Isn't a 1970s global cooling warning an example of why we should decrease greenhouse gas emissions?

Question

A few decades ago we were warned of a growing hole in the ozone layer. We responded by reducing CFC emissions, and have essentially solved the problem.

In 1999 we were warned of potential computer crashes due to the Y2K bug. We responded by fixing the computer software and solved the problem.

In the 1970s few scientists warned of an imminent ice age

http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/iceage/

but one crude climate simulation (supported by a computer program witten by James Hansen) showed that if sulfur dioxide emissions continued to increase at the rate they had been as of 1970, they could eventually trigger an ice age.

This was a reasonable conclusion, because the SO2 emissions had been causing global cooling from 1940-1970, but our SO2 emissions peaked in 1980 and have been declining ever since. See pages 12-14 here:

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf

So again we solved the problem.

Is this not the case for CO2 now?

Answer 1

The obviously Republican idiot-It must be great to be so gullible to believe that the info you're getting is not tainted by the money grubbers leading the 'do nothing except increase your dependence on oil 'campaign. Ugh. So unpatriotic.
It should be obvious that there is a large enough population to at least have a large effect on the GW crisis.

Answer 2

Well, while our SO@ emissions may have peak (and acid rain was the bigger problem) one might point out that when Mount St. Helens for example, or mT. Penetubo erupted, they disgorged more SO2 into the atmosphere than the entire world did for roughly 10 years. Likewise, with CO2 emmisions the amount of CO2 produced from the fires currently burning out of control dwarf what industry puts out in the LA basin. Your statement that SO2 emmisions caused global cooling for 1940-1970 is an example of a logical error of the first kind--making a correlation where none exists. For example if one plots the birth rate drop in the US between 1950 and 1990 against the decline in the stork population--the result is a dead straight light. If you wish to conclude from this that the stork isn't bringing as many babies be my guest.
England in the first part of the second millenium was much warmer than it is now, the climate runs in cycles, it is erroneous to affix a correlation to a natural flux in a climate cycle. There is no hard and incontrovertible evidence that mans intercession has anything to do with warming.

Answer 3

97% of carbon emissions come from wildfires & volcanes.

We like to think things (problems) are man-made... because $$$ buys things. Gore made $$$ by being the front man, as did plenty of others (who have figured out how to best use this 'issue' for themselves). That's all it is. PS - Clinton/Gore did AWAY with Fed. MPG standards (brought you NAFTA etc.) and these things are inconvenients truths.. so much so, that GORE spent 3-seconds ON HIS OWN RECORD IN THE WHITE HOUSE and SEAT OF POWER FOR 8 YEARs. Chicken Little is alive, and just installed solar power in 7/2007 despite 30 years of tooling around using 'the ecology' as his brand-image. And PS? Daddy (THE real & first Al Gore that carved an easy pathway for JUNIOR to be a politician instead of a photographer..) made a killing in BIG OIL).

(Unless you're going to picket the fires, now.. in SoCal, volcanoes across the Pacific "ring of fire" etc. etc.... then, you're misled - which is the idea.)

And don't even BUY the story that carbon = global warming. Because weather patterns, seas, and MAGNETISM (the magenetic poles are shifting, by the way!) always, but ALWAYS has caused weather and the LAND MASSES themselves to shift, explode and reshape the Earth.

If Gore had any BALLS.. he's stop riding the BS movie tour (to $ELL DVDs, books, speaking engagements, etc.) -- and use his new platform for fighting BENZENE and other harmful ABSOLUTE cancer-causing particles released EVERY NIGHT, while people are sleeping. You can draw a simply MAP of anywhere USA, and show where these gases travel & connect the cancer rates, etc.

Answer 4

So... you're saying that if we ignored the cries about global cooling, we wouldn't have a global warming problem?

That's what I've been saying! ;)

Honestly though, I wonder why we're so obsessed with CO2 when there's how many known carcinogens and mutagens being pumped into the environment...? Surely some sort of prioritizing is in order for the environmental movement...

Unless, (gasp) fighting the generally harmless CO2 is more profitable than dealing with the chemicals floating around causing weird diseases.

Answer 5

It must be so nice to be a liberal. Come up with imaginary problems, and if they don't go away, blame it on Republicans, and if they do go away, pat yourself on the back for solving them. Thank God for libs and their great environmental policies, which have solved smog, water pollution, air pollution, global cooling, the hole in the ozone, and in the not-so-distant future, global warming.

Answer 6

I actually came down with the Y2K bug. I was throwing up for 3 days. I don't think they make Yadon Kur Keflov vodka any more, though.

Answer 7

No...these same morons in the 70's were running around screaming about global cooling...these nitwits can't tell us if itis going to rain tomorrow so how can they forecast global warming.

Answer 8

Always remember science and liberalism don't mix