Doomsday Predictions -- Some History for the Coward

M

Mina

Verified User
Since one of our posters was too frightened of people being exposed to facts to allow open participation in a thread, I figured I'd post here:

Primavera said:
Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970:

1. “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — Harvard biologist George Wald
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This stuff can be misleading out of context. Wald was a peace activist concerned about the threat of nuclear war, speaking just a few years after the Cuban missile crisis had brought us to the brink of doomsday. He was arguing, among other things, in favor of deescalating the nuclear standoff between the US and USSR. At the time, the US did, in fact, take immediate action to address that, including the SALT nuclear arms limitation treaty, signed in 1972 (the first such treaty). Would civilization have fallen by 1985 or 2000 if not for round after round of talks and treaties to deescalate the nuclear threat? That's impossible to say, at this point.
 
Mina said:
Since one of our posters was too frightened of people being exposed to facts to allow open participation in a thread, I figured I'd post here:



This stuff can be misleading out of context. Wald was a peace activist concerned about the threat of nuclear war, speaking just a few years after the Cuban missile crisis had brought us to the brink of doomsday. He was arguing, among other things, in favor of deescalating the nuclear standoff between the US and USSR. At the time, the US did, in fact, take immediate action to address that, including the SALT nuclear arms limitation treaty, signed in 1972 (the first such treaty). Would civilization have fallen by 1985 or 2000 if not for round after round of talks and treaties to deescalate the nuclear threat? That's impossible to say, at this point.
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Legion, Earl, Primavera....probably same person. Antagonizes the liberals and bans them. Total pussy.
 
BidenPresident said:
Legion, Earl, Primavera....probably same person. Antagonizes the liberals and bans them. Total pussy.
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Prima was right. Wald was wrong, I believe Prima is British and lives In Thailand. I live in Georgia, home state of the Georgia peach, Ty Cobb.

Wald was wrong ...so was Algore (sic).

We ban loons like you because we know that you will post the usual far left garbage.
 
Mina was right. No way to know if Wald was wrong but he was far from alone in his view of the danger. Accomplishes nothing useful to dismiss him, but it's always helpful to replace dishonesty with truth, which is what Mina did with this thread..
 
Earl said:
Wald was wrong...as all of these far left doomsday loons are.
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That's impossible to say, of course, since he was calling for immediate action and we took immediate action (a first-of-a-kind arms-control treaty negotiated that same year and signed two years later). It's a bit like if you told someone to come down off a mountain before a thunderstorm or he'll be struck by lightning, he comes down, and he isn't struck by lightning.
 
Earl said:
We ban loons like you because we know that you will post the usual far left garbage.
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No. As you're aware, it's because you feel you aren't up to the task of defending your positions, so you cower behind a wall that keeps people from calling you out. I kind of pity you for that. That level of insecurity has to be hard to live with.
 
Mina said:
That's impossible to say, of course, since he was calling for immediate action and we took immediate action (a first-of-a-kind arms-control treaty negotiated that same year and signed two years later). It's a bit like if you told someone to come down off a mountain before a thunderstorm or he'll be struck by lightning, he comes down, and he isn't struck by lightning.
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He wasn't talking about arms control, sweetie.

He was talking about population control and climate change.

"The author of 1968’s “The Population Bomb” was another gloom-and-doom prophet who made so many failed predictions over the years that it’s almost hard to keep count

Climatologists lay out four possible future trajectories for the environment. Alarmists seized on the worst one. It’s also the least likely.

It’s time for the global-warming crowd to realize, once and for all, that civilization isn’t ending – not in 1985 and not in 2100. And those are the cold facts.


“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Harvard biologist George Wald made that claim in 1970.

So if Wald had been correct, just about everything would have crumbled to ruin sometime between 1985 and 2000.



Wald, however, wasn’t alone. He and others came up with some incredibly over-the-top predictions as the 1960s came to a close.

“Earth Day” founder Denis Hayes, for example, didn’t hedge his bets: “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.” Or take Paul Ehrlich (please). The author of 1968’s “The Population Bomb” was another gloom-and-doom prophet who made so many failed predictions over the years that it’s almost hard to keep count.

