For fifty years we have heard Presidents, scientists, spoiled children, professors, etc. telling us that we have only ten years to save the planet. Fifty years of hand wringing, spending trillions of dollars on wind and solar power, creating carbon credits, etc. have apparently not been successful as the claims of pending disaster continue unabated. Let us look at some of the predictions over the past half century:
- 1972: “We have ten years to stop the catastrophe” said UN “environment protection boss.
- 1982: The opening of the second UN conference as reported by the NY Times was not a happy meeting. Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the UN environmental program stated at if action were not taken, in 2000 we would face, “an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.”
Similar warnings were issued in 1998, 1989 and 1990; always disaster within the next ten years. Massive crop failures, even “nations wiped off the face of the Earth” were predicted. The year 2000 came and went and we survived. In 2004 it was reported that the Pentagon told President Bush that climate change would “destroy us”. Among the disasters was Siberian winters in Britain, major European cities sinking beneath rising seas, etc.
As life went on, the environmental industry continued to grind out dire predictions such as:
- 2007: “If there is no action before 2012, that’s too late” per Rajedra Pachauri, head of the UN climate panel.
- 2019: According to the UN, “Only 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage to climate change”.
While third world nations clammer for billions of dollars to fight climate change (but reject an open accounting of how the money is spent), we see a decrease in the standard of living in nations such as Germany as they suffer huge increases in energy costs thanks to failed “green” energy sources. Experienced environmental voices such as Bjorn Lomberg and Michael Schellenberger are ignored or scorned as they offer real world advice on how to better people’s lives while acting responsibly toward the environment. And we have seen another in a long chain of world environmental summits (this one was number twenty-six) that somehow seem to fail to comment on past failed environmental goals but find ways to increase taxes in the name of saving the planet.
Sorry if I am a bit skeptical, but I have heard it all before. The youth of today may be impressed by what they hear from the environmental industry but give them ten or twenty years and they too may question the dire predictions. In the meantime, perhaps the world “leaders” could develop realistic programs that deliver measurable results so there is some degree of accountability.
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