Key Findings

1. Since the first Earth Day a half-century ago every prediction of imminent environmental global disaster has proven false. Here are examples.

2. “The Artic could have no ice in the summertime as early as 2013...”

3. “Children will not know what snow is.”

4. “New York will be under water by 2015.”

5. “By 2017 Hoover Dam will no longer provide drinking water to Las Vegas, Tucson, and San Diego.”

6. 1995 – “Most of the beaches on the East Coast would be gone in 25 years.”

7. “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...”

8. By 1995 “...between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

Introduction

Since the first Earth Day was announced a half-century ago, every prediction made about imminent environmental global disaster has proven false. For decades environmental Leftists preached that mankind is destroying the planet and prophesized the end of the world. Climate change alarmists claimed an “existential threat” would soon end life on a global scale unless we repent in time and accept a radical environmental agenda.

A review of past predictions finds the glum statements by media and activists about looming environmental disasters were wrong. In 1970, environmentalists said there would soon be a new ice age and massive deaths from air pollution. The New York Times foresaw the extinction of the human race. Widely-quoted biologist Paul Ehrlich predicted worldwide starvation by 1975.

Fresh predictions based on forecast modeling are spreading more misinformation today, in the hope that past predictions will be forgotten.

Here are documented examples of false environmental predictions, listed by decade.

Read these predictions in the full Policy Note here.