A compilation of news articles on the global cooling scare of the 1970’s
Does the bullet point list for solutions to global cooling at right look familiar? It reads almost like some of the manifestos we get from warmists today, including the suspension of Democracy as the article in the Owosso Newspaper clearly demonstrates. Thanks to Poptech for the compilation.
During the 1970s the media promoted global cooling alarmism with dire threats of a new ice age. Extreme weather events were hyped as signs of the coming apocalypse and man-made pollution was blamed as the cause.
Environmental extremists called for everything from outlawing the internal combustion engine to communist style population controls. This media hype was found in newspapers, magazines, books and on television;
News articles*:
1970 – Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age – Scientists See Ice Age In the Future (The Washington Post, January 11, 1970)
1970 – Is Mankind Manufacturing a New Ice Age for Itself? (L.A. Times, January 15, 1970)
1970 – New Ice Age May Descend On Man (Sumter Daily Item, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Prospect A Chilling One (Owosso Argus-Press, January 26, 1970)
1970 – Pollution’s 2-way ‘Freeze’ On Society (Middlesboro Daily News, January 28, 1970)
1970 – Cold Facts About Pollution (The Southeast Missourian, January 29, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Could Cause Ice Age, Agency Reports (St. Petersburg Times, March 4, 1970)
1970 – Pollution Called Ice Age Threat (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 1970)
1970 – Dirt Will .Bring New Ice Age (The Sydney Morning Herald, October 19, 1970)
1971 – Ice Age Refugee Dies Underground (The Montreal Gazette, Febuary 17, 1971)
1971 – U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971)
1971 – Ice Age Around the Corner (Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1971)
1971 – New Ice Age Coming – It’s Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
1971 – Another Ice Age? Pollution Blocking Sunlight (The Day, November 1, 1971)
1971 – Air Pollution Could Bring An Ice Age (Harlan Daily Enterprise, November 4, 1971)
1972 – Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972)
1972 – Scientist predicts new ice age (Free-Lance Star, September 11, 1972)
1972 – British expert on Climate Change says Says New Ice Age Creeping Over Northern Hemisphere (Lewiston Evening Journal, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Climate Seen Cooling For Return Of Ice Age (Portsmouth Times, September 11, 1972)
1972 – New Ice Age Slipping Over North (Press-Courier, September 11, 1972)
1972 – Ice Age Begins A New Assault In North (The Age, September 12, 1972)
1972 – Weather To Get Colder (Montreal Gazette, September 12, 1972)
1972 – British climate expert predicts new Ice Age (The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1972)
1972 – Scientist Sees Chilling Signs of New Ice Age (L.A. Times, September 24, 1972)
1972 – Science: Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)
1973 – The Ice Age Cometh (The Saturday Review, March 24, 1973)
1973 – Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)
1974 – New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)
1974 – Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)
1974 – 2 Scientists Think ‘Little’ Ice Age Near (The Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)
1974 – Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (The Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1974)
1974 – Believes Pollution Could Bring On Ice Age (Ludington Daily News, December 4, 1974)
1974 – Pollution Could Spur Ice Age, Nasa Says (Beaver Country Times, December 4, 1974)
1974 – Air Pollution May Trigger Ice Age, Scientists Feel (The Telegraph, December 5, 1974)
1974 – More Air Pollution Could Trigger Ice Age Disaster (Daily Sentinel – December 5, 1974)
1974 – Scientists Fear Smog Could Cause Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal, December 5, 1974)
1975 – Climate Changes Called Ominous (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)
1975 – Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975)
1975 – B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? (The Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Cooling Trends Arouse Fear That New Ice Age Coming (Eugene Register-Guard, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Another Ice Age Due? Arctic Ice Expands In Last Decade (Youngstown Vindicator – March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Earth Headed For Another Ice Age? (Reading Eagle, March 2, 1975)
1975 – New Ice Age Dawning? Significant Shift In Climate Seen (Times Daily, March 2, 1975)
1975 – There’s Troublesome Weather Ahead (Tri City Herald, March 2, 1975)
1975 – Is Earth Doomed To Live Through Another Ice Age? (The Robesonian, March 3, 1975)
1975 – The Ice Age cometh: the system that controls our climate (The Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975)
1975 – The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)
1975 – Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead (PDF) (The New York Times, May 21, 1975)
1975 – In the Grip of a New Ice Age? (International Wildlife, July-August, 1975)
1975 – Oil Spill Could Cause New Ice Age (Milwaukee Journal, December 11, 1975)
1976 – The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? [Book] (Lowell Ponte, 1976)
