2009-06-21

Paul Elrich: Proud Rubber Duckie Recepient

Spotted this on the National Post website. I think psychics and proponents of Armageddon have a better track record than Mr. Elrich. Only sports guys are worse with their predictions...I think.
  • “The battle to feed all of humanity is over ... hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” (1968)
  • “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people.” (1969)
  • “By 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million.” (1969)
  • “Smog disasters” in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles. (1969)
  • “I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” (1969)
  • “In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.” (1970)
  • “Actually, the problem in the world is that there is much too many rich people...” (1990)
  • “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” (1992)
Impressive, no?

Scarier, this guy engages in eugenics with his Zero Population Growth bull shit thingy.

2 comments:

  1. He was partly right on the feeding business, for the remainder, as Mark Twain remarked while reading the announcement of his death, it is slightly exaggerated. Those guys gives bad press to the real students of these phenomenons.
    If he is still alive, could a class action be considered?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Considering he may have influenced costly public policy heck why not?

    Then again, so many people throughout history have made dire predictions and missed the mark. He's no different. It is what it is.

    ReplyDelete

Mysterious and anonymous comments as well as those laced with cyanide and ad hominen attacks will be deleted. Thank you for your attention, chumps.