Famous Headline-Grabbing Predictions That Fizzled

Are today's headlines terrorizing your children?

1. GLOBAL COOLING (1970's)

In 1974, the National Science Foundation predicts that declining world temperatures herald the beginning of "the next glacial age." A bestselling book in 1976, "The Cooling," states, "As Earth cools, as sunlight diminishes, as the range of snow and the length of winter increases, the possibility of a snow blitz grows greater and greater....Ice and snow covers more area today than even a decade ago, and by some indications the cooling has only begun."

OUTCOME. Global temperatures start heating up, putting an end to the global cooling issue.

2. THE LIMITS TO GROWTH (1970's) In 1972, in an influential and widely-publicized report entitled "The Limits to Growth," the Club of Rome predicts that the world's population will hit 7 billion by 2000. As a result, there will be worldwide starvation as population growth outpaces the world's ability to feed itself. The price of natural resources such as gold, copper, tin, and particularly oil will skyrocket during the remainder of the century as supplies dwindle.

OUTCOME. The world's population barely hits 6 billion by the end of the century. Natural resources are more abundant and are less expensive in real terms, than they were when The Limits to Growth was published.

3. THE POPULATION BOMB (1970's and 1980's) In a bestselling and widely quoted book, "The Population Bomb," Dr. Paul Ehrlich writes, "In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..."

OUTCOME. The 1970's and 1980's end with a dramatic decline in worldwide famine and mortality.

4. THE IMPENDING JAPANESE ECONOMIC TAKEOVER (1980s) The Japanese economy expands robustly and begins to dominate high tech industries, under the direction of the Japanese government's Ministry of Trade and Industries (MITI). A series of bestselling books argue that the American free-market economy can no longer compete against countries that establish a strong business-government partnership.

OUTCOME. The Japanese business-government collaboration collapses under its own bureaucratic weight, and is followed by fourteen years of economic stagnation in Japan.

5. NUCLEAR WINTER (1980's) In bestselling books such as "The Fate of the Earth," anti-nuclear activists warn that the ongoing buildup of nuclear arms could result in "nuclear winter," and the end of virtually all human life on earth.

OUTCOME. The U.S. continues to build up its nuclear weapons, which results in the peaceful end of the Cold War.

6. THE GREAT DEPRESSION OF 1990. In his bestselling book "The Great Depression of 1990," Dr. Ravi Batra predicts a collapse of the Western economies and a world depression that will arrive in 1990 and last for seven years.

OUTCOME. A recession in 1990-1991 is followed by a period of relative prosperity throughout the rest of the decade with next period of recession being expected.

7.(1990's) Y2K Hysteria builds as the year 2000 ("Y2K") approaches. Most computer data bases only allow two digit years (for example, 1957 is entered as "57"), leading computer experts to believe that computers will read "00" as 1900. A series of bestselling books such as "Time Bomb 2000" argue that there could be severe economic shutdowns and shortages as a result of this glitch. In the words of one computer expert (but typical of many others), "The Y2K problem is systemic. It cannot be fixed. The interconnections are too many. A noncompliant computer will spread bad data and re-corrupt a compliant computer. Either the noncompliant computers will re-corrupt the compliant ones, or else the compliant ones must cease all contact with noncompliant ones, thereby shutting down entire systems, most notably the banking system."

OUTCOME. January 1, 2000 comes and goes uneventfully.

6.INTERPRETING SKILLS TRAINING

Задание. Передайте содержание почитанного/прослушанного текста несколькими фразами.

1. Rubbish idea that could make driving cheaper A British company may have the answer to soaring petrol prices after it claimed yesterday to have become the first to have found a way to make fuel from rubbish. Ineos, the chemicals company, said that it had patented a method of producing fuel from municipal solid waste, agricultural waste and organic commercial waste. The company claims that it can produce about 400 litres (90 gallons) of ethanol from one tonne of dry waste. The new process works by heating the waste to produce gases, then feeding the gases to bacteria, which produce ethanol that can be purified into a fuel. Peter Williams, the chief executive of Ineos Bio, said: “This should mean that, unlike with other biofuels, we won’t have to make the choice between food and fuel.” The bioethanol that Ineos produces will have to be combined with a fossil fuel, however, because very few cars in Britain can run solely on bioethanol. Cars that run on bioethanol have been made in Brazil, where a comprehensive biofuels industry is based on sugar cane. Biofuels have been backed by governments as one of the key ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The EU aims to get 10 per cent of its road transport fuel from renewable sources such as biofuels by 2020. Present methods of producing biofuels from crops have been criticised for causing high food prices by taking up land that would have been used to grow food.