1977 – Blizzard – What Happens if it Doesn’t Stop? [Book] (George Stone, 1977)
1977 – The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age [Book] (The Impact Team, 1977)
1976 – Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)
1977 – The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)
1977 – We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)
1978 – The New Ice Age [Book] (Henry Gilfond, 1978)
1978 – Little Ice Age: Severe winters and cool summers ahead (Calgary Herald, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Winters Will Get Colder, ‘we’re Entering Little Ice Age’ (Ellensburg Daily Record, January 10, 1978)
1978 – Geologist Says Winters Getting Colder (Middlesboro Daily News, January 16, 1978)
1978 – It’s Going To Get Colder (Boca Raton News, January 17, 1978)
1978 – Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)
1978 – The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)
1978 – An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)
1979 – A Choice of Catastrophes – The Disasters That Threaten Our World [Book] (Isaac Asimov, 1979)
1979 – Get Ready to Freeze (Spokane Daily Chronicle, October 12, 1979)
1979 – New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)
And from the National Center for Atmospheric Research:
Source: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull165/16505796265.pdf
While a silent majority of the scientific community may have been more skeptical, you ironically find one of the most outspoken supporters of modern day Al Gore style global warming alarmism was promoting global cooling in the 1970s, the late Dr. Steven Schneider;
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.“ – Life of Reason, George Santayana
Related articles
- CIA 1974 National Security Threat: Global Cooling/Excess Arctic Ice Causing Extreme Weather (climatedepot.com)
- 1974 Shock News: Global Cooling To Kill One Billion People (junkscience.com)
- NCAR 1974 : Global Cooling And Extreme Weather Is The New Normal (stevengoddard.wordpress.com)
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@ur momisugly richard m / “coder of the first global cooling model was none other that James Hansen”
this is not completely true; it happens that I am just right now reading an article by Roger Revelle in Scientific American august 1982 Vol 247 nr 2 titled “Carbon Dioxide and World Climate” ( You can find it online)
on page 35 it reads:
“Under these conditions they (Hansen and collegues) found that doubling the atmospheric carbon dioxie would raise the global mean surface temperature by 2.8 degrees…”
@ur momisugly Espen says: / March 2, 2013 at 3:05 am “To the extent that it’s yet possible to verify them (the most dire predictions are still in the future), the Club of Rome were wrong.”
Espen, I was referring to the prognosed carbondioxideconcentration of the atmosphere;
in Limits to Growth, figure 17 they predict 380 ppm in the year 2000;
in reality this concentration was realised a little bit later, in 2005, but to say that they were wrong?
@ur momisugly Jeff Alberts / March 1, 2013 at 7:33 pm
Wally Broecker: “Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?”
And, he got it wrong. We had mild regional warming. Nothing global about it.
Alberts,
I provided both links to show that not everybody was in this ice age scare and that the list popular media promoting the new iceage is just showing one side of the picture;
if you want to blame popular media, go ahead; but dont forget that you also like to rely on those populars as The mail Online for the 17 years temperature standstill (David Rose) and recently The Australian for the Pachauri item (Graham Lloyd);
This is one of the provided links: St Petersburg Times: ( http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=h_0NAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I3wDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3656,4469550 ):
“If man keeps piping pollution into the atmosphere, he could bring on a new iceage that would cover states like Florida with 400 feet of water, television meteorologist Paul Cato told High Noon Club Yesterday”
I hope you all see the stupidity in this first line of one of the articles you rely on for your statement about the Coming Ice Age; a new iceage that would cover states like Florida with 400 feet of water
One lesson should be clear: don’t believe all television meteorologists;
Some of the links contain correct information:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=oKspAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AOUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3323,8047767
‘Dirt will bring New iceage’ is an explanation for the standstill and even decline in the warming tendency! from 1940 – 1980 aprox;
this could also be a lesson for now; if dirt cooled down the atmosphere from the fourties into the seventies, there is possibly also some kind of explanation for the ‘standstill in temperature since 1998’;
Except today there is a supporting scientific base.
REPLY: and there was then too, note NCAR for example – Anthony
one magazine article on NCAR does not a “supporting scientific base” make. Certainly “climate books” don’t count, they are just opinion, but that the motivation for about half of the articles you found. Actually, I am not sure that even 5 to 10 research pubs would even do it. But isn’t that what you need to make a case, that “the scientists said this back then and say this now”?
