Back on April 28, 1975 Newsweek did a cover issue warning us of global cooling. I can still remember reading that article and wondering if it was already too late for us all. Then just before I entered my senior year of high school The New York Times, (Aug. 14, 1976) reported "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."
How could we possibly question all the "scientific facts"? Our world was heading for an ice age and humans were not only headed for destruction but were ultimately the cause of the cooling. It's a wonder I bothered graduating from high school because the world was teetering on the brink. After all according to the scientific predictions were only ten years away from self destruction. Who needs a diploma if that's the future you are looking at.
Fortunately for me I not only completed my diploma but went on to get my degree. Oh and by the way, the earth did not end. Oh it felt like it did a few times but last I checked the human race is still alive. Could it be that science was, well wrong?
OK, OK you say, those were just media people and they must have gotten their facts wrong. Actually, In 1974, the National Science Board announced: "During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end…leading into the next ice age."
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” • Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” • Life Magazine, January 1970
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” • Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University (Notice that pesky word unanimously. Think "the debate is over")
Back then polar bears were not the harbinger of the end of times, no it was the humble armadillo. You see The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the "global cooling" in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
Were the scientists just wrong? Did they manipulate the data? If we follow the money would we learn that scientists were seeking out grant money? Is the real question if you don't believe in global cooling then you are a flat earther? Are armadillos flat earthers?
But wait! Forget those pesky armadillos! Polar Bears are dying! I think this claim is the one that gets to me the most. Who doesn't love looking at those beautiful white bears, from a distance of course. If I say that I think there may be reason to question global warming does that mean I want polar bears to die?
Gore says a scientific study shows that polar bears are being killed swimming long distances to find ice that has melted away because of “global warming.” They are not. The study, by Monnett & Gleason (2005), mentioned just four dead bears. They had died in an exceptional storm, with high winds and waves in the Beaufort Sea. The amount of sea ice in the Beaufort Sea has grown over the past 30 years. A report for the World Wide Fund for Nature shows that polar bears, which are warm-blooded, have grown in numbers where temperature has increased, and have become fewer where temperature has fallen.
Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago, and survived the last interglacial period, when global temperature was 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the present and there was probably no Arctic ice-cap at all. The real threat to polar bears is not “global warming” but hunting. In 1940, there were just 5,000 polar bears worldwide. Now that hunting is controlled, there are 25,000
Let's do something about what's really killing polar bears, hunting. Many of us are appalled by the clubbing of seals but do you hear much about the killing of polar bears by hunters? Why not?
Yes let's save the polar bears Mr. Gore. Instead of buying carbon credits, get out there and tell people about this brutal slaughtering of polar bears.
My question is what happened to global cooling? One day it was all over the news and the next thing you know, you never heard about it. This hypothesis never had significant scientific support, but gained temporary popular attention due to a combination of press reports that did not accurately reflect the scientific understanding of ice age cycles, and a slight downward trend of temperatures from the 1940s to the early 1970s.
Hmmm. Sounds kind of familiar doesn't it?
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