Global COOLING!!!

[Marnie]

This PDF from Newsweek, April 28, 1975 is exactly why we cannot trust "scientists" to get it right, even today.

If they were wrong 30 years ago, why are they right today?

Read this "breaking news" and shiver!!

[stitchy]

Amen.

[forrestkc]

This PDF from Newsweek, April 28, 1975 is exactly why we cannot trust "scientists" to get it right, even today.

If they were wrong 30 years ago, why are they right today?

Read this "breaking news" and shiver!!

Well because they were not totally wrong. Read the article, it said that scientists at the time disagreed with why the climate at the time was cooling. However, they were concerned that if it continued, it would hurt agricultural production, and then because its a news magazine article, not a scientific journal article, it gets into all the hype.

That all said, we now understand the phenomena that resulted in a cooling trend in the 70s. It is referred to as "Global Dimming". Essentially, prior to the Clean Air Act in the United States, and various other acts like it in other industrialized nations, so much particulate pollution was being dumped into the atmosphere that the amount of light that reached the earth's surface was reduced by about 4% or so.

This is even reflected in Glacier Core samples. Basically, every year from the start of the industrial revolution to the mid 1970s, there were ever increasing concentrations of aerosols being dumped into the atmosphere. As most nations (other than China) have adopted fairly stringent pollution controls over the last 30 years, the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere has declined significantly.

A good explanation of Global Dimming is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming

Global Dimming actually is pretty important to the Global Warming issue. The reason why is that prior to pollution controls, Global Dimming actually in the short term has had masking effect on Anthropogenic Global Warming.

[forrestkc]

Forrest, in another post you claimed the global warming trend has been taking place for more than 50 years. This was 30 years ago, and they were worried about global cooling. If the warming trend has been for less than 30 years, it is hardly reason for panick. In addition, if what you are saying here is true, environmentalists have helped usher in global warming through the clean air act. What we need to do is to repeal all the past environmental laws, and presto, we will soon have an end to global warming.

The increases concentrations of CO2 PPM have been occurring since the start of the industrial revolution. In fact, there is a direct correlation to this and worldwide economic development.

You can see this graphed out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Carbon_...de_400kyr-2.png

Possibly, if we completely repealed all environmental laws in every industrialized nation, and encouraged their economies to introduce massive amounts of particulates into the atmosphere, then we might actually mitigate the effects of Anthropogenic Global Warming for a little while longer. However, we would still reach a point where the greenhouse effect would cancel out the effects of Global Dimming, and then all we would have to show for it is much more smog and much higher cancer rates and respiratory disease rates than we have now.

Or, we could do what virtually all of scientific community is asking us to do, and take significant steps toward moving our economies to more sustainable economies.

[Masked Chris]

This PDF from Newsweek, April 28, 1975 is exactly why we cannot trust "scientists" to get it right, even today.

If they were wrong 30 years ago, why are they right today?

Read this "breaking news" and shiver!!

just yesterday I heard about global warming from the news... to be honest... i think the news should stick with the facts... it throws the world into a panic when it talks about "good guesses"

[Guest LadyC]

well personally i don't believe in global warming.

there, i said it. let the stones fly. but our earth's climate and temperatures are simply in a part of a natural cycle that has been going on since the beginning of time. we've been here done this before. it ain't the end of the world til God says it is, so it's silly IMO for people to get all worked up about this theoretical garbage.

[Marnie]

well personally i don't believe in global warming.

there, i said it. let the stones fly. but our earth's climate and temperatures are simply in a part of a natural cycle that has been going on since the beginning of time. we've been here done this before. it ain't the end of the world til God says it is, so it's silly IMO for people to get all worked up about this theoretical garbage.

Duck!

[Marnie]

Forrest, your defense of the scientific community is admirable. I assume when they change their minds in, say 15 years, you'll back them again?

So far in this debate, I have posted articles from 3 decades, all with different conclusions based on conclusions made after examining the scientific data at that time. I don't argue about the data, I question the conclusions arrived at. Forrest, science changes its mind all the time. Why should we change our economy or way of life based on conjecture?

Also, you have a penchant for citing wikipedia as an authoritative source. I'd think twice about using it; it's highly are unreliable.

[Akabu]

Also, you have a penchant for citing wikipedia as an authoritative source. I'd think twice about using it; it's highly are unreliable.

Ahh, the ever-reliable wikipedia. Articles written by anybody, about anything they want, edited by others with just as little information. Sounds like the perfect source of concrete evidence for socio-scientists today.

[Giaour]

well personally i don't believe in global warming.

there, i said it. let the stones fly. but our earth's climate and temperatures are simply in a part of a natural cycle that has been going on since the beginning of time. we've been here done this before. it ain't the end of the world til God says it is, so it's silly IMO for people to get all worked up about this theoretical garbage.

I'm right there with ya