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That's the thing about predictions, they happen in the future. Since most of the predictions of the 'environmentalists' were not being made before the 1960's, and since the timeframes are usually 50 - 100 years out, it is not surprising that they have yet to be proven true or false. If you discount falling sperm counts in some men in industrial agriculture areas, rising rates of autism in American children and rising rates of leukemia, by ignoring the possible- but by no means proven- environmental component behind them. To claim any of these is proof of prior claims is inaccurate, to dismiss them as possible proof of prior claims is disingenuous. We are in the middle of things, and can't definitively say what they mean, or if they mean anything at all. As if to dismiss everything, you say there is no 'doomsday prediction' that's come true-but you don't admit any of the evidence unless it is positively uncontrovertable (which is not the way of law or science-which argue the meaning of evidence all the time), so what good is the conversation? Extremist wackos like the ones you quote are not representative of most environmentalists, anymore than a parade of right wing cranks who say equally demented stuff are representative of your views. (Unless I miss my guess and you are a devotee of Pat Robertson). So, you are left with rising rates of species extinction as the only proven, predicted environmental disaster that we know of. Still, it's pretty compelling if you think about it at all. Oh, yeah, and there's that ozone hole thing.

Are they? What stakes?

This paper reckons for one thing we will cause about an 18% to 35% reduction in biodiversity, depending on how we respond to the crisis, just in the next 43 years.

Of course this response points out that this could easily be a serious underestimate.

how many Libraries of Congress you can fit into an elephant with this technology.

Well, this page estimates LoC at 10 terabytes, which works out to 81920 gigabits. According to the article, a bit density of 100 gigabits per square inch means that you'd need 819.20 square inches to store the Library of Congress.

According to this page, an elephant can reach 11 feet tall, or 132 inches, and 30 feet long, or 360 inches. According to this page, an elephant can reach 6'4" wide, or 76 inches. That's a dimension of 132 x 360 x 76 inches, or 3,611,520 square inches — assuming cubic elephants (there's a phrase you don't hear every day!).

Given these figures, a reasonable first guess would be that you could fit approximately 4,400 Libraries of Congress into an elephantine memory circuit. Or, if you prefer to work with more manageable quantities, 4.4 megalocs per kilophant.

How long before Google add LoCs to their calculator?

I enjoyed Irwin's TV show and his character, but I can't agree that he was a "Model environmentalist".

He was in fact a critic of the concept of "sustainable use", which is regarded by the IUCN (amongst many other international organizations) as being an important conservation mechanism.

http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/susg/bgrnd/intro.ht ml

"Using renewable natural resources sustainably means doing so in such a way that does not threaten a species by over-use, yet it will optimise benefits to both the environment and human needs. Sustainably using natural resources, including plants, forests, fish, and other wildlife, is an important conservation tool when addressing the increasing pressures on nature by people."

Irwin seemed to prefer a "zoo-like" perspective of nature.

what if tomorrow a report comes out showing that African elephants have increased 50% over the last three years... what will the Wikipedia moderators do?

Interesting story -however- there is no factual evidence that the DDT killed the Cats.

What, you think that the cats just up and spontaneously died afterwards? Well, it could've been the dieldrin, but cats died in both locations (both are toxic to animals).

Anyway. Here is a more technical description of the incident.

What's mildly disturbing is that since then, there have been numerous claims that "oh, this is apocryphal" or "the air drop didn't happen", "it was dieldrin, not DDT" etc. but note that the above article has detailed information from the WHO, and links to an eye-witness account of the air drops. It was dieldrin and DDT, and

Hey, if nothing else: DDT was directly responsible for roof collapses in Borneo. Dieldrin actually helped the roofs because the parasites died from it, whereas they avoided the DDT. Lack of predators in the area boosted them, and there were measured higher percentages of larvae in DDT areas.

Here is another much much more detailed description (down in Malaria control), and here is an eye-witness account from 1959 of the cat drop itself.

Note that the author of the cat drop was a little too dismissive of the dangers of the rats (he seemed to be more concerned by the fact that they were nibbling people's toenails and eating transistor radios) but hey, he's a reporter. Can't blame him for that.

Still, though, I really recommend the Charlotte Pomerantz book. It's a well-written children's book which describes what happened in Borneo in a way to help kids understand.

The one thing I will say (that I've said elsewhere, too) is that I might've been being a bit strong in saying what happened there, but that's mainly because the comments I've seen have been equally strong the other way - as in "DDT doesn't cause any damage to ecosystems." Well, it does. I'm not trying to say DDT shouldn't be used. I'm trying to say DDT isn't hand soap. It isn't manna from heaven. It's an insecticide that, if used improperly, can concentrate lethally in apex predators.

Here also is a more detailed history as well. Look in the "Malaria control in the Borneo states".

Yes, it did cause the thatch roofs to rot and collapse.

And if you're wondering why the confusion: it's because all of those things happened. Just depended on where you were - in Sarawak the cockroaches killed the cats, in Sabah the geckoes killed the cats. In Sabah the cats were trucked in. In Sarawak, where the area is inaccessible, the cats were parachuted in.

"Complete devastation" was too strong, I'll agree. I just get a little defensive when people state blindly that DDT is fine for the environment. No, it isn't. It's very bad if used in ridiculous quantities. Note also that that's what Silent Spring was trying to say, as well.

(And did I say that the plague actually happened? If I did, that was a whoops: the plague nearly happened. The rats in the area are plague carriers).

What's funny about this: The reason I usually start with the Pomerantz story is it's basically the only place I've ever seen it. The Harrison article is quoted in the story above as the source for a few pieces of information (but not all). There isn't a single bit in Wikipedia regarding DDT and Borneo at all, and in general the pages that I found searching Google only were teacher's guides. Google Scholar had a bit more, but honestly, it seems this really doesn't get mentioned that often.

See check the link below. http://www.iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/mvpsg/species.h tml#Viverridae But these creatures are native to Madagascar.

Are OTTO fuels, diesel fuels, atomic fuels all nice and safe when exposed to sea water and sea life?
Submarines are a fact and will be for quite some time, keeping them intact is a good thing.

Hmm, I guess people read it and realized they'd better stop having so many kids? ;^)

I find it rather interesting that people who still complain about Earth being "overpopulated" fail to mention the declining growth rate.

That's a bit of a non-sequiter, isn't it? If the Earth is overpopulated, even a zero growth rate wouldn't change that fact. You'd need a negative growth rate in order to shrink the population back to less than the maximum sustainable size. (As to what that size actually is, I won't try to guess, but I do note that fish populations are declining drastically and that many species are becoming extinct in a short period of time. To me, that suggests that we are already past that point)

I don't know about the 50%/50 years stat, but this should be eye-opening enough:
http://www.iucn.org/redlist/redbook/

Extinction is natural. But an extinction rate that may be several orders of magnitude above the historical rate is, frankly, probably not a good thing.

Global extinction rate: SPECIES: UNPRECEDENTED EXTINCTION RATE, AND IT'S INCREASING

And on and on. You can do a google search as well as I can, and you'll even find some counterpoints.

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