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Environmental hysterics

By David Deming
April 6, 2008

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley recently warned that failure to take action on global warming could mean the extinction of the human race. Over the last few years, we’ve been repeatedly warned we are in the midst of a climate crisis that threatens our survival. Al Gore calls it a “planetary emergency.”
We might take this concern more seriously if the doom-mongering wing of the environmental movement weren’t burdened by a long history of false prophecies.
In the mid- to late-1960s, the leading environmental concern was overpopulation. The 1967 book “Famine 1975!” warned “by 1975 a disaster of unprecedented magnitude will face the world … famines will ravage the undeveloped nations … this is the greatest problem facing mankind.” A sober review of the book in the scholarly journal Science characterized the prediction of mass starvation as “self-evident,” argued that technological solutions were “unrealistic,” and concluded that catastrophe was unavoidable. The reviewer concluded “all responsible investigators agree that the tragedy will occur.”
More widely read was Paul Ehrlich’s shrill screed, “The Population Bomb” (1968). Mr. Ehrlich began with the infamous words “the battle to feed all of humanity is over,” and claimed that “in the 1970s … hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” “We must have population control,” Mr. Ehrlich argued, because it is the “only answer.”
Mr. Ehrlich followed “The Population Bomb” in 1969 with publication of the essay, “Eco-Catastrophe,” in which he predicted the Green Revolution would fail and that the “ignorance” of the Cornucopian economists would be exposed. By 1980, environmental degradation would wipe out all “important animal life” in the world’s oceans, people would choke to death from air pollution by the hundreds of thousands, and life expectancy in the United States would fall to 42 years. “Western society,” Mr. Ehrlich proclaimed, “is in the process of completing the rape and murder of the planet for economic gain.”
In 1975, the news media informed us that a new Ice Age was imminent. An article in the Chicago Tribune titled “B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon?” noted “It’s getting colder.” The Tribune interpreted a number of ordinary weather events “as evidence that a significant shift in climate is taking place — a shift that could be the forerunner of an Ice Age.” The New York Times chimed in, warning their readers that “a major cooling may be ahead.” Famed science reporter Walter Sullivan announced “the world’s climate is changing … a new ice age is on the way.”
Within 10 years, the imminent calamity of global cooling was replaced by global warming. And the mass famines predicted by Paul Ehrlich and others never happened.
From 1970 through 2000, the world’s population grew from 3.7 billion to 6.1 billion. But the food supply grew faster. Between 1970 and 2000, per capita food increased by 15 percent. The problem today is not of famine but of too much food. Obesity is even becoming a problem in the developing world.