In the January 30, 1970 issue of Life magazine, they predicted that things would really be rotten by 1980s. Click the picture below to see how bad it was going to be....
And what really happened?
Nothing too grim... .
- The Clean Air Act went into effect, and today we have cleaner air than we did in the 1960s;
. - Air pollution did not result in less sunlight reaching earth, and so global cooling did not occur as predicted;
. - There were no major ecological "break downs" in the U.S. In fact, our surface waters got cleaner, we planted more trees than we cut, and soil quality improved as we moved to no-till or low-till agriculture;
. - Increased Co2 in the atmosphere did not result in either of the conflicting scenarios suggested -- "mass flooding" or a "new ice age";
. - Noise levels had no impact on heart disease and the SST super sonic transport airplane went out of business entirely, so sonic booms did not result in children being damaged before birth (no children were ever damaged that way, by the way);
. - "Residual DDT" has not had an impact on liver cancer rates. While liver cancer rates have increased in the U.S., (about 15,000 men and 6,000 women are told they have primary liver cancer every year) this is largely due to an increase in longevity and better diagnosis. Most liver cancer is associated with people over age 65 who have hepatitis B and hepatitis C, are heavy alcohol abusers, have been made sick from aflatoxin mold on food, have iron storage disease, or are obese. Past exposure to DDT is not listed as a risk factor by NIH..
To put a point on it, this Life magazine article did not get a single thing right.
Not only did it preach an entirely wrong gloom-and-doom scenario, but it also missed the following important trends shaping people and the planet:
- Rapidly falling birth rates across the world which have dramatically slowed the rate of population growth;
. - Dramatic improvements in access to food, access to clean water, and access to vaccines in the developing world;
. - Vast new swaths of wild lands being put under protection across the world, especially in Africa and Latin America;
. - The rise of personal computers and personal satellite phones (i.e. your pocket cell phone) which now enable people to instantly communicate across the world via word, picture, and video at almost no cost.
. - The eradication of smallpox and rinderpest, and the rapid decline in the incidence of most other horrible diseases, such as leprosy and polio. Though malaria is still with us, and HIV/AIDS has reared its ugly head, people are generally living longer, healthier and more productive lives across the globe.
4 comments:
Some of the bad things that did not happen were prevented by the work of the EPA which may become a political football next year.
Agreed!
I am all for the EPA.
I am also all for the F&WS, the Dept. of Ag., the Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Forestry Service, etc.
Most of our federal agencies are doing much better and more important work than we give them credit for. That needs to be said.
That said, go back 50 years, 30 years, 20 years, and you will find article after article just like this one.
Why?
I think the simple answer is that doom and gloom sells, and never mind that all these disaster stories tend to obscure the REAL history of our lives, which is that so many things are far better now than they have ever been.
As information is amassed, stored, shared, and synthesized with increasing depth, our problem detection capabilities rise, our collective consciousness is raised, and we steer a truer course to a smarter future.
Which is not to say I am a Pollyanna!
I am still waiting for paperless offices, unlimited leisure time, flying cars, and energy without meter. We were promised all that stuff back in the 1950s in the pages of Popular Science!
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You may have missed this critical qualifier at the top of page 22 of that issue of Life Magazine, the page that includes the predictions you actually show.
The article in Life said:
"Unless something is done to reverse environmental deterioration, say many qualified experts, horrors lie in wait. Others disagree, but scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support each of the following predictions:"
Ed, mnost of the stuff written in this article was total crap, and legislation had no impact on it because it was totally made up non-science non-sense. True scientists almost NEVER predict "horror." For example, all the "population time bomb" stuff was written by people who were not demographers.
But to give a nod to the broader point, YES, legislation can matter a LOT... which is why I have spent more than 30 years working on legislation! But we need legislation based on sound science, not fear-mongering Madison Avenue headline writers, which is what we have here.
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