On April 22 this year, a quarter of a century has passed since the first Earth Day.
Below are quotes warning us of impending doom that have gone beyond the deadline.
Keep these comments in mind when someone wants to use further scare tactics that are not based on objective and unbiased science. We should find out who did, or does, climate and related studies, and even more importantly,y who funds those studies, and whether they were peer-reviewed? As usual, the devil is in the details. In reality,y it’s all about money and control. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t take care of the earth, but we should reject alarmist tactics.
“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
– Earth Day founder and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), writing in Look magazine, April 22, 1970.
“It’s already too late to avoid mass starvation.” – Earth Day and chief organizer Denis Hayes, in the Spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness.
“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.” – Eco-alarmist Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day speech, 1970.
“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 in the next ten years.” – Paul Ehrlich, in Mademoiselle, April 16, 1970.
“Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century if pollution continues to grow and the earth’s resources are consumed at the present rate.” – National Center for Atmospheric Research scientist James P. Lodge, Jr., The Boston Globe, April 1970.
“If present trends continue, the world will be . . . eleven degrees cooler by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.” – University of California, Davis, emeritus professor Kenneth E.F. Watt, on Earth Day, 1970.
“Because of the rising sea level, due to global warming, in the next few decades… up to 60 percent of the present population of Florida may have to be relocated.” – Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, in his book Earth in the Balance, 1992.
“One study estimated that [the North Polar ice cap] could be completely gone during summer in less than 22 years. Another new study… warns it could happen in as little as seven years.” – Al Gore, during his acceptance speech for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
“Within a few years “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Snowfall will be “a very rare and exciting event.” – Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, in a March 2000 interview with the U.K. Independent, March 20, 2000.
“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 The Living Wilderness, 1970.
Leo Lindquist
