your corner and tuck your brain in your back pocket for the duration. Have at it boys & girls - I have no need to point out the Lib's deficiencies as they do such a good job of it themselves!

 

 

[dazza 38]

So what you guys are saying is that the western world should just sit idle and let ISIL execute innocent men, women and children ?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

You are aware that the only way Americans could fix their problem with civilian casualties in Afghanistan was to declare any male over the age of 15 an enemy fighter.

 

Do you enjoy a porous front line?

 

 

 

[fly_tornado]

[Old Koreelah]

Very informative maps, FT. The only group missing from that unholy mess is the Judean Peoples Liberation Front...or was it the Liberation Front of the Judean People?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

I'm finding if you want a clearer view of the world twitter is the place to go. MSM is still crap at reporting complex situations.

 

 

[rankamateur]

I'm finding if you want a clearer view of the world twitter is the place to go. MSM is still crap at reporting complex situations.

That is a relief, for a horrible moment I thought you had been smart enough to hack into the pentagon computer system. I was thinking we may not have had you around for much longer if that were true. Seconded maybe?

 

 

[fly_tornado]

People complain about politicians lying but never seem to seek the truth

 

 

 

[M61A1]

People complain about politicians lying but never seem to seek the truth

Awww, c'mon, what about Horatio's 'turn to camera, followed by cheesy remark' routine? It's not all sunglasses y'know.

 

 

[M61A1]

I'm finding if you want a clearer view of the world twitter is the place to go. MSM is still crap at reporting complex situations.

"Twitter"- the spot between twat and sh!tter.