[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 81 (Monday, May 15, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H2334]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     EARTH DAY FOUNDERS KNEW LITTLE

  (Mr. GROTHMAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, in all the hubbub over the significant 
legislation and the debt limit last week, I think this body let the 
founding of Earth Day pass.
  Of course, the father of Earth Day was none other than Wisconsin 
Senator Gaylord Nelson. I am sure all of Wisconsin's little 
schoolchildren are taught that.
  Given that we are celebrating the 73rd anniversary of Earth Day, I 
think we should go back and look at what some of the founders of Earth 
Day said at that time.
  Gaylord Nelson said that within 25 years of the first Earth Day, 
which was in 1970, 75 to 80 percent of the species of the Earth would 
be extinct.
  Paul Ehrlich, biologist and author of the best-selling book ``The 
Population Bomb,'' predicted that 100 to 200 million people would be 
starving per year in the 1980s and that 65 million Americans would die 
in the 1980s.
  George Wald, a well-known Harvard biologist, predicted that 
civilization would end within 15 to 30 years unless action was taken 
quickly.
  Barry Commoner, another windbag who was on television all the time in 
the 1970s, also predicted that all the oxygen would be used up in 
America's freshwater rivers.
  The lesson is: Go back and see what those founders of Earth Day said 
and see how little they really knew about what the future held for us.

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