What WUWT and the anti-world movement doesn't know - Earth Day 2016

This Earth Day, leaders from 175 nations signed the Paris Climate Agreement, which was a record for a one-day signing, according to the UN.

On this day each year there's also a tradition, if you can call it that yet, that anti-environment blogs like WUWT publish a list of unsourced quote-mines purportedly from the first Earth Day. Anti-environmentalists say that predictions didn't come to pass. The unspoken message is that therefore they will never come to pass and all their anti-environment fans can therefore feel free to continue to destroy the planet. It's an unspoken plea to "bring back smog".

What it also shows is that these budding planet wreckers are not very bright. They don't know that because of the actions of environmentalists:

• Clean air regulations have been put in place to reduce the smog and pollution that threatened the world
• The contraceptive pill and family planning education programs helped people limit the size of families
• Agricultural research and education vastly increased crop yields, which allowed the world to continue to feed the hugely increasing human population
• Developing countries, in many cases with the assistance of foreign aid from developed countries, improved their social and economic well-being
• There have been huge improvements in fuel efficiency, often driven by regulation, which together with new discoveries and alternative sources of energy, has meant that there are still oil and gas reserves left.

Despite these actions, the natural world is still being degraded at a great rate through deforestation, CO2 emissions, smog and other pollution, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, and more.

Anthony Watts was so excited to show that none of this had anything to do with environment lovers, that he wrote not one but two articles about it. The first one (archived here) was a copy and paste from a zillion articles from anti-environment blogs all over the internet. He got his copy from the Benny Peiser of the UK group that lobbies to increase global warming, appropriately called the Global Warming Policy Foundation. The second one (archived here) was an email he got from someone who did know that none of this has come to pass yet only because of the response of millions of people the world over, who heeded the call of environmental activists, and prompted their governments to take action. For the second article, Anthony declared his bullying side, and not only published the email but dug up an old web page that was possibly the author. (He's no longer at that institution, he has moved on to the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.)

Nature-wreckers are a sorry lot. Did I say that not a single of Anthony's quotes had a link to a source? Yes, that's typical of the anti-environment movement.

It's time to act...now!

This is why anti-environment blogs can have an impact - and how (h/t @AutumnMandrake)

A view of our fragile, precious Earth via NASA

"Look again at that dot, That's home... on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam." -Carl Sagan

Happy #EarthDay pic.twitter.com/ThtUf5AqoS

— NASA (@NASA) April 23, 2016

From the WUWT comments

So far there are 230 thoughts about Earth Day predictions and 93 thoughts about Anthony's so-called hate mail. Yes, in the upside-down world of deniersville, an email from a person who writes that he cares about science and the well-being of the planet is regarded as "hate mail". 

804hokie thinks that caring for the environment is a good way to make money. Usually deniers love money.

April 22, 2016 at 10:35 am
The green hoax is a get rich quick scheme

MarkW is another one who views the world through the money lens, and adds "power":

April 22, 2016 at 11:58 am
For many it’s a power over others scheme.
Though typically power over others also results in more money to those in power. 

Others see that caring for the planet is a communist plot. The aptly-named slobotnavich wrote:

April 22, 2016 at 12:33 pm
You hit that right on the head. Environmentalism is the rebirth of Marxism. 

Rudd Istvan joins in the name-calling exercise. ristvan wrote:

April 22, 2016 at 1:45 pm
Technically, they are watermelons. Green on the outside, red on the inside. And seedy. 

John Wilson is a One World Government conspiracy theorist who thinks that the shadowy power-brokers want a broken, poverty-stricken world:

April 22, 2016 at 4:14 pm
No, it’s a scheme to fund a global government, while diminishing western civilizations through unfair global carbon taxes meant to shut down energy.

Greg prefers smog and wrecked landscapes, and thinks that clear air regs and other environmental regulations have destroyed jobs, using a big number that he pulled out of the clean air (or somewhere):

April 22, 2016 at 10:37 am
The Sierra Club has killed millions via poverty caused by idiot politicians following their policies. Right now the PM of Canada is a puppet of a former Sierra Club leader, (G. Butts) the man who designed Ontario’s disastrous Green Energy plan that has resulted in over 500,000 lost jobs. 

dbstealey wrongly claims that ice isn't melting and global warming isn't happening. He's a hard core denier:

April 22, 2016 at 12:27 pm
More scares that never happened:
• Polar bears becoming extinct
• Runaway global warming
• Sea level rise accelerating
• Polar ice will disappear
• Manhattan, Florida, and Tuvalu submerged
• Increasing hurricanes and severe weather events
NONE of those predictions ever came true. Not one of them. They were all wrong.
As Einstein, Feynman, Popper, Langmuir and other famous scientists pointed out: If your ‘theory’ is contradicted by observtion, your ‘theory’ is WRONG.
As Feynman said, “That’s all there is to it.” 

Simon points out that dbstealey is a sharp shooter :)

April 22, 2016 at 12:37 pm
DB
You really do shoot yourself in the foot sometimes don’t you. 

In the other thread, ClimateOtter says he didn't know that it was in part the actions of environmentalists that spurred the research from agricultural scientists:

April 22, 2016 at 2:42 pm
I wasn’t aware that those scientists had anything to do with years of record crop yields worldwide. Maybe david corgy knows? 

A lot of deniers have nothing but petty sarcasm to offer. Travis Casey wrote:

April 22, 2016 at 2:48 pm
The tireless efforts of alarmists and hippies has kept us from all the predictions of mass starvation, unbreathable air, and polluted rivers. Bahaha. I think people bringing their own bags to the grocery store and the incredible efforts of our gov’t to regulate the number of gallons per toilet flush and the type of light bulbs we can use has led to greater agricultural yields. Oh gosh I guess I’ll throw in /sarc.

Terry Bixler is shocked that anyone would act on their beliefs. Does that mean that Terry is not a planet wrecker?

April 22, 2016 at 3:05 pm
What is really shocking is that he believes what he says and further acted on his beliefs. Kind of like Obama and his intended signing of the Paris accord. Ooops I know Obama doesn’t believe but not to worry acts anyway. 

Steve offered a convoluted thought. The upshot seems to be that he thinks that we haven't yet done enough to curb global warming, and he's right about that:

April 22, 2016 at 3:51 pm
” It is only through MASSIVE efforts and huge expenditures by numerous governments that the Earth Day predictions have been averted”
Part of the beauty of global warming alarmism is that any predictions of climate doom that don’t come true you can say its because of what we DID do, and anything bad that happens that is possibly weather related its because of what we DIDN’T do. As for massive efforts and huge expenditures by governments… the rise in global CO2 levels has continued to accelerate with all that herculean effort and massive spending. So all those gloom and doom predictions about rising CO2 level caused global warming were averted by massive government actions and expenditures to make sure the CO2 levels kept accelerating at the same pace they would have had the government done nothing to stop the rise? Sounds like a lot of wasted government money.

Paul of Alexandria seems to think that more could be done, and he'd be right about that, but wrong about the amount that has been done:

April 22, 2016 at 4:09 pm
And just how have the dire Earth day predictions “been averted”? Aside from some anti-polution legislation, the government hasn’t actually done much.

Top image from WorldArtsMe.