6 ms·

"70s energy policy was a result of the oil crisis, not environment concerns." Quite - the environment was not much of a concern. Bear in mind that lead in pet

"70s energy policy was a result of the oil crisis, not environment concerns." Quite - the environment was not much of a concern. Bear in mind that lead in petrol was your anti-knock agent and the catalytic convertor didn't exist. I remember really yellow coloured, sickly verges alongside roads and strawberry sellers in laybyes on the A303 ...

chasil 2y ago
In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling. I doubt that Carter could have intervened in any case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling
- epistasis 2y ago
  I'm not sure your article agrees that cooling was the dominant thought in the public sphere: > "While neither scientists nor the public could be sure in the 1970s whether the world was warming or cooling, people were increasingly inclined to believe that global climate was on the move, and in no small way" And it definitely wasn't in the scientific world: > Concern peaked in the early 1970s, though "the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then Seems more likely that if Carter had an opinion it would be the scientific one, and even if he only read mass media on it he wouldn't necessarily think cooling was the dominant trend.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Mass media was clearly on th side of cooling and anyone trying to argue anything else looks like an idiot to anyone with a memory. And mass media had plenty of science people to quote. (this is of course different from what science showed but almost nobody knows that - what we see on the media is reality)
    - acdha 2y ago
      This is untrue unless “mass media” means “one issue each of Time and Newsweek quoting Reid Bryson”.
      - bluGill 2y ago
        It was all over the media at the time. You are cherry picking.
        acdha 2y ago
        Care to show your work?
        bluGill 2y ago
        I was alive then and remember the coverage.
        epistasis 2y ago
        You remember your view of what you saw. If there was a mix of articles, then there will be a mix of people claiming that they personally saw all one side. Several others in this thread claim they saw cooling articles in the 90s. I never saw a single cooling article but saw many many warming articles and knew even very conservative Republican families that got worked up about the dangers of global warming. Anybody citing a single article or their personal experience is degrading the conversation. A single person's recollection is not even evidence when we can compare to an entire historical record.
        seadan83 2y ago
        Memories are very much subject to confirmation bias and sampling bias. Basing knowledge on personal experience is not solid epistemology. Further, the "I was alive and remember all of the media landscape at a time 50 years ago" is an appeal to authority fallacy. I don't personally dispute your recollections at all, and that is your impression and lived experience - but it does not make it facts. Extrapolating from an individuals experience is liable to be very faulty, again, poor epistemology.
    - transcriptase 2y ago
      The “we need to stop polluting or we’ll cause another ice age” was floating around classrooms in the 90s.
      - selimthegrim 2y ago
        I remember reading a very solid article from the 90s by Imbrie (the father, not the son) about a global cooling model.
      - epistasis 2y ago
        Intelligent design was floating around in classrooms but we don't need to pretend that it was anything other than a fringe political and religious belief.
  - chasil 2y ago
    Here is an article from the New York Times in 1975, that trots out quite a few Ph.D. recipients: "That the climate, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, has been getting cooler since about 1950, is well estabt lished—if one ignores the last two winters." https://archive.ph/k6xfu https://archive.ph/k6xfu
    - epistasis 2y ago
