What’s KKKate going to do with all her nifty pictures of thermometers and temperature graphs now?
The supposed "global cooling" consensus among scientists in the 1970s — frequently offered by global-warming skeptics as proof that climatologists can't make up their minds — is a myth, according to a survey of the scientific literature of the era.
The '70s was an unusually cold decade. Newsweek, Time, The New York Times and National Geographic published articles at the time speculating on the causes of the unusual cold and about the possibility of a new ice age.
The Times and National Geographic? Oh, please. Everyone who’s anyone knows they’re just elitist Islamocommiehomonazifascist global warming humpers.
But Thomas Peterson of the National Climatic Data Center surveyed dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles from 1965 to 1979 and found that only seven supported global cooling, while 44 predicted warming. Peterson says 20 others were neutral in their assessments of climate trends.
Details, details … look at my satellite pictures of the Arctic ice mass. What do you mean this proves that the ice is shrinking?
The study reports, "There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age."
"A review of the literature suggests that, to the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking about the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales."
But it seems not everyone is in agreement about the debunking of the debunkers.
Some have doubts about the new survey. "The paper does not place the late '70s in its climatic context," says Pat Michaels, a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.
"The temperature records we had at the time showed a very sharp cooling from the mid-'40s to the mid-'70s," Michaels says. "And scientists attempted to explain that as a consequence of the pollution that was preventing solar radiation from reaching the surface.
"At the time, scientists thought the cooling effect of pollution was greater than the warming effect of carbon dioxide," Michaels adds. "They were attempting to explain the dramatic cooling of the '70s."
Right. And shame on you for thinking the Cato Institute might have an agenda here. After all, it’s not like their mission statement says something like this:
The Cato Institute seeks to broaden the parameters of public policy debate to allow consideration of the traditional American principles of limited government, individual liberty, free markets and peace. Toward that goal, the Institute strives to achieve greater involvement of the intelligent, concerned lay public in questions of policy and the proper role of government.
Hmmmm. Well, it’s not like the Exxon Secrets web site which “documents Exxon-Mobil's funding of climate change skeptics” has a fact sheet for Cato.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington DC, was founded in 1977 by Edward Crane and Charles Koch, the billionaire co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held oil company in the U.S.
The Cato Institute holds regular briefings on global warming with known climate 'skeptics' as panelists. In December 2003, panelists included Patrick Michaels, Robert Balling and John Christy, all of whom believe that the current scientific understanding of climate change is inconclusive. Cato held similar briefings on climate change in Washington in July 2003 and 2002. (C. Coon, & Erin. Hymel (2003) Sound Policy for the Energy Bill, Heritage Foundation Reports, 23 September. ) According to People for the American Way, Cato has been funded by: Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Bell Atlantic Network Services, BellSouth Corporation, Digital Equipment Corporation, GTE Corporation, Microsoft Corp- oration, Netscape Communications Corporation, NYNEX Corporation, Sun Microsystems, Viacom International, American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Citicorp/Citibank, Commonwealth Fund, Prudential Securities and Salomon Brothers. Energy conglomerates include: Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Cato's pharmaceutical donors include Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc. Between 1985 and 2001, the Institute received $15,718,040 in 112 grants from only ten conservative foundations: Castle Rock Foundation (reformed Coors Foundation), Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, Earhart Foundation, JM Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation, David H Koch Foundation.
Wait a minute ...
4 comments:
I read a book, back then. Before the intertubes. Can't remember the title or the author. The author predicted a new ice age. Said global warming would melt ice caps, Russia and Canada would be covered with standing water during the summer, which would freeze during the winter, and the winter ice caps would grow to the point where they got too big to melt in summer and we'd all be living under ice. So,you see, they were too talking about an ice age in the'70's.
It was also a lot more acceptable among various elites to do drugs in the 70's, I seem to recall.
Funny how that moron from CATO tries to debate the issue.
Somebody surveys the literature and finds a small minority of papers arguing for global cooling, and CAT0-boy says: "No, they were all saying 'global cooling' because, ... well, i remember it and everything."
You think it'd be sweet to write bullshit for CATO and 80 grand per annum? Imagine the shitty lunch-room conversation though!
I remember the 70s. The "Greenhouse effect" of CO2 trapping heat was known. The debate was still active, because the CO2 might also cause water vapour to more readily form clouds which could reflect more heat away, and cause cooling.
The discussion revolved around which would predominate. It seemed fairly certain that the CO2 levels were rising due to people burning carbon based fuels. There was less carbon (soot) than in the 19th century, so more clean burning produced more CO2.
It was understood to be something worth investigating and learning more about. No alarms were being sounded, since they were looking at it, and so were doing something, instead of pretending it doesn't exist.
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