In the wake of Earth Day, let's revisit another Earth Day – say the first one in 1970 – and take a look at all the predictions we were then treated too in order to scare the devil out of us:That's just a few of the quotes from back in the 70's that predicted our doom, a doom that should have already occurred and that should have left most of you reading this dead. But obviously you're not dead since you are reading this.
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald
“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
“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
“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
“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
These have since been replaced by other predictions that, quite frankly, are just as likely to come true as the previous batch, and they are based upon highly debatable and dubious 'science', too tainted by politics and the promise of grant money to be considered definitive works.
Under those conditions I must remain skeptical of the doomsday predictions made by those who really don't have our best interests at heart.