[mbostleman]

I'm not sure this is a particularly constructive line of debate, but predictions in the 1970s from [sources well known and accepted by mainstream press, if not reputable in hindsight or by other definitions] are pretty numerous. Here is one from Paul Ehrlich in April 1970:

"Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make...The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years."

There are many more. I think this type of stuff was that decade's click bait.

[dylan604]

In the 1970s, people were dealing with things like Acid Rain and large hole in the ozone layer. Things probably were much more dire looking at that point.

[klyrs]

More to the point, we acted decisively as a society to remediate these conditions and those efforts succeeded. To look back now and ridicule those predictions without considering the actions taken to prevent them is folly.

[kyleee]

And people were worried about catastrophic global cooling

[klyrs]

Some were, yes, but they were in the minority. Curiously, folks are still predicting global cooling, but the proportion of such papers continues to dwindle.

https://skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-in...

[bzb5]

Just like now we are worried about catastrophic global warming. Only that, of course, now we are right. ;-)

[perl4ever]

If you look at a temperature graph all would become clear. It's not like the data they had was fake or misrepresented, it's just that the trend is noisy and became clearer later. Now that it is clear, it makes no sense to say "we could still be wrong". It's like a stock market graph; you don't know if a few days ago was the peak, but in a year you do. Or in case of climate, 30-40 years.