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” he said in a 1970 interview. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.”

Off by about 180 degrees. Food production spiked in the ensuing years. And starvation on such a massive scale never materialized, thank God.
 
Mina said:
No. As you're aware, it's because you feel you aren't up to the task of defending your positions, so you cower behind a wall that keeps people from calling you out. I kind of pity you for that. That level of insecurity has to be hard to live with.
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You should worry about defending your own position, sweetie, not posting inaccurate garbage.

Try harder next time, sweetie.
 
Mina said:
No. As you're aware, it's because you feel you aren't up to the task of defending your positions, so you cower behind a wall that keeps people from calling you out. I kind of pity you for that. That level of insecurity has to be hard to live with.
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You aren't banned from my threads, sweetie.
 
Earl said:
He wasn't talking about arms control...."

Go back and read the 1970 NYT article recounting the comment. They specify the threat of nuclear arms as part of the threat he was speaking to.

You seem to be trying to conflate two different issues -- a warning made by Wald in 1970, and other warnings made by a different made in 1968.

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Harvard biologist George Wald made that claim in 1970.

So if Wald had been correct, just about everything would have crumbled to ruin sometime between 1985 and 2000
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Obviously, that would only be the case if we hadn't taken any action against problems facing mankind. As I pointed out, right after he spoke we entered into a monumental arms-control deal with the Soviets. On the pollution front, DDT was banned in 1972. The end of 1970 also saw the Clean Air Act become law (which, among other things started the phase-out of lead in gas and required emissions controls for cars), 1972 saw the passage of the Clean Water Act, and 1973 saw the Endangered Species Act passed. And on the population growth front, the population growth rate had been over 2% per year globally in the years leading up to his comment, but was down to 1.7% by 1977, and around 1.0% as of 2020, which was in large part because of a large-scale distribution of modern birth control means around the world.

So, in the first few years after his comments, we took a bunch of very dramatic efforts to tackle the threat of nuclear arms, and pollution, and overpopulation. So, do we live in the world where immediate action wasn't taken against problems facing mankind? No, turns out we don't actually live in that world.

Obviously.
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Earl said:
You aren't banned from my threads...
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Glad to hear it. I've always felt that kind of censorship signaled a real cowardice. A person should have the courage to take on all challenges to her positions... and the courage to change positions if it turns out they can't be defended.
 
Earl said:
Prima was right. Wald was wrong, I believe Prima is British and lives In Thailand. I live in Georgia, home state of the Georgia peach, Ty Cobb.

Wald was wrong ...so was Algore (sic).

We ban loons like you because we know that you will post the usual far left garbage.
Click to expand...

You can obviously see that such bans don't work.
 
Earl said:
He wasn't talking about arms control, sweetie.

He was talking about population control and climate change.

"The author of 1968’s “The Population Bomb” was another gloom-and-doom prophet who made so many failed predictions over the years that it’s almost hard to keep count

Climatologists lay out four possible future trajectories for the environment. Alarmists seized on the worst one. It’s also the least likely.

It’s time for the global-warming crowd to realize, once and for all, that civilization isn’t ending – not in 1985 and not in 2100. And those are the cold facts.


“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Harvard biologist George Wald made that claim in 1970.

So if Wald had been correct, just about everything would have crumbled to ruin sometime between 1985 and 2000.



Wald, however, wasn’t alone. He and others came up with some incredibly over-the-top predictions as the 1960s came to a close.

“Earth Day” founder Denis Hayes, for example, didn’t hedge his bets: “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.” Or take Paul Ehrlich (please). The author of 1968’s “The Population Bomb” was another gloom-and-doom prophet who made so many failed predictions over the years that it’s almost hard to keep count.

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” he said in a 1970 interview. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next 10 years.”

Off by about 180 degrees. Food production spiked in the ensuing years. And starvation on such a massive scale never materialized, thank God.
Click to expand...

Radical Doom and Gloom predictions like this are the way fear mongers justify themselves. Many religions depend on them for this reason as well, including the Church of Global Warming, the Church of Green, the Church of the Ozone Hole, and the Church of Covid.
 
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