What happened to the Global Cooling theory of the 70's?

Question

I remember when I was a kid how all the Eco - Hippies ran around spouting about how the world was going to enter a new Ice Age because of all the pollution. What happened to that theory?

Answer 1

First, let's put it into perspective. Global Cooling consisted of a handful of press reports taking the science out of context. Time, National Geographic and News Week each printed a few paragraphs. You can find these articles easy enough but you won't find much else simply because there isn't much else.

Scientists then, as now, were studying the effects of the way the Earth moves, collectively these cycles are known as Milankovitch Cycles - there's three of them: precession, obliquity (elliptical and equinoxal) and eccentricity. A simpler description would be to say the Earth wobbles. These wobbles have, and will, contribute to global cooling - the scientists were absolutely correct in their observations.

There was never any suggestion an ice age was imminent, the talk was of a long term cooling trend if there were no other factors involved. There are other factors involved and, as scientists have been stating for almost 200 years, the world is warming. The warming is far greater than any cooling.

The theory is still around, it's just that nowadays it's proven scientific fact.

Unfortunately some global warming skeptics use global cooling in a desperate attempt to refute global warming but have obviously failed to read the articles in question. If they had they'd know that there was never any suggestion of imminent changes and if they looked into it in more detail they'd know that the scientists were right. If you read the article Just Me has linked to you'll see exactly what I mean. Despite this having been pointed out again and again to the skeptics they simply chose to ignore the facts because they don't like them.

Answer 2

Between the years of 1940 and the mid 1970's the earth's temperature leveled off and dropped slightly. It is funny when people answer this question by saying science was not as advanced because our current ice core data shows the leveling off trend. The fact is before 1940 the earth had been warming and when the temperature began to level off the activists pronounced a new ice age, not because the science was bad (our current science still shows what they saw), but because they interpret every little change in temperature as a catastrophic event that will doom the earth because of man's actions. The earth goes through natural warming and cooling stages and once we accept that we will be a lot happier.

To prove my point that the science here is a graph off a very pro man made global warming website, the graph is new:
http://www.truthtree.com/images/globaltemp.gif
You can see a warming trend up until 1940 at which point the temperature plummets leading to the idea the the earth was going into an ice age. Stop claiming the science was not as accurate when even our latest studies show the same thing. This scare was not a lapse in science but a lapse in understanding that the earth goes through natural temperature variations.

Answer 3

Yes, I remember also and found a great article on a Newsweek site:

Oct. 23, 2006 - In April, 1975, in an issue mostly taken up with stories about the collapse of the American-backed government of South Vietnam, NEWSWEEK published a small back-page article about a very different kind of disaster. Citing "ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically," the magazine warned of an impending "drastic decline in food production." Political disruptions stemming from food shortages could affect "just about every nation on earth." Scientists urged governments to consider emergency action to head off the terrible threat of . . . well, if you had been following the climate-change debates at the time, you'd have known that the threat was: global cooling.

Answer 4

Just because it is called global warming does not mean it is only in reference to warmer weather. Global warming is in effect the more extreme temperatures across the country and the world. the extreme temperature shifts and changes will cause harmful effects to native animals and all creatures. It is not just about humans adjusting to extreme weather but also livestock and the food system of the world. we can see this years horrible frost in florida crippling fruit and veggitable production. we are seeing hurricanes and extreme snow in places never seen before. Although the name may have changed to warming instead of cooling, the same principles and philosophies are behind it. It absolutely is happening and there are tons of opportunities and possibilities to tackle the issue.

Answer 5

during the 70s, atmospheric chemist were mainly concerned with the upper levels of the atmosphere, the troposphere.
It was coooling, just like it is now. They were mainly concerned about this thing we call the ozone layer, and how it works.

when better technology emerged, as well as more concern about the entire atmosphere, they realized the lower areas, the stratosphere, was warming even while the troposphere was, and is cooling.

and then there where these skeptics, that argued that the Earth wasn't cooling, because greenhouse gases trap in heat, so there was nothing to worry about. but of course those same skeptics, after being proven correct about heat trapping, are saying now that they don't, so we should continue to pollute to our heart's content.

Answer 6

New technology came along. When you look at how much technology has improved since then it's pretty understandable.

Insurance companies are now concerned about global warming and its effects. So something must be happening.

Answer 7

Maybe he is saying that the eco hippies were very adamant that they were right and everyone else was wrong and the correlations with the GW people seem to be somewhat the same.

Answer 8

If I'm not mistaken, that theory is why we no longer use Freon.

If Global Warming is the new trend, maybe we can go back to Freon and at least have air conditioning.

Answer 9

Nobody paid any attention to that because they knew it was all just hot air ..Now that they turned it into global warming we know they are really full of hot air . Isn't it cute..how the 8 years the Clintons & Gore were in the White House ..global warming wasn't important ..but the minute George W. took over ..all of a sudden we are in dire doom - and it's all Bush's fault ..Lets face it - liberal democrats always have a new story to pull on the unsuspecting public .

Answer 10

The way of Crystal Pepsi