While searching over the web for something completely irelevant, I came across this comment. Unfortunately, it's been too long and I'm unable to post a reply the traditional way. I have been unable to locate an email address to contact the poster, so I will reply here. Slashdot user 6989: NullPointer responded to a post about predictions of global warming:

OK, I'll bite, how about Sagan's prediction after the Gulf war:

Shortly after the first oil wells began to burn, Carl Sagan appeared on ABC's Nightline and predicted that " the net effects would be similar to the explosion of the Indonesian volcano Tambora in 1815, which resulted in the year 1816 being known as the year without a summer" (p. 37, 1992).

Hmm, interesting. Why don't we look at the next few sentences in the article and see what else it has to say?

Yet, researchers at the other end of the spectrum projected that the smoke's effects would be "marginal at worst" (p.37, 1992). Today, it was revealed that to some extent, everyone was wrong (1992). Sagan and others arrived at their conclusions based on a nuclear winter fall-out scenario in which smoke would remain entrapped in the upper atmosphere, and cause temperatures to drop radically on earth below. However, from the start of the Gulf War, if was widely believed that the amount of smoke produced from the Kuwait oil fires would be far less than that created by a full-scale nuclear war; subsequently, the comparison was irrelevant (1992).

Carl Sagan didn't predict that the smoke produced by the oil would blacken the sky. He predicted that the Gulf War would spark a nuclear war which would lead to nuclear winter. Most of his life, Carl Sagan had a terrible fear of the sun being blocked out by the dark skies nuclear war could create. If indeed there had been a nuclear war, Sagan might have been correct. But this doesn't help NullPointer's point at all - it wasn't the prediction he's portraying it as. This is another example of why it is so important not to take quotes out of context.

The article goes on to describe what effects the pollution from war did have, such as acid rain, disease transfer and respiratory problems.

Or, how about the great frozen earth [globalclimate.org] from 1975:

I'm not going to remove the brackets from this one. Look at the source. GlobalClimate.org was an industry lobbying group, formed by the same companies that are responsible for polluting the country and have the most to lose financially if they are forced to clean up their act. What better way to combat the evidence for global warming by spreading myths about global cooling? Take a look at "The Heat Is Online" to learn about this and other similar attempts by corporate interests attempts to deceive the public. See the Disinformation Section for more information.

Or, what about the great earthquakes that were predicted in The Jupiter Effect

Ignoring the fact that this book is advertised on LuckyStarz, an astrology site, this really doesn't have anything to do with enviornmental predictions, does it? I was able to find John Gribbin's personal page here.
These men are experts in astrophysics, not the enviornment. Are you going to attack the astrophysics community for this? Or just recognize that these were two people trying to make a quick buck off the gullibility of the populace?

Sorry, still editing...

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-828858.html tells how Bush Jr. has decided to reduce funding for research tech grants. The reason cited is that it's been replaced by corporate research. Gee, Bush II, thank you so much for moving us closer to a Plutocracy. The little guy has less money and the big corporations have less competition. No coverage at CNN yet, no surprise. I submitted the story to Slashdot under the category of The Almighty Buck. I highly doubt it will go through, especially considering I referred to Bush Jr. as Bush Jr. instead of the 23rd letter of the alphabet.

For my first journal entry, I'd just like to say that I'm not happy about this practice.