Fifty Years of Failed Climate Change & Apocalyptic Predictions

The conservative-leaning Competitive Enterprise Institute has put together a lengthy compilation of apocalyptic predictions dating back decades that did not come to pass, timed as Democratic presidential candidates and climate activists refocus attention on the issue.

The dire predictions, often repeated in the media, warned of a variety of impending disasters – famine, drought, an ice age, and even disappearing nations – if the world failed to act on climate change.

An Associated Press headline from 1989 read "Rising seas could obliterate nations: U.N. officials." The article detailed a U.N. environmental official warning that entire nations would be eliminated if the world failed to reverse warming by 2000.

Then there were the fears that the world would experience a never-ending "cooling trend in the Northern Hemisphere." That claim came from an "international team of specialists" cited by The New York Times in 1978.

Just years prior, Time magazine echoed other media outlets in suggesting that "another ice age" was imminent. "Telltale signs are everywhere — from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest," the magazine warned in 1974. The Guardian similarly warned in 1974 that "Space satellites show new Ice Age coming fast."

In 1970, The Boston Globe ran the headline, "Scientist predicts a new ice age by 21st century." The Washington Post, for its part, published a Columbia University scientist's claim that the world could be "as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age."

Some of the more dire predictions came from Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who famously urged population control to mitigate the impacts of humans on the environment. Ehrlich, in 1969, warned that "everybody" would "disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years," The New York Times reported.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Ehrlich, warning of a "disastrous" famine," urged placing "sterilizing agents into staple foods and drinking water."

Those predictions were made around the time former President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. Since then, the U.S. has adopted a series of environmental reforms aimed at limiting emissions.

Years after those initial predictions, media outlets and politicians continue to teem with claims of apocalyptic scenarios resulting from climate change.

Earlier this month, leading Democratic presidential candidates held a town hall on the issue and warned about the "existential" threat posed by a changing climate. Before the end of the month, 2020 candidates are expected to have another climate forum at Georgetown University.

CEI's report came just before the U.N. Climate Action Summit on Sept. 23, an event that promises to "spark the transformation that is urgently needed and propel action that will benefit everyone."

It also came a week after Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., warned that Miami would be gone in a "few years" because of climate change. She was responding to critics of her ambitious "Green New Deal," which seeks to reach net-zero emissions within just decades.

Ocasio-Cortez, whose plan has been endorsed by leading presidential candidates, previously joked that the world would end in 12 years if it didn't address climate change. But short-term predictions weren't a laughing matter in the years following "An Inconvenient Truth," a documentary produced by former Vice President Al Gore.

In 2008, ABC released an ominous video about what the world would look like in 2015. As the video warned about rising sea levels, a graphic showed significant portions of New York City engulfed by water. Gore himself famously predicted in the early 2000s that Arctic ice could be gone within seven years. At the end of seven years, Arctic ice had undergone a period of expansion.

LIST OF DOOMSDAY PREDICTIONS THE CLIMATE ALARMIST GOT WRONG

Here is the source for numbers 1-27. As you will see, the individual sources are not crackpots, but scientific studies and media reports on “expert” predictions.

1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989 (1969)
1970: Ice Age By 2000
1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
1972: New Ice Age By 2070
1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
1974: Another Ice Age?
1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life
1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes
1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend
1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015
2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 90s
1980: Peak Oil In 2000
1996: Peak Oil in 2020
2002: Peak Oil in 2010
2006: Super Hurricanes!
2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
1970s: Killer Bees!
Sorry, Experts… Sorry, Scientific Consensus… Only a fool comes running for the 42nd cry of wolf.