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It says that people are more likely to get cancer today than 100 years ago. This is true. But the only reason that it's true is because today, people are more likely to live to be old enough to get cancer. This is a good thing. The reason that people didn't get cancer so much in the past is because they died before they were old enough to get cancer.
In other words, getting cancer at age 70 is much better than getting typhoid fever at age 40. But the doomsayers are never happy.
"We are uneasy about poisons in our food and drinks; in our homes and workplaces; in our air, water, and soil; in our brains and livers; in our pets, domestic animals, lawns, and farms."
Not me. I'm not scared about any of that stuff. What I see is that life expectancy is now the highest that it has ever been. Things are great, and they keep getting better. But the doomsayers are never happy.
So less than 2,000 people signed it. I've heard of other doomsayer petitions with similar numbers. It's always the doomsayer petitions that get mentioned in the news.
But here's an anti-doomsayer petition that was signed by more than 17,000 scientists. But the mainstream media, to the best of my knowledge, has never mentioned it:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p37.htm
It's true that the passenger pigeon and the dodo and some other species have gone extinct. I have repeatedly argued that private ownership is the best way to save animals from extinction. Privately owned nature preserves have a very good track record. And among animals that people use for food, among animals that are privately owned, there has never been a single case where an animal was hunted to extinction. Overfishing is indeed a very big problem in public bodies of water, but on private fish farms, fish populations keep getting bigger and bigger.
If the passenger pigeon had been raised on private farms, then it would not have gone extinct.
If the only way that we could get chickens was to hunt them in the wild, then the chicken would be extinct within a few weeks.
Private ownership is the reason why the chicken isn't being hunted to extinction.
It's too bad the article didn't mention the benefits that come from private ownership.
The best way to protect the environment is to have lots of wealth. The worldwide trend is that once a country's per capita GNP reaches about $4,000, the environment starts to get better. And the more money people have, the better off the environment becomes. In the rich countries of the world, the air and water are getting cleaner. And the number of acres of forest is going up. Rich countries use very high yield farming methods, which let us grow more food on less land, so more land can bet set asise as forest. Of course, whenever this happens, the doomsayers complain about "disappearing farmland." The doomsayers are never happy.
Your article says that all these things are going to kill us. But it ignores the fact that during the 20th century, life expectancy in the U.S. increased by about 30 years.
In my opinion, this increase in life expectancy is the single greatest accomplishment of the 20th century. Anyone who cares about the human race should applaud this. But some people see nothing but doom.
Despite what the article claims, it is not a secret that fluorescent lights save money. Also, they ignore the fact many people prefer the kind of light that comes from regular light bulbs.
If all of these scientists are so sure that they are right, and they are so sure that people can make money by taking their advice, then they should start their own company, and manufacture the kinds of products that they are talking about, and advertise their products heavily. If their claims are really true, then they would make a fortune.
What do you think of the article about the 1970 Earth Day predictions that I gave the link for? Here's the link again:
http://reason.com/0005/fe.rb.earth.shtml
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