Global Cooling Options

[*salcha*]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/...on_warming.html

While worrying about Montana's receding glaciers, Schweitzer, who is 50, should also worry about the fact that when he was 20 he was told to be worried, very worried, about global cooling. Science magazine warned of "extensive Northern Hemisphere glaciation." Science Digest reported that "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age." The Christian Science Monitor reported that glaciers "have begun to advance," "growing seasons in England and Scandinavia are getting shorter" and "the North Atlantic is cooling down about as fast as an ocean can cool." Newsweek agreed that meteorologists "are almost unanimous" that catastrophic famines might result from the global cooling that the New York Times said "may mark the return to another ice age." The Times also said "a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable" now that it is "well established" that the Northern Hemisphere's climate "has been getting cooler since about 1950."


Gosh, and we were worried about global warming

[jue]

im a bit lost >_>
First everyones talking about global warming?
and now its global cooling o.O?

[NoSex]

im a bit lost >_>
First everyones talking about global warming?
and now its global cooling o.O?

No, it was Global Cooling, now it is Global Warming. Global Cooling is something your parents might remember, it was the same kind of spawned global hysteria as Global Warming. During the entirerity of the 1970's it was exstensively reported in the media that scientists were unanimous on the fact that the world was rapidly moving towards an ice age. This was supported by numerous sources of data, not much unlike the sources of data being cited to support global warming. Now, today, we are all afraid of global warming. If our fears of global warming were not justified, how can we be sure that our fears of global warming are?

Alot of people seemed to miss the point of this thread.

Alot of what we are told about global warming just isn't true. There is alot of stuff that we simply just do not know about climitology and exactly how our world works. The fear of global warming is a popular one though. It's a sensational story. If you tell someone the world is ending, it will make headlines. But, if you said everything was just A-O-K, you might not even find someone to listen to you. The truth behind the matter is that we can not even be sure that humans have much of any influence at all in relation to global climate. And, even if we do indeed have an influence, we can not be sure of how strong exactly that influence may be. Global climate change, whether it be cooling or warming, seems to be a very natural occurance. And, I do believe global warming happening is happening; Just not the way we are told it is happening or at the degree we are led to believe it to be happening. How terrified should we all be of a single degree increase in temperature over a century?

[*mipadi*]

No, it was Global Cooling, now it is Global Warming. Global Cooling is something your parents might remember, it was the same kind of spawned global hysteria as Global Warming. During the entirerity of the 1970's it was exstensively reported in the media that scientists were unanimous on the fact that the world was rapidly moving towards an ice age. This was supported by numerous sources of data, not much unlike the sources of data being cited to support global warming. Now, today, we are all afraid of global warming. If our fears of global warming were not justified, how can we be sure that our fears of global warming are?

The difference with the "global cooling crisis" was that there wasn't really any scientific data to back it up. Climatology was not as advanced in the 1970s, especially in the area of temperature change. Very few scientists backed the notion that the earth was headed towards another ice age—the data was simply inconclusive—but once the media got word of the impending doom, the hysteria spread.

The same is not true of the present data on global warming. Knowledge of climatology has progressed a lot since the 1970s. Effects are much better understood and concepts are much more reliable than in the 70s.

Data shows that the climate variation in the last hundred years is much greater than the variation in the past 1000 years.[1] Natural warming may have predominantly occurred in the first half of the twentieth century, but it does not explain warming in the past fifty years. Of course, it should also be noted that warming is only one symptom of overall climate change. However, even a temperature rise of less than 2° C can result in major climatological changes—and the surface temperature of the earth could rise as much as 5.8° in the next 100 years, based on current models.[2] This is more variation than was seen in the 1000 years prior.[3]

At the very least, it's something that governments should look into, and since climate change has not been completely ruled out, it's not a bad thing to try to make some changes now to prevent catastrophe—just in case. Given that much of the "preventative medicine" for global warming deals with the reduced use of fossil fuels and other pollution-causing substances, cutting back on their use will have clear benefits in other areas (such as pollution control, use of renewable energy, and reduction of deforestation).

[NoSex]

The difference with the "global cooling crisis" was that there wasn't really any scientific data to back it up. Climatology was not as advanced in the 1970s, especially in the area of temperature change. Very few scientists backed the notion that the earth was headed towards another ice age—the data was simply inconclusive—but once the media got word of the impending doom, the hysteria spread.

The same is not true of the present data on global warming. Knowledge of climatology has progressed a lot since the 1970s. Effects are much better understood and concepts are much more reliable than in the 70s.

Oh, of course. I understand this. I probably should have noted that in my post. But, it would be unfair to say that the data related to human relations to climate change isn't inconlusive today. There is still a great deal we just don't know about where our Earth's climate will be in the next century and why it will be there. Of course, we have had many advances and that our studies can be more reliable. But, the media as well as groups like Green Peace and Earth First are still misrepresenting the actual inconclusiveness of the data.