Science Deniers - the 70s

A bit late for Earth Day, but given that conservatives are incessantly labeled "science deniers" this article caught my eye.   Jon Gabriel at Freedomworks has compiled a list of the the 13 worst Earth Day predictions.  (He quotes Ronald Baily from Reason.com, "Earth Day, Then and Now")

Being a 1977 high school  graduate, I disagree that the 1970s were a lousy decade.  We did have Star Wars, The Doobie Brothers and plenty of denim and some of the best muscle cars ever.  But I do remember the fear-mongering about the coming ice age.  It is precisely why the global warming alarmism of today gets taken with a grain of salt by conservatives from the get-go.

A few of the highlights - or rather lowlights.(More)

"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

"The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age." — Kenneth Watt

"[One] theory assumes that the earth's cloud cover will continue to thicken as more dust, fumes, and water vapor are belched into the atmosphere by industrial smokestacks and jet planes. Screened from the sun's heat, the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born." — Newsweek magazine 
  
"At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it's only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable." — Ecologist Kenneth Watt 

"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

"Air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone." — Paul Ehrlich 

I could cite samples of studies that charge that the global warming alarmists have cherry picked data, made predictions that have been wrong and demonized any who disagree, but that has all been said.


During the coldest spring in memory, where I daily check the five day forecast and find it almost always wrong, it is good to remember that those who say the earth is going to burn up said it was going to freeze over a generation ago.   Predictions about the weather in 50 or a hundred years ring hollow when we really can't tell for sure whether it will rain the day after tomorrow.