Bountiful Success after the first Earth Day

I'm indeed happy we are all still here and thriving despite the Earth Day predictions of 1970.   (For amusement, please see the predictions below. *) Most of us relish the fruits of responsible liberty and live in sustainable ecological systems.  We concurrently enjoy (at least) modest prosperity.  According to expert predictions in 1970, life today would be grim and short.  Instead, it’s wonderful—especially in the Gallatin Valley.  Enjoy!

I remember the first Earth Day at Indiana University.  In those days major universities wallowed in money and welcomed new programs, departments, and even colleges.  Grad students with high GRE scores had fellowships or assistantships.  

I had recently won a National Science Foundation postdoc in environmental economics and policy. My assignment was to help with the creation of IU’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs**.  This was a wonderful award and the postdoc stipend was so generous that I took a pay cut to return to Montana and teach at Montana State!  

Objectively, these were good times indeed--however the university culture of 1970 was extremely negative, nearly toxic.  In truth, the US was the most successful large-scale social experiment in world history.  Yet, on the first Earth Day America was condemned as the great destroyer and exploiter.  The mantra in the environmental arena was simple: Wealth plus technology yields ecological destruction.  

Much of the silliness is gone--but is being renewed with such fantasies as the Green New Deal (GND).  Yesterday John Couretas, Media Director of the Acton Institute of Grand Rapids, Michigan, interviewed me for an Acton blog post critiquing the GND.  I will send the link when it is posted.

In the meanwhile, you might enjoy reviewing the first Earth Day predictions and celebrating their errors.  

There actually were serious environmental problems. Some remain, and new ones arise.  Increased wealth enables us to deal with them. *** 

Environmental problems of the 1970s were of two types.  The first are externalities or negative spillovers from productive activities, pollution in short.  The other were governmentally subsidized programs and projects with substantial negative impacts.  Many Bureau of Reclamation dams and U. S. Forest Service roads exemplify subsidized environmental destruction.  

Both types have substantially diminished, in part because of increased environmental sensitivities.  Earth Days have contributed to this change.  Further and importantly, increased wealth and improved technology enhance our capacity to deal with environmental problems. 

Cheers from a happy, ecologically sound (and modestly prosperous) Gallatin Valley ranch!

John

f.n.* Here are some of the spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.

• “We have about five more years at the outside to do something.” Kenneth Watt, ecologist
• “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”  George Wald, Harvard Biologist
• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”  Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.” New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
• “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.” Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
• “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”  Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
• “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
• “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” Life Magazine, January 1970
• “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.”  Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
• “Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”  Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
• “We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.” Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
• “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
• “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson
• “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.” Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Remember these predictions when you hear similar predictions today. They’ve been making silly predictions for 39 years. And they’ll continue making them until people live as our progressive betters prescribe.  Enjoy the humor in their arrogance.  

f.n. **The O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs is one of the undergraduate and graduate schools of Indiana University, and is the largest public policy and environmental studies school of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1972, as the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs, it was the first school to combine public management, policy, and administration with the environmental sciences. The school was founded on the IU Bloomington campus, and today also has a campus at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis(IUPUI). O'Neill School Bloomington is the top ranked school of public affairs in the United States. 

f.n *** Alas. the first Earth Day was scheduled for the 100th anniversary of V. I. Lenin’s birthday.  It’s no mere accident nor a simple prejudice that environmentalism carries a taint of collectivist, leftist authoritarianism?  Few environmental activists appreciate the complementary features of responsible liberty, sustainable ecology, and prosperity.