Fifty Years Of Failed Apocalyptic Forecasts

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

– H. L. Mencken

Academics have been forecasting doom for my entire life.  Needless to say, it hasn’t happened, as we are still here.

A few days after we landed on the moon 50 years ago, Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich forecast that we would disappear in a cloud of blue steam within 20 years. Ehrich is John Holdren’s close associate, and Holdren was Obama’s science advisor.

FOE OF POLLUTION SEES LACK OF TIME   The New York Times

A year later, he predicted that we would run out of food and water within a decade.

6 Oct 1970, Page 3 – Redlands Daily Facts at Newspapers.com

He wanted to poison Africans in order to save them from overpopulation.

TimesMachine: November 25, 1969 – NYTimes.com

17 Nov 1967, Page 9 – The Salt Lake Tribune at Newspapers.com

A few years later the “immensely likeable” Ehrlich jumped on the global cooling bandwagon.

31 Jul 1974, Page 7 – Pampa Daily News at Newspapers.com

16 Apr 1970, 18 – The Boston Globe at Newspapers.com

Obama and Holdren were both pushing global cooling, before they started pushing global warming.

Holdren’s Ice Age Tidal Wave – The New York Times

Their real agenda was to cut off the fossil fuel supply, which they were blaming for the global cooling.

The Windsor Star – Google News Archive Search

Twenty years later he wanted to prosecute climate skeptics.

2 Dec 1997, Page 11 – The Age at Newspapers.com

And 50 years after his first failed predictions of doom, he is still at it.

 

Biologist Paul Ehrlich gives dire prediction for global civilization

The global cooling scare was ubiquitous for academics. The world’s leading climate experts wrote a letter to President Nixon in 1972 warming of a new ice age in about a century.

THE ROLE OF NOAA’S CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMATE SERVICES

09 Mar 1980, 4 – The Dispatch at Newspapers.com

https://www.sciencenews.org/sites/default/files/8983

15 Apr 1973, 59 – The Post-Crescent at Newspapers.com

11 Oct 1975, Page 41 – Daily Independent Journal at Newspapers.com

14 Apr 1973, Page 8 – Iowa City Press-Citizen

12 Jun 1975, Page 10 – The Ogden Standard-Examiner at Newspapers.com

14 Apr 1973, Page 8 – Iowa City Press-Citizen

TIME Magazine Archive Article — Another Ice Age? — Jun. 24, 1974

March 2, 1975 – B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? | Chicago Tribune Archive

29 Jan 1974, 5 – The Guardian at Newspapers.com

The Director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and his leading scientist were pushing global cooling.

12 Jun 1974, Page 20 – at Newspapers.com

The Genesis Strategy – The New York Times

The National Geographic Archive | November 1976 | page 1

TimesMachine: December 29, 1974 – NYTimes.com

21 Jul 1974, 13 – The Des Moines Register at Newspapers.com

Climate experts wanted to melt the Arctic to stop global cooling.

?www.denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

President Carter warned that we would run out of oil at the beginning of the 20th century.

Carter’s Oil Problem – The New York Times

By the end of the 1970’s academics started to move on to new panics – nuclear meltdown.

21 Mar 1979, 4 – The Times Leader at Newspapers.com

In 1979, experts said global warming would produce a new ice age.

Climatologists Are Warned North Pole Might Melt – The New York Times

Youngstown Vindicator – Google News Archive Search

Acid rain was going to kill us if famine, global cooling, nuclear meltdown and peak oil didn’t.

07 Feb 1980, 2 – The Morning Call at Newspapers.com

Global cooling caused droughts and floods.  Now they are caused by global warming.

25 Nov 1981, 13 – Chicago Tribune at Newspapers.com

But times changed during the 1980s, and the UN warned that global warming would kill us by the year 2000.

Mercury News: Search Results

That doesn’t seem to have happened, so they pushed the new doom date out to next year.

2020 is the deadline to avert climate catastrophe | Daily Mail Online

Experts said the Maldives would be underwater by now.

26 Sep 1988 – Threat to islands

But the Maldives seems to be OK.

Live Cam Kuredu Island Resort

The world’s leading climate scientist predicted the Arctic would be ice-free by 2018.

The Argus-Press – Google News Archive Search

Nobel Laureate Al Gore predicted the Arctic would be ice-free by 2014.

Gore: Polar ice cap may disappear by summer 2014

There seems to be lots of ice in the Arctic.

Index of /DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/daily/images/2019/02_Feb/

In 1989, the Guardian said that only global communism can stop twelve feet of sea level rise.

26 Jan 1989 – Call for anti-greenhouse action – Trove

One failed forecast after another.

Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe – scientist | Environment | The Guardian

US Navy predicts summer ice free Arctic by 2016 | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | The Guardian

‘Next year or the year after, the Arctic will be free of ice’ | Environment | The Guardian

New Orleans to drown by next year.

Greenland ice sheet faces ‘tipping point in 10 years’ | Environment | The Guardian

Fifty million climate refugees by the year 2020.

50m environmental refugees by end of decade, UN warns | Environment | The Guardian

Global warming will kill us and make Britain a Siberian climate by next year.

Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us | Environment | The Guardian

Permanent drought in the UK.

Drought may be new norm for UK, says environment secretary | Environment | The Guardian

Permanent drought in Australia.

This drought may never break

Five years since the New York Times announced the end of snow.

The End of Snow? – The New York Times

It has been more than twelve years since they announced the endless summer.

With Warmer Weather, Different Decisions to Make – New York Times

The Washington Post predicted cherry blossoms blooming in winter.

Could cherry blossoms one day be blooming in winter? – The Washington Post

There has been no trend in cherry blossom bloom dates since atmospheric CO2 reached 350 PPM thirty years ago, with recent years tending to be late.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/cherry-blossoms_fig-1.csv

And it has been almost nineteen years since British experts announced that snow is a thing of the past.

Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past – Environment – The Independent

Actual snow cover has been increasing for 30 years, and is about the same as 50 years ago.

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

Bill Clinton’s science advisor announced the Southwest permanent drought eight years ago.

Dust Storm Marks Beginning of Southwest’s “Permanent Drought” | The Energy Collective

Those forecasts don’t seem to be doing too well.

Local Weather from AccuWeather.com – Superior Accuracy™

Climate experts now say that global warming causes bitterly cold, snowy winters, and that they predicted it all along.

Brace yourself for a bitterly cold winter, as climate change shifts the polar vortex

The world’s leading climate expert predicted Lower Manhattan would be underwater by 2018.

Stormy weather – Global warming – Salon.com

And experts say we will all have to flee to Antarctica to save ourselves from global warming.

Why Antarctica will soon be the only place to live – literally

Climate change study predicts refugees fleeing into Antarctica – Telegraph

I have hundreds more of these predictions on file, but this is enough to get the point across.  Climate alarmists, and alarmists in general, are incompetent, dishonest hacks – who change their story every time the wind shifts.