As the media have collaborated to bombard the populace with environmental and climate doom propaganda, it is only fair and reasonable to hold their feet to the fire (as it were) and examine past media promoted predictions that have failed to materialise.
Who is old enough to remember the acid rain that was going to get us all?
From Noblesville Ledger April 9, 1980
Associated Press, September 6, 1990
So what happened to the acid rain? A massively expensive National Acid Precipitation Assessment Programme (NAPAP) was initiated to examine the damage caused by acid rain and recommended solutions.
The situation turned out to be much more complex than had been predicted. The acidity of a lake is determined as much by the acidity of the local soil and vegetation as it is by acid rain. Many lakes in north-eastern America, dead in the 1980s, had plenty of fish in 1900. It was surmised by environmentalists that 20th-century sulphur dioxide emissions had choked these lakes to death with acid rain. But the NAPAP showed many of these lakes were acidic and fishless even before European settlement in America. Fish survived better in these lakes around 1900 because of extensive slash and burn logging in the area. The soil became more alkaline as the acid vegetation was removed, reducing the acid flowing into the lakes and making the water hospitable to fish. Logging stopped in 1915, acid soils and vegetation returned and the lakes became acidic again. The study also found that in many cases forests were suffering debilitation due to insects or drought and not acid rain.
The NAPAP reported in 1990. The findings were explosive: first, acid rain had not injured forests or crops in US or Canada; second, acid rain had no observable effect on human health; third, only a small number of lakes had been acidified by acid rain and these could be rehabilitated by adding lime to the water. In summary, acid rain was a nuisance, not a catastrophe.
Irish Times
Current score: Experts 0 – Reality 11.
