Regular readers, you may find this a review. But as a growing majority of the population wake up to the true enormity of the climate crisis, there continues to be a need to for background information on how we got here.
An awful lot of people – way more than you’d imagine, think that this whole global warming thing was cooked up by Al Gore in 2006.
Above, historical footage of Mike MacCracken’s speech to Sandia Labs about the then-current science of climate change.
Dr. MacCracken was then leading a Department of Energy study group on the issue.
I thought of this when friend sent an item from the New York Times, from this day in 1985, that sounded disturbingly familiar.
NYTimes December 11, 1085:
Scientists have warned that carbon dioxide, from the burning of fossil fuels, and other man-made gases, such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons, are accumulating in the atmosphere. These gases trap in the earth’s atmosphere solar infrared radiation that would otherwise escape back into space. Projections based on mathematical models indicate the average temperature at the surface of the earth, starting by the end of this century, could increase by as much as 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100.
Because the rise in temperature is expected to be higher at the earth’s poles, another effect of the climate change is expected to be a melting of the icecaps and a rise in the level of the oceans of seven feet or more.
Here, CBS video from 1980:
1985 NYTimes again:
Dr. Carl Sagan of Cornell University’s Center for Radiophysics, said the problem ”transcends our generation.”
”If we don’t do the right thing now, our children and grandchildren will have to face serious global problems,” Dr. Sagan warned. He suggested a number of steps that could be taken now, including more efficient use of fossil fuels and more dependence on solar energy and other alternatives to oil and coal. In theory, he said, ”safe” nuclear fission and nuclear fusion could also be energy sources that did not contribute to the problem.
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Senator Dave Durenberger, the Minnesota Republican who heads the subcommittee, said: ”One of the frustrations of dealing with this issue is that it is virtually beyond the grasp of human imagination. Despite what the best scientific minds in the world tell us, our instinct is to reject them out of hand.”
It was about this time that fossil fuel companies, concerned about possible regulation of carbon release, began to look at models for how to fight back against inconvenient scientific data. The Tobacco industry was, at the time, a model of successful obfuscation and delay on an important public health issue, where the science was undeniable.
I realized at a presentation a few weeks ago, that as much as I get bored going over the basic facts of climate change, there are still a lot of folks who are only now awake, listening, and ready to hear the facts.
One of the strengths of the science denial crowd is that they never tire of repeating their standard list of nonsense. They understand PR, and the power of repetition.
It’s something we could learn from – So I’m going to continue posting these reminders from time to time. Hope someone will spread them around.
Curiously in 1985 Nicholas Shackleton was actively campaigning about the dangers of a possible “snow blitz” triggering global cooling or an ice age. Since that’s when he got elected Fellow of the Royal Society (he appeared on a commemorative stamp years later) his ideas didn’t appear absurd or antiscience at the time to his peers.
AFAIK the long term consensus has been on co2 emissions to cause global warming. The debate was on the extent of the warming, and if other effects could be stronger at any time scale.
As many in the US and Europe are discovering, global warming IS causing some very serious chills because of its distribution. If the poles ‘warm” from -60C to -20C the global effects will be horrific, but that may well include significant parts of the formerly temperate planet experiencing record cold; at least in the interim.
BUT it will be only an interval, once the equalisation occurs, the global part of the warming will continue and those who have prepared for the big freeze will discover that it was only a passing phase.