I distinctly remember this from my childhood. I believe lots of concern and I suppose it was from the scientific community. Now it's global warming, and I'm hearing that 99.9% of the "creditable" scientists believe it. What happened?
Those who are 50+, do you remember that there was an ice age coming?
by Bonnie_Clyde 14 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
rekless
There are two sides, both are wackos with an agenda to push. Government grants to study weather. The earth and everything about it is clycliable. I use the "Framers Almanac" and prepare for winter using that.
I'm 61 , and yes I remember the talk about ice age.
-
ajwnm
I remember this very vividly. This all took place in the late 60's and early 70's.The same people were running around predicting the end of oil and gas supplies by the mid 90's, that food would disappear and BILLIONS would starve. Since that didn't work to achieve their political agenda, they resorted to the global warming scare in the 90's. Since EVERYTHING happens on earth in cyclical patterns, they are bound to be right occasionally. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Ever since I read about the tropical jungles frozen under the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets hundreds to thousands of feet thick, I discount any and all "chicken little" hysterical ravings- especially those of the earth worshipping, tree hugging, far left types.
As for the 99.9% of "scientists" who agree with global warming- MOST serious scientists do not think that our climate is significantly impacted by anything puny man can do but natural earth forces that have always worked in very long cycles thruout history. When the "scientific community" gets a conscience and starts to take ,and look at ,data in a rational, non-biased way, I'll, MAYBE, begin to listen to their hysterical ravings. But the 1st thing they'll have to do is move their national gas monitoring devices (for CO2, CO and other nasty HUMAN made gasses) from the the mouth of that ACTIVE volcano in Hawaii. That's where they measure gas emissions, supposedly due to man's impact on the environment. Talk about a stacked deck. This tells me that the majority of "scientists" are just as willing to use biased info to achieve their agendas as anyone else. They are human and are as biased, unethical, unprincipaled and willing to "tweak" data to achieve their pre planned results as others.
-
talley
"What happened?"
Well if the scientist did not come up with anything new all the time they would be out of a job.
For one thing there is no grant/goverment/foundation money in not "crying wolf". And then there is the popular progressive mind set that mankind and especially large corporations that market (for EVIL profits) what mankind wants to buy are the scourge of this planet, and must be punished economically for being this scourge: for venturing out of caves and wanting to be well fed, warm in the cold, cool in the heat, well housed, well clothed and wanting to be modernly mobile by wheel and air. How Dare We.
Yes, I am old enough to remember the "coming, eminent ice age", and the "Population Bomb" (which is now several years past due by the way).
Reminds me of "straining out the knat and swallowing the camel".
Our sun is ageing and will get hotter and hotter, eventually turning the earth into a crispy critter.
Our earth is ageing too, getting warmer at the molten core: volcanoes, earthquakes (plate tectonics), and by some strange mechanism producing PETROLIUM that is known to be seeping through vents in the ocean's floor. But it's BAAADD to use that petrolium because it produces, OMG!, greenhouse gasses; one of which (green house gasses) is water vapor(evaporation cycyle) that the earth itself produces - how you 'goona stop that one? Speaking of the dreaded CO2, remember when "they" insisted on catylytic converters on autos to lower the carbon monoxide and sulfer emissions? Those 'converters' actually converted the engine emmissions to predominatly CO2 (so I have been told).
Scientists tell us about all the cycles the earth has gone through in the past during it's billions of years of exhistence and yet completly ignore the fact of those cycles in the context of the present minute (teeny tiny) time frame.
We have deified science and made it a very fat, well fed "sacred cow". And "science" is still working on learing about the things it can change and the things it cannot change. Sort of like the Alcoholics Prayer except science, at this point, does not have the "wisdom to tell the difference".
Want something more pressing than 'global warming' to worry about? Try googling "Yellowstone Supervolcano".....
-
Gopher
I'm not quite 50, but I remember the hoopla. Even that noted scientific journal, Awake!, had a front-page article on global cooling in the 1970's. (Anyone remember a picture of a sick earth with a frowning face and a thermometer sticking out of its "mouth"?)
Here's a story from the Time archives, dated June 24, 1974. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
Another Ice Age?
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
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.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa's drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest's recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.
Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
Climatic Balance. Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth's climate. Indeed, it is to gain such knowledge that 38 ships and 13 aircraft, carrying scientists from almost 70 nations, are now assembling in the Atlantic and elsewhere for a massive 100-day study of the effects of the tropical seas and atmosphere on worldwide weather. The study itself is only part of an international scientific effort known acronymically as GARP (for Global Atmospheric Research Program).
Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time. But there is a peril more immediate than the prospect of another ice age. Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced. University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row." -
Satanus
Gopher
That article sounds familiar. I may have read it, back in 1974. The print shows up really large, so i reposted it for ya.
S
Another Ice Age?
In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada's wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone's recollection.
As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.
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.
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds —the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa's drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest's recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Sunspot Cycle. The changing weather is apparently connected with differences in the amount of energy that the earth's surface receives from the sun. Changes in the earth's tilt and distance from the sun could, for instance, significantly increase or decrease the amount of solar radiation falling on either hemisphere—thereby altering the earth's climate. Some observers have tried to connect the eleven-year sunspot cycle with climate patterns, but have so far been unable to provide a satisfactory explanation of how the cycle might be involved.
Man, too, may be somewhat responsible for the cooling trend. The University of Wisconsin's Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists suggest that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth.
Climatic Balance. Some scientists like Donald Oilman, chief of the National Weather Service's long-range-prediction group, think that the cooling trend may be only temporary. But all agree that vastly more information is needed about the major influences on the earth's climate. Indeed, it is to gain such knowledge that 38 ships and 13 aircraft, carrying scientists from almost 70 nations, are now assembling in the Atlantic and elsewhere for a massive 100-day study of the effects of the tropical seas and atmosphere on worldwide weather. The study itself is only part of an international scientific effort known acronymically as GARP (for Global Atmospheric Research Program).
Whatever the cause of the cooling trend, its effects could be extremely serious, if not catastrophic. Scientists figure that only a 1% decrease in the amount of sunlight hitting the earth's surface could tip the climatic balance, and cool the planet enough to send it sliding down the road to another ice age within only a few hundred years.The earth's current climate is something of an anomaly; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time. But there is a peril more immediate than the prospect of another ice age. Even if temperature and rainfall patterns change only slightly in the near future in one or more of the three major grain-exporting countries—the U.S., Canada and Australia —global food stores would be sharply reduced. University of Toronto Climatologist Kenneth Hare, a former president of the Royal Meteorological Society, believes that the continuing drought and the recent failure of the Russian harvest gave the world a grim premonition of what might happen. Warns Hare: "I don't believe that the world's present population is sustainable if there are more than three years like 1972 in a row."
-
Amazing
In 1948, just before I was born, pictures were taken of our home just east of Riverside, in southern California. The snow was 4 feet deep. We had cold and cool weather in the 1950s, and in 1966 we have another round of snow ... I recall the clamor that we were entering another ice age. I can recall that we had so much rain in S. California that we would be allowed to stay home from school. The current warming trend is welcome to me.
About a 1,000 years ago the earth entered what we call the Little Ice Age. The sun's energy output lowered, and we had a rash of volcanoes go off at times, which further made the situation worse. There was a lot of suffering in Europe. The Little Ice Age was still going on up through the early beginnings of the United States. The reason I welcome the current warming trend is that 1,000 years ago and beyond, the earth was at its natural level of heat, which allowed farming of remote northern places, like Greenland by the Vikings, and other land far north which cannot be used today for food and growth.
While the earth is warming, I do not believe that it is harmful, nor do I believe that human activity is the prime cause. Recently, I heard it announced on the radio that the sun is back to its normal energy output and is shunning brighter than it has for 1,000 years ... and that this is the prime cause of global warming. Having a science and engineering background, I have not found anything which shows that human activity is a prime factor in warming trends. Former VP Al Gore stated in a speech in California that human activity caused the El Nino' effect, which brings warming weather up north, along with flooding rains instead of snow. The problem is, science discovered the El Nino' effect well over 300-years ago, before human activity accounted for much.
I strongly believe that the average person needs to do a lot more study, keep an open mind, and cool their jets with respect to the strong rhetoric being bantied about. Some of the stuff I read may as well be in a Watchtower magazine, as it is so lacking in facts, and so filled with feelings based on unproven beliefs. Humans need to understand these natural warming and cooling cycles and prepare to meet them head on and survive them, rather than moaning about big corporate conspiracies.
Jim Whitney
-
juni
Gopher said:
Anyone remember a picture of a sick earth with a frowning face and a thermometer sticking out of its "mouth"?)
Yes I do. And the whole spiel about the ice age, blah, blah, blah.
Anything bad happened- it was attached to the Big A just around the corner and reason for all of us to step up our activity.
Juni
-
blondie
There was an ice age but it was invisible.
-
Quentin
Yup, sure do...can't add to whats already been said...but it was quite the topic in the 50s and 60s...