      A single article does not in any way refute the quote in my comment, and could not. Even 10 or 20 such articles could not refute. It would take a study of the entire media environment of the time.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- gerdesj 2y ago
  I don't remember "global cooling" but to be fair, I was only 10 by 1980. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling - OK but do bear in mind that fags (cigarettes) were still being advertised as good for your health in the '70s. Global cooling/warming was not really a feared effect back then - both were merely noted. What really concentrated the mind was the Cold War for the mainstream minded. For the usual bat shit loopy mob, there was the usual alien invasions and that! I was a UK soldier's brat (my mum was a soldier too when she met dad but "retired" on advice when they married). We spent quite a lot of time in West Germany. I remember seeing Tupolev Bears and Badgers getting "lost" and being given directions by large fireworks with pilots strapped on top with a couple of side winder missiles and a cannon that fires rounds that they might fly into themselves. OK it was the '70's. Dad's staff car was a Sioux or a Merc. 432s and 434s, Chieftains, Stalwarts, Saracens, Saladins and the rest would rumble around - that was just UK gear. West Germany had Leopards, Luchs (Lynx) and more. Phantoms, Starfighters, Buccaneers, Harriers and all the rest. I remember watching flights of Phantoms (four) lift off from say RAF Wildenrath, put their foot down (afterburner) and scoot off to whatever they had to do. It was quite deafening, and I was in a playground! "Global cooling" - no, no idea! I hope I have given you a mild flavour of just how unimportant the environment was generally considered back in the day by the general public. There was quite a lot of other things going on. Nowadays, the weather rather speaks for itself.
- acdha 2y ago
  > In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling This is a common trope but it’s mostly been promoted by fossil fuel lobbyists to pretend climate scientists weren’t right than reality. That alternate history is mostly promulgated by the likes of noted-creationist Duane Gish or general purpose denialists like Stephen Milloy, but it doesn’t hold up when you look at the record. People had been concerned about global warming since 1896, and scientists had been increasingly concerned before World War II. There were a handful of papers in the early 1970s predicting cooling based on aerosol effects BUT those did not reflect widespread consensus and other researchers at the same time published papers predicting warming, and those papers were considered stronger. What most of this hangs off of is that Time magazine “Another Ice Age?” article which sounded dramatic but was actually inconclusive about the future. It sold a lot of issues, but it wasn’t exactly a climate science journal. By the end of the 1970s, consensus had been reached that the earth was warming and most climate science research was focused on how it would happen rather than whether. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl...
- throw0101d 2y ago
  > In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling. Not really. From your Wikipedia link: > In the scientific papers which considered climate trends of the 21st century, fewer than 10% were inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming.[1] […] By the time the idea of global cooling reached the public press in the mid-1970s temperatures had stopped falling, and there was concern in the climatological community about carbon dioxide's warming effects.[4] In response to such reports, the World Meteorological Organization issued a warning in June 1976 that "a very significant warming of global climate" was probable.[5] It was a small minority in the scientific community. The concern got blown out of proportion by some cover stories.
- cbsmith 2y ago
  I was alive in the 1970's and I can tell you that aside from a Time magazine article, Global cooling was not a broadly feared effect.

