When you've lived long enough, you remember times past when "experts" said bad environmental things were going to happen if we didn't take drastic action. It seems almost every decade brings us more stupid predictions of gloom and doom.
- A Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard University, predicted, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” That was in the 1970s.
- In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight.
- Stanford University biologist and author Paul Erlich emphatically declare, "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.” The idiot also said something to the effect that England may not exist in the year 2000.” It should be noted that Erlich won a lot of awards and had legions of followers.
- Some 45 years ago, C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization was reported as saying, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed."
- In 2000, climate researcher David Viner told The Independent, a British newspaper, that within “a few years,” snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event” in Britain. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”
- Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis., once wrote in Look magazine: “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian (Institution), believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
- Scientist Harrison Brown published a chart in Scientific American that year estimating that mankind would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver were to disappear before 1990.
- The U.S. Geological Survey once said the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. Right now it looks like we've got at least a century's worth.
- The U.S. government once closed the U.S. patent office because "experts" thought that everything that could be invented, had been.
- Some years back, the global warming zealots were proclaiming "the science is settled" just as nature showed them it wasn't when coastal cities didn't go underwater as predicted.
You can be reasonably sure it's probably BS when they say you must hurry and do something because time is short. That something usually means separating you from your money, either directly or indirectly (e.g., thru taxes to the government.)
If one takes the timetable for statements and takes the supposed Patent Bureau statement which is reported to have happened in 1899 you've provided 10 bad predictions over the course of 100 years. How many predictions did turn out to be true during those years and how many provided underestimates of what eventually happened?
Here are my responses to the predictions you listed.
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A Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard University, predicted, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” That was in the 1970s.
It was Harvard biochemist Dr George Wald giving a speech at University of Maryland reported on in the New York Times Nov 19, 1970. He said that pollution, overpopulation and the possibility of nuclear war would case this is to happen. He said that unless we took immediate action that civilization would end in 15 to 30 years.
We did take action, we reduced nuclear arms, created nuclear arms treaties and also reduced pollution. We have dropped population growth from 2.1 % worldwide in 1970 to 1.1 % worldwide. So his call to action was answered. The area we haven't dealt with that well is overpopulation but we've almost cut the population growth in half. It has been dropping since 1971 so we did take action there as well.
In 1939, the U.S. Department of the Interior said American oil supplies would last for only another 13 years. In 1949, the secretary of the interior said the end of U.S. oil supplies was in sight.
I haven't found enough information on this one to respond to it. If you can provide a link to the original statement I'll see what I can do.
Stanford University biologist and author Paul Erlich emphatically declare, "The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.” The idiot also said something to the effect that England may not exist in the year 2000.” It should be noted that Erlich won a lot of awards and had legions of followers.
It would be nice if you could post your disagreements with people's opinions without calling them idiots. Someone can make a statement that didn't turn out to be true without being an idiot. Please attack ideas and not people.
As for the starvation statement this excellent article from the Smithsonian Magazine included it in an article as to why the first US Earth Day predictions didn't come true.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scie...dictions-come-true-its-complicated-180958820/
I do agree that Paul Erlich didn't do a good job of making predictions and I would question any of his claims overall.
Some 45 years ago, C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization was reported as saying, “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed."
Obviously this statement is wrong, but I couldn't find enough about it to provide a context for it. Interestingly enough this is listed in a number of articles that say that climate change is simply a ruse for implementing socialism along with a number of the other statements you listed.
In 2000, climate researcher David Viner told The Independent, a British newspaper, that within “a few years,” snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event” in Britain. “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said. “Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past.”
This statement has also not turned out to be true. The most unfortunate thing about this statement is the source has been removed from the internet.
Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wis., once wrote in Look magazine: “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian (Institution), believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
The statement was actually made by Dr. Ripley during a joint hearing before the subcommittee on the Smithsonian Institution Sept 23, 1969. One can see it here
https://books.google.com/books?id=DjAVAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34#v=onepage&q&f=false
I couldn't find anything in the archives with him giving his reasons for the statement so I can't see if some of the things he based his predictions on were changed.
Scientist Harrison Brown published a chart in Scientific American that year estimating that mankind would run out of copper shortly after 2000. Lead, zinc, tin, gold, and silver were to disappear before 1990.
I found the original article at
https://ceiba.org.mx/publicaciones/...osphere/1970_Biosphere_ScientificAmerican.pdf but wasn't able to find a good explanation for the table in my scanning of the article. However the summary of the article is "Materials such as metals and concrete are not renewable. Man's problem is to devise cycles that will conserve resources of this kind and at the same time prevent their accumulation as solid waste." There's a good chance the chart didn't play out because we have devised these cycles. In additon we have reduced copper use for example in 1982 by chaging the percentage used in pennies in 1982 from 95% to 2.5%.
The article also said that plastics might start replacing some metals which may have taken place as well. So it's my take that we reacted properly to the prediction and changed our ways to prevent it from happening. Once again the prediction might have been right if we didn't change our behavior.
The U.S. Geological Survey once said the U.S. had only a 10-year supply of natural gas. Right now it looks like we've got at least a century's worth.
Please provide the source for the 10 year supply prediction, I couldn't find one.
The U.S. government once closed the U.S. patent office because "experts" thought that everything that could be invented, had been.
Can you please supply a source for your information. This article seems to indicate it's bunk.
https://www.laserfocusworld.com/tes...5061/everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been
In addition the questionable information is that a the commissioner of the US Patent Office said that in 1899 and resigned, not that the patent office was closed. The article above seems to indicate the original quote and story about the resignation is bunk.
Some years back, the global warming zealots were proclaiming "the science is settled" just as nature showed them it wasn't when coastal cities didn't go underwater as predicted.
Once again please supply the source for this one.
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Based on what you've written on the forum I think you are knowledgeable enough to know that when predictions are made based on science there are often further studies to either confirm the reasons for the predictions. There are also often studies done to prevent negative predictions from happening by seeing what can be done to address them.
In my opinion one can't just look at whether a prediction was right or wrong. One also needs to look at how that opinion affected the future course of scientific exploration and whether or not there were benefits from such predictions even if they were wrong.
