how does the current global warming 'crisis' differ from the global cooling scare of the 70's? (newsweek 4/75)

Answer 1

How about this question? How does the current global warming 'crisis' differ than the one in the 1920's? Don't remember that one, do you? The ice caps are melting! Polar bears are dying! Massive deaths and droughts due to heat waves! And then came the 1930's which brought droughts which put the current ones to shame. What caused that period of hot dry weather? These years remaing among the hottest and driest on record despite another 70 years of pouring tons of CO2 into the air.

Some people have theorized that a certain element in society have always grabbed on to some "end of the world" scenario. When the cold war was going hot, nuclear anhilation was a popular doomsday scenario, then there was the ozone hole. Both of these scenarios have pretty much gone. So the Chicken Littles need something else to worry about. I don't know that I believe this theory, but it is out there.

If you dig a little, you will find scientists and politicians worried about global waming/cooling throughout the last two centuries, cycling back and forth in about 40 year cycles.

Answer 2

It differs in 2 major ways.

1) You refer to a Newsweek article for a reason - Newsweek is not a scientific journal. The mass media made a big issue out of global cooling/impending ice age in the 1970s, but scientists did not. Here is proof - a collection of the scientific papers and journals discussing the issue at the time:

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

A brief discussion from RealClimate (climate scientists' website) discussing this myth:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

Now scientists are making a big deal about global warming - more so than even the media.

2) Climate science was very young in the 1970s. Now climate models are run on supercomputers. Climatology is far more advanced now than even a decade ago, let alone 3 decades ago. Comparing climatology now to climatology in the 1970s doesn't make any sense.

However, there is one similarity between the cooling predictions in the 70s and the warming predictions now.

One scientific paper said that if human sulphur dioxide (SO2) concentrations continued to increase at their current (1970s) rate, it would eventually lead to an ice age. This was probably a correct conclusion. From 1940-1970 there was a slight global cooling which was mostly due to human sulphur emissions, which block sunlight and cause global dimming (and thus cooling). At the time there were no laws regulating air pollution.

So this one paper concluded that if these emissions continued to skyrocket, the dimming and cooling would get worse, and eventually we would enter an ice age.

Result? Clean Air Acts were soon passed in many countries (including the USA), and SO2 emissions have actually decreased since 1980. See pages 12-14 here

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

Notice how rapidly the emissions were increasing up to the 1970s.

This is a very similar situation to global warming. Scientists are saying that we need to get CO2 emissions under control before it causes catastrophic climate change (except this time it's almost all scientists as opposed to just a couple). We accomplished this for SO2, but only time will tell if we can avoid the scenario for CO2.

Answer 3

The global cooling theory was only a result of the confusion between scientists of whether the heat-reflecting aerosols we were pumping into the atmosphere or the heat-trapping carbon dioxide gas we were pumping into the atmosphere would win out. It's became apparent that co2 is the undisputed champion.

As any legitimate climate date shows, the Earth has been warming and the warming is intensifying. If you don't believe the date, just look at before and after pictures of any of the low-elevation glaciers, which are melting away before our very eyes due to warmer and longer summers. It is true that at the moment a handful of high-elevation glaciers are expanding, but this is only due to the fact that at high-elevations the extra-moisture associated with global warming is falling as extra snow. The vast majority of glaciers are shrinking due to warmer and longer summers, excess rainfall in many places, and in some areas a distinct lack of snowfall.

Answer 4

It doesn't. After World War II, car production soared, more gas was burned, more people were born, electricity came to where it was not before, but the mean temp between 1945 and 1975 went DOWN instead of up even given the huge CO2 leap then. This proves that CO2 is not the cause of global warming. OOPS! Tell manbearpig this and watch the Scannersesque head explosion.

Answer 5

check it out you'll get an even bigger laugh if you read the article(sourced)

From TIME mag

"Telltale signs are everywhere —from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest.Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7° F. Although that figure is at best an estimate, it is supported by other convincing data. When Climatologist George J. Kukla of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and his wife Helena analyzed satellite weather data for the Northern Hemisphere, they found that the area of the ice and snow cover had suddenly increased by 12% in 1971 and the increase has persisted ever since. Areas of Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, for example, were once totally free of any snow in summer; now they are covered year round."

Answer 6

There's no comparison at all.

The thing in the 70s was a few guys with no good data, and no backing from ANY major scientific organization. It's only noticed because there was a media splash, not a scientific one.

Global warming scientists today have a mountain of data backing them up. They are supported by EVERY major scientific organization.

A better comparison is between the "skeptics" today and the "global cooling" guys. A few guys with wild ideas and no proof. More details here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=94

"The global cooling myth"

JIM Z - CO2 is a pollutant. It's harmful in excessive quantities. The US Supreme Court has decided the issue. Since "pollutant" is a legal term, not a technical one, they win.

VLADOVIKING - Key phrase: "Although that figure is at best an estimate". "at best". As I said, a few guys with no good data. That figure turns out to have been wrong, of course:

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

This time there's a mountain of good data. Completely different thing.

Answer 7

SO the ANSWER to YOUR QUESTION IS THEY WANT a CARBON TAX to tax evil OIL Corporations, Democrat Presidential candidate Senator DODD. that means trickle down to you $8.00 a gallon Gas Higher food prices TRUCKS deliver food run on FUEL, higher electric they will build NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS its a low carbon foot print . "This is the problem with all this environmental claptrap . . . it's a convenient excuse for politicians to just start taxing people. Some of these guilt-laden, middle-class liberals think it's somehow good: 'Oh, that's my contribution to the environment.' It's not. You're just being robbed--it's just highway [bleeping] robbery." We gona DIE eithe way

Answer 8

No - These are much the same thing.

In the 1970's there was a little cooling. Scientist, including Dr. James Hansen used computer models to "study" the problem. They discovered the trend would continue and the new ice age scare was born.

Now there's some cooling Scientist, including Dr. James Hansen used computer models to "study" the problem. They discovered the trend would continue and the global warming scare was born.

Answer 9

I remember the media scare in the 1970s and it was the same thing (except the word warming is substituted for cooling) said by the same people blaming the same thing and offering the same solution. I don't need to cite any articles. I was there. I remember.

Just for chuckles, I looked through Dana's first reference. It was someone's interpretation of old articles. He cites someone suggesting that pollution might add to warming but adds CO2 with [] implying that is what that author meant. Please. CO2 is not a pollutant and certainly wasn't considered one then.

Answer 10

Global cooling was based on very limited data and was not widely accepted. It was just a possibility, like a bird flu pandemic or the swine flu scare.

GW is based on centuries of data, decades of research and has been shown to be a statistically significant effect.