“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,” ecologist Kenneth Watt warned around the time of the first Earth Day event. “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.'” Watt also warned of global cooling and nitrogen buildup rendering all of the planet’s land unusable.None of it happened. Instead, here's what we got that was the exact opposite of the predictions:
- The USA is set to become the world's biggest oil producer
- The EPA reports emissions of the 6 pollutants they track (ozone, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulates) have dropped by an aggregate 77% since 1970.
- World hunger has dropped precipitously, to the point where just two countries now experience persistent hunger and malnutrition. Those countries are North Korea and Venezuela, and their situations have nothing to do with climate change.
- For the first time ever there are less than a billion people worldwide who do not have access to electricity.
Along the way we've heard predictions shift from catastrophic global cooling to catastrophic global warming. None of the predictions have come true.
But there's good money in being an environmentalist, shaking down gullible liberals for "green" contributions. I mean cash, of course. So expect to hear more of this sort of nonsense this upcoming Earth Day. The Usual Suspects® have to keep the gravy train coming.
6 comments:
Note also, Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb has failed to materialize its dire predictions.
It's noteworthy that they were so wrong, that if you could have bet real money on these predictions you'd be really far ahead. It would be hard to be more wrong than they are.
By logical extension, if you bet real money on them being wrong about global warming, sea level rise, and the whole bunch of currently-claimed disasters that you'd make money.
Step back and look at how the dietary guidelines correlate to the incredible rise in diabetes and the awful complications from that. And virtually all of modern health recommendations.
To say that science is self-correcting is to not state the obvious - that science is generally wrong all the time. If it was right, it wouldn't need to self-correct.
I will celebrate Earth Day by eating fast food hamburgers and getting a soda with a plastic straw, go shopping and get my food in plastic bags, and driving around in my gas-consuming Earth-fudgermobile, because for no other reason than because.
'Earth Day' is right up there with 'organic food' as one of the things I grumble about loudly when I am amongst the organic heathens...
"For the first time ever there are less than a billion people worldwide who do not have access to electricity."
Wait... before about 1800, everybody had access to electricity?
(Yeah, I'm a real terror at filling out forms, too. If there's a way to misinterpret it, I'll find it.)
I just lit the traditional Earth Day Used Tire Bonfire. It's a great way to celebrate and get rid of last year's used oil and old paint.
Happy Lenin's birthday! That's what Earth Day really celebrates.
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