Monday, March 26, 2007
Here is an article from Newsweek from 1975 describing the "almost unanimous" scientific opinion that global COOLING was going to cause worldwide famines and a minor ice age.
They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.That sounds so familiar.
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4 comments:
I've seen this before and it's terribly ironic. However, it's hard to use old information in current arguments - the comeback, logically, is that there is more scientific evidence and more sophisticated instruments to gather that evidence than there was years ago.
It does make one realize that - in science - just as in many other disciplines, there are fads that come and go. :-]
Exactly.. that most scientists in 1975 expected a global cooling period doesn't prove global warming wrong, but it does prove the fallibility of atmospheric science.
As the article on global cooling reminds us, scientists are fallible human beings, but so are Dr. James Dobson and Chuck Colson. As earlier comments have correctly stated, scientists have "more scientific evidence and more sophisticated instruments to gather that evidence than there was years ago," and the cooling article does not "prove global warming wrong."
I am a follower of Christ, a physicist, and a friend of Darius' brother Jonathan. I am not a socialist; I do not advocate communism; I am not attempting to "destroy the world's economy," and I certainly do not consider Al Gore a "great prophet." Having said that, I wish to pose a few questions.
What evidence would be necessary to convince you that rather than being an imaginary product of "junk" science and a "current fad," global climate change is real and being caused by human activity?
Your previous posts have revealed that your real disdain is not primarily based on the science, which leads to my next question. What would be necessary to convince you that climatologists and atmospheric scientists are sincere in their conclusions about global climate change, as summarized in the IPCC reports, rather than being a group of Gaia worshiping, hysterical, "who's who of moral idiots" who are "false Christs and false prophets" deceiving Christians "by a worldly philosophy" in order to destroy the "wicked capitalist Anglo-American man."
What solutions does Al Gore advocate that would "kill millions of people?" As far as I know, most practical actions to curtail global climate change are actions you could take for a variety of other reasons, such as reducing your energy bill, increasing US energy security, and reducing the presence of smog in America's major cities.
Finally, why do you accept science's projections of future populations in Russia and Saudi Arabia but not the IPCC projects of future global average temperature?
when I get a chance either tonight or tomorrow night, I will attempt to address your questions more completely. For now, just a quick comment or two: perhaps in my zeal to rip on global warming, I have not clarified that I do indeed agree that the world is likely in a warming trend. However, just because in the last 100 years the global temp has gone up a smidgeon of a degree doesn't necessarily mean anything. For one, the world is always cooling or warming. As Steyn mentioned in an article that I quoted in one of my posts, Greenland actually used to be green (look up the Medieval Warm Period for more information). Secondly, the warming is not global. The earth is warming up in some areas, but in other areas (such as the continent of Antartica), they have cooled in recent years. Thirdly, even if the earth is warming, we have no real evidence that humans are causing it. It has been concluded by serious atmospheric scientists that CO2 does not cause global warming but global warming causes a rise in CO2, since warmer oceans release more CO2.
That's all for now. I'll more properly address your questions later.
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