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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 1
by 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 agoMass 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 agoThis is untrue unless “mass media” means “one issue each of Time and Newsweek quoting Reid Bryson”.
- bluGill 2y agoIt was all over the media at the time. You are cherry picking.
- acdha 2y agoCare to show your work?
- bluGill 2y agoI was alive then and remember the coverage.
- epistasis 2y agoYou 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 agoMemories 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.
- kbutler 2y agoNot that this will convince anyone currently attempting to rewrite this out of history (or determined to believe those who rewrite history), but the media panic, reporting on the scientific discussion, was much broader than that. The scientific studies and opinions varied - it was not one-sided, but the "ice age" predictions were much more marketable, at least. 5 minutes of checking found three issues of Time, one from 1994. * 24 Jun 1974 https://time.com/archive/6878023/another-ice-age/ (well-known) * 13 Nov 1972 https://time.com/archive/6844319/science-another-ice-age/ ("refuses to speculate") * 31 Jan 1994 https://time.com/archive/6724662/the-ice-age-cometh/ ("the greenhouse effect could heat up the planet for a while but then trigger changes that could plunge the earth into a sudden chill.") Here are others: * “The Earth’s Cooling Climate,” Science News, November 15, 1969 * “Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age,” Washington Post, January 11, 1970. * “Science: Another Ice Age?” Time Magazine, June 24, 1974. * “The Ice Age Cometh!” Science News, March 1, 1975. * “The Cooling World,” Newsweek, April 28, 1975. * “Scientists Ask Why World Climate is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead,” New York Times, May 21, 1975. * “In the Grip of a New Ice Age?” International Wildlife July-August, 1975. * “A Major Cooling Widely Considered to Be Inevitable,” New York Times, September 14, 1975. * “Variations in the Earth’s Orbit, Pacemaker of the Ice Ages,” Science magazine, December 10, 1976.
- kbelder 2y agoYeah. It was all over popular media, but that seems to be ignored by people who weren't around then. They'll claim that what you actually saw is just anecdotal and should be ignored.
- epistasis 2y agoIt appears that you are the one attempting to rewrite, the claim is that both cooling and warming were reported on in mass media, not that just one was. One can't search for this stuff without coming across lots of both warming and cooling articles. And one finds tons of intentional deception pushing cooling articles. Here's a Reuters article calling out one bit of misinformation pushing cooling articles that were not actually about cooling: https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/time-magazine-front-covers-corrupted-push-climate-misinformation-2024-03-19/ https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/time-magazine-front-cover... My question is why there is such a modern push to decieve about cooling in the mass media? What purpose does it serve for people?
- transcriptase 2y agoThe “we need to stop polluting or we’ll cause another ice age” was floating around classrooms in the 90s.
- selimthegrim 2y agoI remember reading a very solid article from the 90s by Imbrie (the father, not the son) about a global cooling model.
- epistasis 2y agoIntelligent 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 agoHere 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 agoA 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]