2. Bang the drum for rock’n’ roll heroes They have been the butt of jokes, and even the most agile of their number have seldom been regarded as paragons of physical virtue. For all John Bonham’s thunderous half-hour solos behind Led Zeppelin, and Keith Moon’s frenzied skin-bashing with The Who, neither man - nor the generations of drummers who followed them - was ever recognised as a finely tuned athlete. But all that is about to change. After an eight-year study of Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, sports scientists have concluded that drummers are comparable in their physical prowess to world-class sportsmen. Marcus Smith, of the University of Chichester, told The Times: “For me, as a sports scientist, he is no different to the Olympic athletes I have worked with.” Dr Smith and Steve Draper, of the University of Gloucestershire, monitored Burke’s oxygen uptake, blood lactate and heart rate in rehearsals and live performances. “He loses up to two litres of fluid in a performance, which is similar to a runner going out and doing 10,000 metres,” Dr Smith said. Burke burnt 400-600 calories per hour. His heart rate averaged 140 to 150 beats a minute, though it could rise as high as 190 beats - equalling that of Cristiano Ronaldo in a Premier League football match. Burke needs to stay in peak physical condition and can sometimes suffer from joint pain. “Jacuzzis, saunas, massages, all that is incorporated into the life of the modern drummer,” he said.

3. World Heritage sites may soon be off tourism map LONDON (Reuters) - World Heritage sites such as Australia's Great Barrier Reef or Kathmandu in Nepal could be taken off the tourism map by 2020 due to the effects of climate change and too many visitors, a think tank said on Friday In a report prepared for UK insurance company Churchill, the Center for Future Studies (CFS) listed 10 popular destinations that could be either permanently closed or have a visitor cap within 15 years. "I'm reasonably confident we're going to see an increasing climate degradation that is going to impact on various places in the world with increasing severity," CFS director Frank Shaw told Reuters. "Floods, storms, droughts, increasing and erratic temperatures will combine to bring about changes in destination choice for tourists." Florida's Everglades in the United States, Athens in Greece, Croatia's Dalmatian coastline, Tuscany and the Amalfi Coast in Italy as well as the Maldives are some of the other destinations at risk highlighted by the report.The study drew on evidence provided by scientists, governments, as well as tourism and environmental organizations from around the world. Tourism activity on the Great Barrier Reef, situated off Queensland state in Australia's northeast, injects an estimated two billion pounds into the local economy each year. "There is a conflict between environmental concerns and commercial interests," added Shaw. "For some countries tourism represents a significant part of their gross domestic product."But there is evidence Australia and many other governments are considering what can be done to protect national assets."

4.Дом моет сам себя с мылом "Работа по дому — неблагодарная, бесконечная работа, скучная и изматывающая нервы. Кому это нравится? Никому!" — вскричала в 1940-х одна американка и нашла, по её словам, "лучший путь".   Франсис Гейб (род. 1915) изобрела дом, который убирает сам себя — самоочищающийся (Self-Cleaning House). Точнее даже не изобрела, а за пару десятков лет перестроила собственный построенный из шлакоблоков дом. Стены, потолки и полы дома Гейб покрыла водонепроницаемой смолой. Вся мебель в жилище также была заменена на сделанную из водонепроницаемых материалов. В каждой из комнат на потолке точно в центре были приделаны диковинные устройства, совмещающие в себе функции очистки, сушки, нагревания и охлаждения. Такое устройство включается одним нажатием кнопки, после чего срабатывает что-то вроде душа: из вращающихся под потолком носиков по всей комнате разбрызгивается мыльная вода. Нажатие другой кнопки — и начинает литься чистая вода, смывающая мыло. Третья кнопка активирует гигантский вентилятор, который осушает теперь уже очищенное помещение. Книжные полки сами с себя убирают пыль, а камин оборудован так, что сам избавляется от пепла. Одёжный шкаф — это комбинация стиральной машины с функцией сушки: вы просто вешаете в него брюки и достаёте потом чистую вещь, чистка происходит прямо на вешалках. Кухонный шкаф является посудомоечной машиной: вы ставите грязную посуду в буфет, закрываете дверь, нажимаете кнопку. Дом в Орегоне обветшал, однако, говорят, все еще привлекает внимание туристов.

7.2-WAY INTERPRETING

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