Having lived in Buffalo during the big Great Lakes Blizzard of ’77 and two weeks of driving ban (and then moving to Mich the next year to catch the big anniversary storm that shut down Detroit for a week) I am surprised that I never noticed this big cooling scare, I mean, wouldn’t have we been the target for such news? I only remember the Sagen Nuclear Winter, but that was in the 80s.
I see the trolls are out trying to convince people that the global cooling scare wasn’t real. But I survived the ‘coming ice age’, so I know the truth of the matter.
I got my first job out of the military in 1970, and I clearly recall all the ‘coming ice age’ hype. It was everywhere. But there was no ‘coming global warming’ hype. The media runs in a herd, and they report the same things.
Sure, by digging through tens of thousands of newspaper accounts you can find a handful of anything. But the fact is that global cooling was the big news, and it lasted about a decade until the planet resumed its natural recovery from the LIA.
It must be tough on their egos to see Planet Earth debunking the alarmist myths. But that is what’s happening. The CO2 scare lives on grant money and True Belief. But it certainly isn’t science.
The global warming scare is just that: an attempt by unscrupulous scientists to scare up more research funding. They need to keep the fright fest alive. Their careers depend on it. Plus, they’re desperate to salvage what’s left of their already diminished reputations. Their inflated egos won’t permit them to admit that real-world data has driven a stake through their theory of man-made global warming. Like a child hugging his favorite Teddy Bare, they cling desperately to their cockamamie climate models.
Clearly the climate is irrelevant to the Alarmists. They are concerned with the manifestos and the human control. And this is the kind of person that a majority elected as the president of the US and Prime Ministers in UK, AUS, etc.
It is an utter failure for science and scientists to wish to become managers and micro-managers of other people’s lives. It really is that simple. A true scientist in spirit loves to seek truth, and knows the limitations of his knowledge and understanding.
Instead all scientists are ridiculous little philosopher-kings, easily pleased with pointy hats and bibs, and seeking to control individual lives.
And speaking of science, these collectivists and totalitarians also ignore the fact that their systems have been falsified by the destruction and death they have caused in Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, and Socialist Germany. Yet they corrupt youth and abuse reason by claiming it will work this time, because they, the chosen people, the pointy hats with bibs, are here to “change the world.” Therefore, the insistence on collectivism and totalitarianism is an article of pure religious conviction.
The clip from an article by the founder of NCAR, Walter Orr Roberts, brought forth some memories. Several joint papers by Walt, John Wilcox and myself, et al., e.g.
“Solar Magnetic Sector Structure: Relation to Circulation of the Earth’s Atmosphere”
Wilcox, John M.; Scherrer, Philip H.; Svalgaard, Leif; Roberts, Walter Orr; Olson, Roger H.
Science, Volume 180, Issue 4082, pp. 185-186, 4/1973, doi:10.1126/science.180.4082.185
“The solar magnetic sector structure appears to be related to the average area of high positive vorticity centers (low-pressure troughs) observed during winter in the Northern Hemisphere at the 300-millibar level. The average area of high vorticity decreases (low-pressure troughs become less intense) during a few days near the times at which sector boundaries are carried past the earth by the solar wind. The amplitude of the effect is about 10 percent.”
were widely credited for reviving Sun-Weather-Climate research in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the field died again in the 1980s as the various correlations were [as usual] found to be spurious [although there are still people out there believing in them]. That solar cycle 20 [1965-1976] was a rather small cycle stoked the idea that as the Sun quieted down that would ‘help’ to push the climate into a cold period. [sigh] been there, seen that, didn’t happen, etc.
Meanwhile there has been record snowfall in Japan and Russia recently.
And the BBC, true to form, reported the snowfall in Japan with breathless alarmism and without a shred of background research, asking “Could this just be a one-off? of could it be due to Global Warming?”
Luckily the clip is still online: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21625702
Even The Guardian managed to put the snowfalls in Japan and Russia into some kind of context: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/japan-record-snowfall-not-deepest-ever
Yes, I remember the sensational headlines at that time. However, other than some silly journalists, most thoughtful people noticed a continuing lack of credible evidence for such claims.
Jack Maloney says:
March 1, 2013 at 12:01 pm
“Dr. Reitze’s current CV from the University of Utah lists “climate change policy” as an “area of expertise,” and he has published numerous articles on climate change, greenhouse gases, carbon sequestration, etc”
Stephen Rasey says:
March 1, 2013 at 11:14 am
“The Intersection of Climate Change and the Clean Air Act
• 43 ARIZONA STATE L. J. 901(2011).
Arnold W. Reitze Jr.
