These pictures are from 1970, the first Earth Day. As you can see, back then they were predicting that the Earth would be destroyed by 1990. That was 40 years ago. It's now 2010 and the Earth is still liveable enough that people can still attend "Earth Day", and they do. In fact it's even bigger now than it was back then. We now have "Earth Hour" where everybody is supposed to turn their lights off for an hour. Seriously, I'm not even joking.

So how is 1970 different to 2010? Is it a different crisis now or the same crisis just worse? Well, if you look at what was published in the early 1970s, the crisis is essentially the same but the problem seemed to be cooling not warming. In 1970 the SCEP published a report titled "Study of Critical Environmental Problems", which reported the possibility of global warming from increased carbon dioxide. The following year a paper was published in the journal 'Science' titled "Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate", which was one of the first to suggest man-made contributions to climate change. It also however claimed that global cooling would be the result of man-made greenhouse gas pollution and carbon emissions because particulate pollution would block sunlight.

In the following years, the National Science Board, the National Academy of Science, as well as popular media like Time Magazine and Newsweek published reports on global cooling claiming that that there'd been half a degree (fahrenheit) drop in the Earth's average ground temperature. In fact, the Newsweek article suggested intentionally melting the Arctic ice cap as a solution. The picture painted by the mainstream media and the environmental movement back then was dramatic. People would starve because crops wouldn't grow, natural disasters would increase, and the world as we know it will be dead by 1990 (or 2000, according to some reports).

So what are we to conclude? That environmentalists were wrong back then or that they were kinda right but we know a lot more now? In either case I think recent history teaches us to exercise caution in regard to environmental hysteria. The media and environmentalists on the 1970s were urging government to do something about the climate crisis. The most they did was pass Clean Air and Water acts. But as a whole the 1970s left environmentalists feeling like the government failed to act. But what happened as a result of their failure to act? Did the world end in 1990? No, where still here and enjoying a better quality of life than we did in 1970. Which makes me believe that if we acted in 1970, we would have ruined our way of life for no reason. The world didn't end in 1990. It was a good thing that government failed to act for so long because the longer they waited, the more time we had to find the truth and discover that the claim of the early 1970s were inaccurate. If they acted early they would have acted on false claims.

So that makes me think, if we hold off climate change action for another few years, will we slowly discover that the claims of the late 1990s and early 2000s were also exaggerated and inaccurate? Is it worth destroying the economy and our way of life if global warming could turn out to be as phoney as global cooling? Well if you ask a Greenie they will say, "yes!". Because to them, moving to a "green economy", imposing heavier regulations and taxes on corporations, increasing government control, are the most important things. There proposed solution is more important to them than the problem, insofar as if the problem turns out not to be as big as previously thought, they would still want to implement their solution. That's because at their heart, they are really just anti-capitalists.



Here is a photo of some environmental activists protesting at last year's Copenhagen conference on climate change. "Corporations keep out"? "Planet over profit"? "Corporations" "corporations" "profit" "money" "greed" "greed" "greed", that's all I see and hear at these environmental protests. These people aren't environmentalists. They are anti-corporation, anti-globalisation and anti-capitalism. Socialism is a fine, debatable idea, but don't mask it as environmentalism. Green is the new red. I just wish they would embrace that and be honest about who they are and what they really stand for.

That's just trolling Bob and pretty light weight at that. You need to be better than that.

Almost enough to make me want to vote Green out of spite or Liberal to quicken our demise.

oops - a climate skeptics party. Thanks for the heads up.

Hey Bob, Hi Bob.
How do you think it's going to go?
Do you think you have a prayer?

Quote:


Let me guess. You didn't actually look at what was published did you?

freediver wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 7:08pm:

No, I haven't read the full reports, I've just read summations and quotes from the reports. Have you read the reports?

freediver wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 9:17pm:

lol, that's amusing. You implied some incredibility on my part because I didn't read the reports, then I come to find out you didn't even read my post. If you kept reading just a few more sentences after the one you quoted, you'd see I actually mentioned some titles. And if Newsweek never published stories about a global cooling crisis that was going to see the word end by 1990, then why'd they issue a retraction and apology in 2005 saying they were spectacularly wrong?

freediver wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 10:06pm:

exactly

"The Cooling World" by Peter Gwynne
April 28, 1975
- Newsweek

original scan: http://www.junkscience.com/apr05/coolingworld.pdf

excerpt:
Quote:


Could just as easily have been written last week.


