by W.E. William, March 7, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claims that “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

The people at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agree, saying that to avoid some of the most devastating impacts of climate change, the world must slash carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and completely decarbonize by 2050.

Such dire warnings are not new. In 1970, Harvard University biology professor George Wald, a Nobel laureate, predicted, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

Also in 1970, Paul Ehrlich, a Stanford University biologist, predicted in an article for The Progressive, “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

The year before, he had warned, “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

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