18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year

18 spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year - AEI | Carpe Diem Blog » AEIdeas
"In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled “Earth Day, Then and Now” to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day.
In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day, and in the years following, there was a “torrent of apocalyptic predictions” and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article.
Well, it’s now the 45th anniversary of Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 15 years ago:
How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970?
The answer:
“The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong,” according to Bailey. Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) started:
1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
Read 'em all!