The gloom and doom predictions about the end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it began almost 50 years ago with the first Earth Day. Back in 1970, predictions for the future were dire ~
 

• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.” Washington University biologist Barry Commoner
 
• “(C)ivilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Harvard biologist George Wald
 
• “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” Ecologist Kenneth Watt
 
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” NYT editorial April, 1970
 
• “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” Ecologist Kenneth Watt (1975)

 
Stanford University biologist, Paul Ehrlich, was a one-man doomsday prophet ~
 

• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
 
• Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”
 
• In 1975, Paul Ehrlich predicted that “since more than nine-tenths of the original tropical rainforests will be removed in most areas within the next 30 years or so, it is expected that half of the organisms in these areas will vanish with it.”

 
 
Yikes. ➡
 
How has humanity managed to survive?

 
Oddly enough, these alarmists had all just witnessed mankind’s most impressive accomplishment to date the year before the hysterics started – the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Yet it never occurred to them that scientific discoveries, inventions and innovations would be able to meet our planet’s changing needs, and that humanity would improvise, adapt – and dare I say progress – as it always has?
 
No matter how many times they’re proved wrong, these enviro-wackos and others since, continue to peddle phony science and sound false alarms as I’ve blogged about numerous times:
 
• Reality continues to intrude on the pseudo-science of climate alarmists
• Debunking AlGore & Co. and their climate alarmism
• The growing intolerance of climate alarmists
• Stuff and nonsense; the futility of “climate control”
• Phony climate-warming threats mask the real crisis: demographic winter
• Alarming predictions of global proportions
• “Warmest year ever” isn’t (GIGO)
• Climate Change – the science ISN’T settled
• Global warming suspended by reality
• Global warming: Pay no attention to the Truth behind the curtain
• Trump Effect: Thaw likely in climate of alarmism

Now all that said, the original concept of an Earth Day wasn’t completely misguided. We are after all tasked by God with responsible stewardship for His creation.
 
Fifty years ago, air and water pollution was definitely something we needed to address. And we did. Thanks to the clean air/water legislation, air pollution in the U.S.has been reduced by nearly 60% over the last several decades, and water quality has improved significantly.
 
Certainly we should all be concerned with ecology, and caring for our natural resources. And that requires realistic assessments – not outlandish predictions by alarmists who put planet before people.

 
So let’s celebrate the advances that have been made in cleaning up the environment since the ’70’s and continue to prioritize good stewardship – not buy into climate-change hysteria from collectivists with an agenda.
 
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Related:
Steering clear of climate alarm: climate change alarmists should chill on Earth Day 2018
Happy Earth Day, Enviros — Emissions are Dropping as Natural Gas Remains Top Dog
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Up-dated: 4-23-18
Added: Earth Day 2018: Celebrate A World Cleaned By Capitalism ~ How human ingenuity has improved life expectancy, living conditions and helped create a safer environment for everyone.