In 1990, The Washington Post reported in a front page story:
"Carbon dioxide is the gas most responsible for predictions that
Earth will warm on average by about 3 degrees Fahrenheit by the
year 2020." It further warned: "The United States, because it
occupies a large continent in higher latitudes, could warm by as
much as 6 degrees Fahrenheit." Thirty years later, 2020 has
finally arrived. The Earth has warmed about 1 degree Fahrenheit
according to NASA. The United States also warmed roughly 1
degree.
- CNN ran a headline in
2003 titled 'World oil and gas 'running out'. The New York Times
reported in 1989 that "untapped pools of domestic oil are finite
and dwindling," and that "William Stevens, the president of
Exxon U.S.A., said ... by the year 2020 there would not be
enough domestic oil left 'to keep me interested.'" Both U.S. oil
output and U.S. proven oil reserves are dramatically higher now
than they were in 1989.
- "It's now estimated
that by the year 2020, there will be no glaciers of Mt.
Kilimanjaro," the U.N. Environment Program, told CNN in 2003. In
2001, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson predicted the snows of Mount
Kilimanjaro in Tanzania would disappear within the next 20
years.” Today, Kilimanjaro's glaciers are still there,
according to a 2019 paper in the Journal Ecology and Evolution
that includes photos and another new timetable: "most of
glaciers on Kilimanjaro ... will most likely disappear within 25
years."
- Reuters headline in
1997: "Millions will die unless climate policies change." The
report said 8 million people would die by 2020, citing a
prediction in the Lancet medical journal. “None of these
predictions came true, and aren't even close to coming true,”
said Roy Spencer, a climatologist at the University of Alabama
in Huntsville. “It's amazing that the public can continue to
believe apocalyptic predictions despite a 95 percent decline in
weather-related deaths in the last 100 years.”