Byker
2019-04-22 20:51:02 UTC
My, how things have changed -- or not -- in the last 49 years.
In 1970 I was a senior in high school and I remember participating in the
very first "Earth Day" demonstration, where we all came to school on
skateboards and bicycles. It seemed like everyone was reading Paul
Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and accepting it as gospel. We believed all
that eco-crap about famines in the U.S. that would be taking place in the
1980s (hah!) and that wars would be fought over food (not!), and that all
the life in the sea would be dead with ten years (ten years later just about
everyone had forgotten about Earth Day). After we wised up about all of
Ehrlich's bullshit, he and his kind found a new audience in Generation X and
the Millennials and continue to dish out the sky-is-falling Chicken Little
chickenshit. Just about everything he predicted in 1968 has been debunked,
and doubtless the paranoia he and his cronies are currently ballyhooing will
be equally laughable a generation from now.
As far as overpopulation goes, we now worry that birth rates are falling
below replacement levels in developed countries. This so-called clarion call
appears about once a generation and then drops down the memory hole for
another thirty years or so. Back in the 1920s the budding Eugenics movement
promoted a wave of paranoia regarding "race extinction." It's hard to read
these old newspaper articles now and keep a straight face. Example: Alarmed
by a declining birth rate, Swedish prognosticators in 1928 declared that
unless their women started having one baby after another, by 1980 there
would be no more Swedes! The birth-control-to-race-extinction myths, like
Nostradamus "prophecies," surface about once a generation, make their
headlines, and are forgotten again until someone tries to foist them onto
the next generation.
Claim: April 1970: “If present trends continue, the world will be … eleven
degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to
put us in an ice age.” Kenneth E.F. Watt, in Earth Day, 1970.
Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree
Fahrenheit since 1970.
Claim: Jan. 1970: “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of
sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
Data: Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that
sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over
the period in question.
Claim: 1970: “In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be
extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the
stench of dead fish.” Paul Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970.
I remember that bit about all the life in sea dying off.
It's fun going through old books and newspapers. You find find all kinds of
entertaining tidbits, like:
In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists)
predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s
factories would grind to a standstill.
In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no
chance” of oil being discovered in California.
In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas.
In 1939 the US Department of the Interior said that American oil supplies
would last only another 13 years.
In 1944 a federal government review predicted that by now the US would have
exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were
tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese.
In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was
in sight.
In 1972 the "Club of Rome" picked up the torch and ran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
And what happened? NOTHING!
In 1970 I was a senior in high school and I remember participating in the
very first "Earth Day" demonstration, where we all came to school on
skateboards and bicycles. It seemed like everyone was reading Paul
Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb" and accepting it as gospel. We believed all
that eco-crap about famines in the U.S. that would be taking place in the
1980s (hah!) and that wars would be fought over food (not!), and that all
the life in the sea would be dead with ten years (ten years later just about
everyone had forgotten about Earth Day). After we wised up about all of
Ehrlich's bullshit, he and his kind found a new audience in Generation X and
the Millennials and continue to dish out the sky-is-falling Chicken Little
chickenshit. Just about everything he predicted in 1968 has been debunked,
and doubtless the paranoia he and his cronies are currently ballyhooing will
be equally laughable a generation from now.
As far as overpopulation goes, we now worry that birth rates are falling
below replacement levels in developed countries. This so-called clarion call
appears about once a generation and then drops down the memory hole for
another thirty years or so. Back in the 1920s the budding Eugenics movement
promoted a wave of paranoia regarding "race extinction." It's hard to read
these old newspaper articles now and keep a straight face. Example: Alarmed
by a declining birth rate, Swedish prognosticators in 1928 declared that
unless their women started having one baby after another, by 1980 there
would be no more Swedes! The birth-control-to-race-extinction myths, like
Nostradamus "prophecies," surface about once a generation, make their
headlines, and are forgotten again until someone tries to foist them onto
the next generation.
Claim: April 1970: “If present trends continue, the world will be … eleven
degrees colder by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to
put us in an ice age.” Kenneth E.F. Watt, in Earth Day, 1970.
Data: According to NASA, global temperature has increased by about 1 degree
Fahrenheit since 1970.
Claim: Jan. 1970: “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of
sunlight reaching earth by one half.”
Data: Air quality has actually improved since 1970. Studies find that
sunlight reaching the Earth fell by somewhere between 3 and 5 percent over
the period in question.
Claim: 1970: “In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be
extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the
stench of dead fish.” Paul Ehrlich, speech during Earth Day, 1970.
I remember that bit about all the life in sea dying off.
It's fun going through old books and newspapers. You find find all kinds of
entertaining tidbits, like:
In 1865, Stanley Jevons (one of the most recognized 19th century economists)
predicted that England would run out of coal by 1900, and that England’s
factories would grind to a standstill.
In 1885, the US Geological Survey announced that there was “little or no
chance” of oil being discovered in California.
In 1891, it said the same thing about Kansas and Texas.
In 1939 the US Department of the Interior said that American oil supplies
would last only another 13 years.
In 1944 a federal government review predicted that by now the US would have
exhausted its reserves of 21 of 41 commodities it examined. Among them were
tin, nickel, zinc, lead and manganese.
In 1949 the Secretary of the Interior announced that the end of US oil was
in sight.
In 1972 the "Club of Rome" picked up the torch and ran:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth
And what happened? NOTHING!