I am 55 years old now. I remember all the doomsday prophets of the 70's (and after).
1. 1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2. 1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3. 1970: Ice Age By 2000
4. 1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5. 1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6. 1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7. 1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8. 1974: Another Ice Age?
9. 1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph)
10. 1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11. 1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12. 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13. 1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14. 1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15. 1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16. 1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17. 1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18. 2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19. 2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20. 2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22. 2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23. 2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24. 2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
25. 2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26. 2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27. 2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28. 1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29. 1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30. 1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31. 1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32. 1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33. 1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34. 1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35. 2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36. 2006: Super Hurricanes!
37. 2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38. 1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39. 1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40. 1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41. 1970s: Killer Bees!
Update: I’ve added 9 additional failed predictions (via Real Climate Science) below to make it an even 50 for the number of failed eco-pocalyptic doomsday predictions over the last 50 years.
42. 1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43. 1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44. 1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45. 1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46. 1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47. 2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48. 2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50. 2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter
The long term predictions can be correct with some error bars on the time it takes. If those bars are just a few lifetimes, sure maybe you wont see it, but that is still instant on a planetary timescale.
Some of them were just plain wrong like Elrich's prediction being unable to feed a several billion leading to mass starvation in the 70s, or the the population bomb predictions.
Basically there is ZERO accountability to making batshit insane predictions. So one is much better off as an alarmist than as a skeptic -- alarmism draws attention/funding.
But we did get an interesting movie out of the fake population bomb hysteria: Soylent Green.
Comments
I am 55 years old now. I remember all the doomsday prophets of the 70's (and after).
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/50-years-of-failed-doomsday-e...Normal distribution has entered the chat
21. 2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_sea_ice_decline
What is your point?
The long term predictions can be correct with some error bars on the time it takes. If those bars are just a few lifetimes, sure maybe you wont see it, but that is still instant on a planetary timescale.
Some of them were just plain wrong like Elrich's prediction being unable to feed a several billion leading to mass starvation in the 70s, or the the population bomb predictions.
Basically there is ZERO accountability to making batshit insane predictions. So one is much better off as an alarmist than as a skeptic -- alarmism draws attention/funding.
But we did get an interesting movie out of the fake population bomb hysteria: Soylent Green.
You can find the NY Times clip here:
https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-poca...
Fascinating, so we're all fine? Business as usual, just what I wanted to hear.
I knew it deep down, it was all just college kids freaking out like in the 70's.
Silent spring and all that crap. Ha.
Ok? So our only problem is climate disaster and it’s not gonna happen?
I’m genuinely trying to understand your point but you seems to copy paste lists a lot.
Can you expand on what they mean for you?
2030: bonjour
I'll save this and add to list for HN post in 2040.