Saturday, April 22, 2017

This Earth Day, Remember How Often Environmental Alarmists Are Wrong

By

 Today is the 47th annual Earth Day. On this day, it is worth reflecting on how completely, totally wrong environmental alarmists often are. Few things tell us more about the environmental movement—where it’s been and, more importantly, where it is now—than its dismal track record in the predictive department.

Case in point: Paul Ehrlich, who is as close to a rock star as you’re apt to find among environmentalists. Ehrlich is most famous for his 1968 book “The Population Bomb,” in which he famously predicted that, during the 1970s and 1980s, humanity would suffer mass famine and starvation due to overpopulation. “At this late date,” Ehrlich wrote, “nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”

Spoiler alert: Ehrlich was wrong—so wrong, in fact, that not only did his doomsday predictions fail to materialize, but the exact opposite happened. Readers who were alive during the 1970s and 80s will recall that there was plenty to eat, there was no mass die-off, everything worked out fine, and humanity’s lot continued to improve as it had throughout the rest of the 20th century.

Ehrlich Is Still Making Incorrect Doomsday Predictions

This kind of humiliating embarrassment would be enough to cow even the proudest of men—unless that man is an environmentalist, of course. Incredibly, as NewsBuster’s Tim Graham pointed out this week, Ehrlich was still making his doomsday predictions in 1989—well after the point when it was clear his previous predictions had been utter failures. Ehrlich claimed that, during the 1990s, “We’re going to see massive extinction;” he theorized that rising ocean waters meant “we could expect to lose all of Florida, Washington D.C., and the Los Angeles basin.”

...This Earth Day, consider reflecting on the bizarre dichotomy of (a) Paul Ehrlich’s mortifying history of predictive failures regarding the environment, and (b) his continued relevance in the field of environmental studies. Reflect on what that tells you about the environmental movement as a whole, particularly its hysterical climate change wing. And then consider the possibility that you can safely ignore the hysterics and simply live your life without worrying that Tampa, Florida is going to be washed away sometime over the next few decades.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wonder how much trash they left behind on their environ-mental Earth Day celebration.

And at the 'science march' on the National Mall.

In S.F., in conjunction with Earth Day, there was the annual '420 Pot Party' on Hippie Hill.

The area was trashed, as usual, much to the neighbors' dismay.

Billions of taxpayers' money is spent to get people to quit smoking tobacco, pass laws about second-hand smoke and yet more and more states legalize pot.

These dope-smoking enviros worry about methane from cows, but what about the dope smoke in the air?

Most of the pot grow farms are trashed just as bad as these "enviromental" celebrations.

And if they get their way and replace all the ranches an food farms with 'more eco-friendly' pot grows...... what, then, will they eat when they get the munchies..???