chasil 2y ago

In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling. I doubt that Carter could have intervened in any case. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

epistasis 2y ago
I'm not sure your article agrees that cooling was the dominant thought in the public sphere: > "While neither scientists nor the public could be sure in the 1970s whether the world was warming or cooling, people were increasingly inclined to believe that global climate was on the move, and in no small way" And it definitely wasn't in the scientific world: > Concern peaked in the early 1970s, though "the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then Seems more likely that if Carter had an opinion it would be the scientific one, and even if he only read mass media on it he wouldn't necessarily think cooling was the dominant trend.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Mass media was clearly on th side of cooling and anyone trying to argue anything else looks like an idiot to anyone with a memory. And mass media had plenty of science people to quote. (this is of course different from what science showed but almost nobody knows that - what we see on the media is reality)
  - acdha 2y ago
    This is untrue unless “mass media” means “one issue each of Time and Newsweek quoting Reid Bryson”.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      It was all over the media at the time. You are cherry picking.
      - acdha 2y ago
        Care to show your work?
        bluGill 2y ago
        I was alive then and remember the coverage.
        epistasis 2y ago
        You remember your view of what you saw. If there was a mix of articles, then there will be a mix of people claiming that they personally saw all one side. Several others in this thread claim they saw cooling articles in the 90s. I never saw a single cooling article but saw many many warming articles and knew even very conservative Republican families that got worked up about the dangers of global warming. Anybody citing a single article or their personal experience is degrading the conversation. A single person's recollection is not even evidence when we can compare to an entire historical record.
        seadan83 2y ago
        Memories are very much subject to confirmation bias and sampling bias. Basing knowledge on personal experience is not solid epistemology. Further, the "I was alive and remember all of the media landscape at a time 50 years ago" is an appeal to authority fallacy. I don't personally dispute your recollections at all, and that is your impression and lived experience - but it does not make it facts. Extrapolating from an individuals experience is liable to be very faulty, again, poor epistemology.
  - transcriptase 2y ago
    The “we need to stop polluting or we’ll cause another ice age” was floating around classrooms in the 90s.
    - selimthegrim 2y ago
      I remember reading a very solid article from the 90s by Imbrie (the father, not the son) about a global cooling model.
    - epistasis 2y ago
      Intelligent design was floating around in classrooms but we don't need to pretend that it was anything other than a fringe political and religious belief.
- chasil 2y ago
  Here is an article from the New York Times in 1975, that trots out quite a few Ph.D. recipients: "That the climate, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, has been getting cooler since about 1950, is well estabt lished—if one ignores the last two winters." https://archive.ph/k6xfu https://archive.ph/k6xfu
  - epistasis 2y ago
    A single article does not in any way refute the quote in my comment, and could not. Even 10 or 20 such articles could not refute. It would take a study of the entire media environment of the time.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
gerdesj 2y ago
I don't remember "global cooling" but to be fair, I was only 10 by 1980. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling - OK but do bear in mind that fags (cigarettes) were still being advertised as good for your health in the '70s. Global cooling/warming was not really a feared effect back then - both were merely noted. What really concentrated the mind was the Cold War for the mainstream minded. For the usual bat shit loopy mob, there was the usual alien invasions and that! I was a UK soldier's brat (my mum was a soldier too when she met dad but "retired" on advice when they married). We spent quite a lot of time in West Germany. I remember seeing Tupolev Bears and Badgers getting "lost" and being given directions by large fireworks with pilots strapped on top with a couple of side winder missiles and a cannon that fires rounds that they might fly into themselves. OK it was the '70's. Dad's staff car was a Sioux or a Merc. 432s and 434s, Chieftains, Stalwarts, Saracens, Saladins and the rest would rumble around - that was just UK gear. West Germany had Leopards, Luchs (Lynx) and more. Phantoms, Starfighters, Buccaneers, Harriers and all the rest. I remember watching flights of Phantoms (four) lift off from say RAF Wildenrath, put their foot down (afterburner) and scoot off to whatever they had to do. It was quite deafening, and I was in a playground! "Global cooling" - no, no idea! I hope I have given you a mild flavour of just how unimportant the environment was generally considered back in the day by the general public. There was quite a lot of other things going on. Nowadays, the weather rather speaks for itself.
acdha 2y ago
> In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling This is a common trope but it’s mostly been promoted by fossil fuel lobbyists to pretend climate scientists weren’t right than reality. That alternate history is mostly promulgated by the likes of noted-creationist Duane Gish or general purpose denialists like Stephen Milloy, but it doesn’t hold up when you look at the record. People had been concerned about global warming since 1896, and scientists had been increasingly concerned before World War II. There were a handful of papers in the early 1970s predicting cooling based on aerosol effects BUT those did not reflect widespread consensus and other researchers at the same time published papers predicting warming, and those papers were considered stronger. What most of this hangs off of is that Time magazine “Another Ice Age?” article which sounded dramatic but was actually inconclusive about the future. It sold a lot of issues, but it wasn’t exactly a climate science journal. By the end of the 1970s, consensus had been reached that the earth was warming and most climate science research was focused on how it would happen rather than whether. http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1 https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-climate-science-really-call-for-a-coming-ice-age/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl...
throw0101d 2y ago
> In the 1970s, the feared effect was global cooling. Not really. From your Wikipedia link: > In the scientific papers which considered climate trends of the 21st century, fewer than 10% were inclined towards future cooling, while most papers predicted future warming.[1] […] By the time the idea of global cooling reached the public press in the mid-1970s temperatures had stopped falling, and there was concern in the climatological community about carbon dioxide's warming effects.[4] In response to such reports, the World Meteorological Organization issued a warning in June 1976 that "a very significant warming of global climate" was probable.[5] It was a small minority in the scientific community. The concern got blown out of proportion by some cover stories.
cbsmith 2y ago
I was alive in the 1970's and I can tell you that aside from a Time magazine article, Global cooling was not a broadly feared effect.