Scaremongers and Doomsday Evangelists

The scaremongers and doomsday evangelists have always been with us throughout history but it's simply amazing that these types never learn from their predecessor's past totally off the mark predictions of disaster and doom that await us if we don't change our ways. Walter Williams, one of my favorite observers of the American cultural and political landscape, lists at CapMag some of the prognostications and predictions of past environmentalists: I will list some of them here but read his article.

1969 "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war ..."
"The cooling since 1940 has been large enough ...that it will not soon be reversed."

1968 "Ehrlich forecasted that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and
1989 and by 1999 the US population would decline to 22.6 million".
"If I were a gambler I would take even money that England will not exist in ...2000."

1972 Club of Rome report declared that the world would run out:
gold in 1981
Mercury and silver by 1985
tin by 1987
petroleum, copper, lead, natural gas by 1992

1975 the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning "The world as we know it will
likely be ruined by the year 2000.

1970 Senator Nelson warned that by 1995 between 75-85% of all species of living animals will
be extinct.

1885 US geological Survey said "little or no chance" of oil being discovered in California.

1939 US Department of the interior said US oil supplies would last only another 13 years.

1949 the end of US oil supplies was in sight.

1974 the US had only a 10 year supply of natural gas (there's a 1000 to 2500 year supply)

Read the rest of this interesting column at Capitalism Magazine.