
18 Spectacularly Wrong Prophecies from the First Earth Day - jayess
https://fee.org/articles/18-spectacularly-wrong-prophecies-from-the-first-earth-day/
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dalke
This looks like the sort of cherry-picking designed to give a false impression
of the general views by picking extreme positions or attributing vague
statements as prophecies.

For example, 6 of the 18 quotes are from Paul Ehrlich, 3 from Kenneth Watt,
and 2 from Barry Commoner. I can interpret that to mean that so few people
made "spectacularly wrong prophecies" that the author of the list had to hit
the same sources multiple times. (I use the generic "author of the list"
because many sites, mostly anti-environmental movement, seem to repeat this
same set of failed predictions, and I didn't track down the original source.)

I picked #9 arbitrarily. It starts "In January 1970, Life reported". That
quote is from
[https://books.google.com/books?id=bFAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=In+...](https://books.google.com/books?id=bFAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=In+a+decade,+urban+dwellers+will+have+to+wear+gas+masks+to+survive+air+pollution&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=In%20a%20decade%2C%20urban%20dwellers%20will%20have%20to%20wear%20gas%20masks%20to%20survive%20air%20pollution&f=false)
. It's in an editor's note, concerning the views of one of Life's reporters,
Pekkanan, who said he was told that at a scientific meeting. This is hardly a
"report" any any meaningful sense.

In context, Pekkanan describes obviously worsening pollution in his lifetime.
1970 was only 4 years after smog in New York City killed at least 169 people.
As a result of the environment movement of the time, the US passed
environmental protection laws, including mandatory catalytic converters. Had
we not done so, well, look to Beijing for a modern example of a city where
people _do_ sometimes walk around with face masks because of pollution.

I think it's unfair to say it was a "wrong prophecy" when things could and did
change to avoid that from happening.

Quote #3 isn't a failed prophesy:

> The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned,
> “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance
> existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible
> extinction.”

There's no timeline there. I also think it's true. As a trivial example, we
greatly reduced CFC emissions because the loss of the ozone layer would lead
to "intolerable deterioration."

Did you notice that #14 has two failed predictions? Outside perhaps of a
couple of US states, who uses full service gas and says 'Fill ‘er up, buddy'?

I also observe that the title is "from the first Earth Day", but the quotes
are pulled from around the time of the first Earth day. This gives many more
opportunities to cherry pick.

