Today In History: Environmental Predictions made for 1970 Earth Day

[Grimalken]

@Gaius

Earth day

Today marks the anniversary of the first Earth Day (originally taking place in 1970).

The following somewhat alarming predictions were made, to swat public opinion and to justify a perveived need to roll back free markets, increase spending, laws and regulations.

Life magazine reported, “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….”

Barry Commoner predicted that decaying organic pollutants would use up all of the oxygen in America’s rivers, causing freshwater fish to suffocate.

Paul Ehrlich chimed in, predicting in his 1970 that “air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” Ehrlich sketched a scenario in which 200,000 Americans would die in 1973 during “smog disasters” in New York and Los Angeles. {snip}

I thought it was commonly known, that back in 1985, Marty McFly changed the outcome of the future. Otherwise all of those predictions would have come to pass.