University of Utah – S.J. Quinney College of Law
Arizona State Law Journal, Vol. 43, No. 901, 2011
Paragraph 2:
“In the United States, CO2 is the chemical responsible for 81.5 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) emissions in …”
What isn’t in Dr. Reitz Jr’s CV is that his father Dr Arnold Reitze Sr. was a foaming at the mouth new ice age fear monger::
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=jjgiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9KsFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1371,2354081
I think a “genealogy” of the cold-hot climate scares would be an entertaining research proj. I note abundant references to the usual intstitutions: NASA, UEA, etc. in the news clippings of the post..
Were there no peer reviewed papers on the 1944-1976 cooling/
Well, you spectacularly failed to address my one-line statement. Please show where I have mentioned a “temperature standstill” anywhere. If you’re going to quote me, at least make your reply relevant to what I said.
Jeff Alberts,
you mean this one? “And, he got it wrong. We had mild regional warming. Nothing global about it.”
I prefer Broecker to yoy ( I disagree)
Jeff Alberts, please read; I did’nt say that you promote a standstill, I just gave two examples where this website relays on the popular media while it is condemning them for the ice age scare;
Definitive timeline of Global Warming and Global Cooling scares for the past 120 years, with sources, including so reliable ones as the Grand Old Rag itself: (for the leftists)
http://butnowyouknow.wordpress.com/those-who-fail-to-learn-from-history/climate-change-timeline/
Google ngram viewer:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/a-modest-proposal-to-skeptical-science/#comment-752836
The Google ngram thingy is a great toy. For fun, I made it look for the terms “Eiszeit” – ice age – and “Erwärmung” – warming – in German books from 1900 to 2008. The two terms show clear correlation – you can exactly see what hype was en vogue at which time.
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=erw%C3%A4rmung%2C+eiszeit&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=8&smoothing=3
What’s with the headline? Are these US newspapers still speculating about global cooling? How silly would that be.
The list just goes to show you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the newspapers (especially US newspapers) or on the internet!
On climate matters, better to check what science finds and look at the evidence. If you can’t understand the science, then there are plenty of reputable scientific organisations providing information for the layperson in terms even the average person should be able to understand.
(Re the headline, must admit I’ve read comments and articles from some non-experts who still say we are on the verge of an ice age – even here on WUWT! There are people in this world who’ll ignore reality and believe just about anything.)
“We will be forced to sacrifice democracy by the laws that will protect us from further pollution”
“…could be fatal to our concept of a free society”
Love the scare campaign back whenever that was written! Could be straight from one of the shock jocks today. Luckily for us, most people had more sense.
There are still a few drongos around who are so scared of laws to ensure clean water and air that they’d rather live in Beijing (where similar laws are only now starting to be implented)!
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
~Robert Frost
REPLY: and there was then too, note NCAR for example – Anthony
================
Do you you intentionally present your site to be a joke? The overwhelming scientific research, even then, pointed to man made global warming. You present sensationalized media hype, as if it means squat, rather than science based projections? Pathetic.
John@EF,
There is nothing “overwhelming” about the false claim of catastrophic AGW. That is only your baseless assertion. In fact, it is the alarmist cult that sensationalizes the runaway global warming narrative. There is no runaway global warming, and there never has been. That is merely a desperate alarmist scare tactic, with no scientific evidence to back it up. In fact, the climate over the past century and a half has been a true ‘Goldilocks’ climate, with only minuscule fluctuations of ±0.8ºC. So much for your scary narrative. If it were not for fabricated scare stories, the alarmist crowd wouldn’t have much to say.
And ‘science based’? Who are you trying to fool? The fact remains that there is no measurable, testable evidence of AGW. None. Your false assertions are just that: false.
So run along now back to Pseudo-skeptical Pseudo-science, or whatever silly blog you get your anti-science nonsense from. This is the internet’s ‘best science’ site, not some alarmist propaganda blog. We know the difference, and we know a troll when we see one. You’re it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/us-sea-level-rise_n_2687427.html
This finding will prove to be key for changing the rhetoric from warming to cooling in the coming years. It links to a paper which shows a slight slowdown and shift southeastward of the Gulf Stream in the last several years. Strangely the article mentions nothing about the mid-latitude cooling effects of a slower Gulf Stream, instead dwelling on the increased sea level it would cause on the East Coast. When the cyclical drop occurs, this slowdown will be hailed as the reason, and the melting of sea ice due to CO2 will inevitably be considered to be the cause. When The Decade After Next (reference intended) begins, alarmism like this will be in full swing.