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"Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost u
by bhk 7y ago
"Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. ... If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. ``A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,'' warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, ``because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.''" -- Newsweek, April 28, 1975
Check out the apocalyptic tone of the last paragraph: http://agem.com/GlobalCooling.htm http://agem.com/GlobalCooling.htm
Not just Newsweek, but Time, the New York Times, and other outlets reported on it.
Elementary school children were taught it. I was one of them.
I read now that meteorologists (this is before "climatologist" was a real thing) were divided on whether there was cooling or warming. (But it seems that they were mostly in agreement that something catastrophic was going to happen!)
This global cooling episode does not teach us that there was a scientific consensus on cooling in the 70s, or that climate research since then is equally unfounded. However, it is a really interesting story.
- droithomme 7y agoI too heard back then about how scientists were nearly unanimous in their consensus. I wonder how old these people are swearing that we are wrong and hallucinating. Most of them were undoubtedly born long after these events.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoI remember two occasions in the seventies that climate cooling was reported. Both times it was presented as something of "here's a bit of a crazy idea" for the last spot of the news. I don't remember any of the pop science programmes that I used to watch avidly back then ever covering it, though every series had one or two slots for some crazy or outlier idea... Sometimes to see potential, sometimes to debunk. In the early 80s I picked up one of the "coming ice age" paperbacks, remaindered down to pennies, in the same category as Von Danekin's Chariots of the Gods and his Egyptian aliens. It was absolute garbage, but that's beside the point here. I probably still have it at the back of a bookshelf. Yet already by the early 80s climate heating was coming up in conjunction with acid rain and ozone depletion - they were a holy trinity that often seemed to come together, and they were starting to crop up regularly. Ultimately reporting of all increased throughout the decade, leading to action on ozone and acid rain, and formation of IPCC, at the end of the decade but also the start of the industry moves to oppose via disinformation and obfuscation - the tobacco playbook. Like the Bush administration effort to rebrand climate heating as climate crisis - as that sounds benign and normal. So I'm old enough, and I doubt your tale - perhaps some sources were reporting it poorly, perhaps the US bought into some climate cooling cult in a way that was completely and entirely unseen here in Europe.
- hcknwscommenter 7y agoMeteorologists are not, and have never been, scientists. Their opinion on climate is no more valid than any other lay persons. It is like equating the physicists and engineers who develop new MRI machines with the technicians who press the button at the imaging center. Time and Newsweek are not scientific sources. Your whole post is just nonsense.
- bhk 7y agoWow. You've just insulted an entire field of research.
- hcknwscommenter 7y agoMeteorologists are not researchers in the field of meteorology.