September 23, 2019
This week Myron Ebell (director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute) and Steven J. Milloy published a post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blog titled ”Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions:”
Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today. None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true. What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.
More than merely spotlighting the failed predictions, this collection shows that the makers of failed apocalyptic predictions often are individuals holding respected positions in government and science. While such predictions have been and continue to be enthusiastically reported by a media eager for sensational headlines, the failures are typically not revisited.
The first 27 failed alarmist predictions below are from the CEI post (many were previously collected and posted by Tony Heller on RealClimateScience, see Tony’s video below) and the additional 14 doomsday predictions the climate alarmists got wrong were added by John Nolte in a Breitbart post titled “Climate ‘Experts’ are 0-41 with Their Doomsday Predictions”:
For more than 50 years Climate Alarmists in the scientific community and environmental movement have not gotten even one prediction correct, but they do have a perfect record of getting 41 predictions wrong. In other words, on at least 41 occasions, these so-called experts have predicted some terrible environmental catastrophe was imminent ...and it never happened. And not once - not even once! - have these alarmists had one of their predictions come true.
Think about that...the so-called experts are 0-41 with their predictions, but those of us who are skeptical of “expert” prediction number 42, the one that says that if we don’t immediately convert to socialism and allow Alexandria Ocasio-Crazy to control and organize our lives, the planet will become uninhabitable. Why would any sane person listen to someone with a 0-41 record? Why would we completely restructure our economy and sacrifice our personal freedom for “experts” who are 0-41, who have never once gotten it right? And if that’s not crazy enough, the latest ploy is to trot out a 16-year-old girl to spread prediction number 42, because it is so much more credible that way.
Below are the 41 failed doomsday, eco-pocalyptic predictions (with links):
1.1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2.1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
3.1970: Ice Age By 2000
4.1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5.1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6.1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7.1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8.1974: Another Ice Age?
9.1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life’
10.1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11.1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12 1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13.1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14.1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15.1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16.1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17.1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18.2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19.2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20.2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21.2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22.2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23.2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24.2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to “Save The Planet From Catastrophe”
25.2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26.2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27.2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28.1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29.1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30.1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31.1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32.1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33.1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34.1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35.2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36.2006: Super Hurricanes!
37.2005: Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38.1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39.1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40.1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41.1970s: Killer Bees!
Update: I’ve added 9 additional failed predictions (via Real Climate Science) below to make it an even 50 for the number of failed eco-pocalyptic doomsday predictions over the last 50 years.
42.1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43.1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44.1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45.1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46.1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47.2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48.2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50.2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter
But somehow this time will be different, and the ‘experts’ and 16-year olds of today will suddenly be correct in their new predictions of eco-doom and eco-disaster? Not.
Related: Bonus video below from Tony Heller titled “My Gift To Climate Alarmists,” which he describes as “my most concise expose of climate fraud.”
Mark J. Perry
Mark J. Perry is a Professor of Economics and Finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of The University of Michigan, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in economics and finance since 1996. Starting in the fall of 2009, Perry has also held a joint appointment as a scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., where he has been a regular contributor to the AEIdeas blog. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University and in addition, and has an MBA degree in finance from The University of Minnesota.
See also Dr. john Happs’ version of ‘In their own words” and the sinister motivations of the Beneficiaries Of The Climate Fraud: Green Groups, Scientists And Politicians here.