Some quotes predicting that global warming/cooling will destroy the planet, or at least the human race, by 2000 (or even earlier):

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000 -- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion -- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age. -- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

Hard to take seriously, isn't it?

If its such a mainstream issue, how come 3/4 of Australians voted to get rid of the carbon tax? This is where you get to tell everyone how stupid most Aussies are.

hazy123 wrote on May 17^th, 2014 at 8:28am:



Not sure where you got your figure from, considering that it was never actually put to a vote directly.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


Science has come a long way since then, we now understand for more than we did. The knowledge isn't perfect, of course, but you can't simply discount current scientific understanding because some past claims where wrong. That is part of the process of science, if something turns out the be wrong they figure out why and refine the concepts.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


We know vastly more now. It's not just the claims of the environmentalists, it's the claim of nearly all climate scientists. To the best of our knowledge, warming will [continue] occur and will do so primarily due human activity. It isn't an arbitrary claim either, unlike the global cooling ideas, there is strong evidence backing the position.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


The problem was lack of understanding. Global cooling may created news headlines, but it was never accepted as the mainstream scientific position. It had little actual support from most scientists, which is not the case for global warming.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


It's always possible something additional has been missed. Some of the details are likely to be incorrect because global climate is very complex. So far though, more and more evidence supports the position of global warming via human activity.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


It's not a requirement to destroy the economy or our way of life. Just be a bit smarter about it all. Many renewable energy sources are starting to become reasonable, and reducing pollution has more benefits regardless of the warming or not.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:


Some people are, as you mentioned against capitalism. Climate scientists around the world will obviously hold a variety of views on politics, but most of them agree on climate change.

Capitalism is an economic system for resource distribution. Trying to use to it to solve problems that are not primarily economic can be risky. The free market may well come up with a solution, but that doesn't mean it;s the best solution, the most rational solution or a solution the minimises suffering.

Doctor Jolly wrote on May 19^th, 2014 at 11:58am:



This one is quite amusing:

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Kenneth Watt, Ecologist, 1970

Doctor Jolly wrote on May 19^th, 2014 at 11:58am:



There were some claims, but it was never taken seriously by most of the scientific community. Take a look

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

Don't make stuff up Bob.  It just makes you look like a dill.  Even though growing sulfate aerosol polllution was a problem at the time in the 1970s - the majority of the scientific papers published at the time identified warming due to GHG emissions as being an ongoing issue.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2008BAMS2370.1

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

WTF are you talking about?
You just mentioned that Clean Air and Water acts were passed.  How is this "failure to act".  IN the US in particular - the Clean Air Act of 1970 had a drastic effect on reducing sulfate aerosols.  This later evolved into a very successful emissions trading scheme.

These were back in the days when governments took advice from science - and were not full of ignorant conspiracy theory nut jobs like today.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

Nobody said it Would Bob.  Stop making stuff up.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

They did act in 1970 Bob.  They passed legislation to reduce aerosols that were polluting the atmosphere and causing acid rain.
Later they introduced and ETS - because this was the most cost effective way to achieve emission reductions.  It still is.
Then in 1987 - global governments acted to ban CFCs.

This is all ongoing work Bob.
Why do you want to stop now and bury your head in the sand?
Global warming will not go away, just because ignorant conspiracy theorists don't understand it.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

Nobody said it Would Bob.  Stop making stuff up.

BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

The world has been acting Bob.
Clean Air Acts
Clean Water Acts
Montreal Protocol
Kyoto Protocol

And the world continues to act - albeit slowly against global warming.

If you got your information from other sources than Andrew Bolt - you would know that Bob.



BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

No Bob.  We will only discover that you are an idiot.
But we have pretty much worked that out already.


BobH wrote on Aug 20^th, 2010 at 2:48pm:

How exactly will using methods other than burning coal to produce electricity "destroy the economy and our way of life" Bob?

There are a lot of ways to make electricity Bob.  Many already a lot cheaper than coal

Amadd wrote on Jul 19^th, 2011 at 8:45am:


Precisely. We better pray it's false, coz if it's true, we're all buggered anyway.

Vuk11 wrote on May 17^th, 2014 at 12:43pm:

Non-sensical rationale here: what is the stance on subsidising the problem?