The Daily Caller dug through their green archives and, in honor of Earth Day, found 7 predictions made by supposedly intelligent and accomplished scientists that, when read today, were hilariously wrong.

Earth Day just isn't what it used to be. Back in the 70's, we were lectured by activists about how we were destroying the planet - mostly because there were too many people. In fact, the guru of overpopulation, Paul Erlich, is prominently featured on this list.

Here are a few excerpts. You should read them all to get a sense of the hysteria that used to be generated in the old days:

1: “Civilization Will End Within 15 Or 30 Years”

Harvard biologist Dr. George Wald warned shortly before the first Earth Day in 1970 that civilization would soon end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” Three years before his projection, Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

Ooops.

2: “100-200 Million People Per Year Will Be Starving To Death During The Next Ten Years”

Stanford professor Dr. Paul Ehrlich declared in April 1970 that mass starvation was imminent. His dire predictions failed to materialize as the number of people living in poverty has significantly declined and the amount of food per person has steadily increased, despite population growth. The world’s Gross Domestic Product per person has immeasurably grown despite increases in population.

And Erlich again:

3: “Population Will Inevitably And Completely Outstrip Whatever Small Increases In Food Supplies We Make”

Paul Ehrlich also made the above claim in 1970, shortly before an agricultural revolution that caused the world’s food supply to rapidly increase.

Ehrlich has consistently failed to revise his predictions when confronted with the fact that they did not occur, stating in 2009 that “perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future.”

The agricultural revolution that swept the world shortly after Erlich's predictions were made allowed both India and China to become self-sufficient. There is still famine today, but they are all the result of governments withholding food from restive populations. 

5: “In A Decade, Urban Dwellers Will Have To Wear Gas Masks To Survive Air Pollution”

Life magazine stated in January 1970 that scientist had “solid experimental and theoretical evidence” to believe that “in a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching Earth by one half.”

It didn't happen in a decade, but there are many cities in China where the air is so foul on some days that you can't beathe without a mask.For the rest of civilization, not so much.

7: “By The Year 2000 … There Won’t Be Any More Crude Oil”

On Earth Day in 1970 ecologist Kenneth Watt famously predicted that the world would run out of oil saying, “You’ll drive up to the pump and say, ‘Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, ‘I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”

We've been warned about running out of fossil fuels since the 1950's. The advent of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has made the US the #1 producer in the world - the first time that's been so since the 1970's.

These are the very same scientists who are now warning about climate change. If there was justice in the world, all of these charlatans would have lost their jobs and been forgotten by history. But now, we must listen to their blathering regarding catastrophic global warming. 

In 50 years, we can have another laugh about their predictions today.