Last time they got this hysterical about climate was when they were sure that global cooling was going to kill us all.
Newsweek May 29, 2011
In a world of climate change, freak storms are the new normal. Why we’re unprepared for the harrowing future.
Even those who deny the existence of global climate change are having trouble dismissing the evidence of the last year. In the U.S. alone, nearly 1,000 tornadoes have ripped across the heartland, killing more than 500 people and inflicting $9 billion in damage. The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years, forcing the Mississippi to flood thousands of square miles, even as drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. Worldwide, the litany of weather’s extremes has reached biblical proportions. The 2010 heat wave in Russia killed an estimated 15,000 people. Floods in Australia and Pakistan killed 2,000 and left large swaths of each country under water. A months-long drought in China has devastated millions of acres of farmland. And the temperature keeps rising: 2010 was the hottest year on earth since weather records began.
Newsweek reported the same story 36 years ago, with a different twist.
The Cooling World
Newsweek, April 28, 1975
There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas – parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia – where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree – a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic. “A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”
These people need a psychiatrist, not a carbon tax.
Of course, alarmists will tell you that the mainstream media didn’t have such a scare campaign going on back then, because it wasn’t mainstream science, or something.
The main stream media knows that sensational articles sell then as now. It was a bad idea to get your science from such sources then and it remains a bad source of science now.
Agreed, but it does beg the question, what or who are the MSM using as their sources? And why don’t they call them out when found to be so blatantly wrong?
My state climatologist has joined Andy Revkin in the denier camp. lol After posting a full analysis of the 61 year trend of tornadoes he concluded that tornadoes have occurred “…..without an indication of any underlying climate change.”
Is it Newsweek or Newsweak?
Fadspeak! They regurgitate the latest Chicken Little Fad of why the sky is falling!
Alarmist is to generous a handle for the Chicken Little brigade and their apologists. Newsweek is the equivalent of a person yelling fire in a crowed theater because their popcorn has a scorched smell to it.
Have you seen this CIA working paper from august 1974?
http://www.climatemonitor.it/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/1974.pdf
When you read the Newweek article one gets the impression that its a hyped-up version of that working paper.
As an ol boss of mine would say: “In a nutshell” . . . .
The way I see it is . . . . “Climate change” occurs in cycles just like the Seasons . . . man can not change those . . .
What man does in response to those cycles has it’s own behavioral cycle, which has been aptly demonstrated over time . . . .
I admire all those that are trying to bring some rationality to both cycles . . . .
Kinda like . . . . How can you know . . . . until you find out?????
The newest article is written by the same Sharon Begley who had a sentence from her 2007 “Truth about Denial / Global-Warming Deniers: A Well-Funded Machine” Newsweek article go viral on the internet, “ICE’s game plan called for enlisting greenhouse doubters to ‘reposition global warming as theory rather than fact’. She was referring to an accusation phrase made famous back in 1997 by anti-skeptic book author Ross Gelbspan, who is widely credited with being a “Pulitzer” winner, and with discovering ’91-era Information Council on the Environment (ICE) coal industry PR campaign memos with that specific phrase.
Al Gore praised him that way several times, and spelled out the ‘reposition global warming’ phrase full screen in An Inconvenient Truth. Problem is, Gelbspan never won a Pulitzer, he didn’t discover the memos, they prove nothing when they are read in their complete context…… AND it turns out Gore received the memos in 1991, long before Gelbspan first mentioned them. See “Climate Depot Exclusive: Smearing Skeptic Scientists – What did Gore know and when did he know it?” http://www.climatedepot.com/a/11168/Climate-Depot-Exclusive-Smearing-Skeptic-Scientists-What-did-Gore-know-and-when-did-he-know-it
Newsweek is in my parrot cage…
Newsmedia are not in the business of telling the truth. Otherwise we wouldn’t need historians any longer.
Newsmedia are in the business of selling copies. Everything else, is a consequence.
Actually we should thank Newsweek for reassuring us that nothing unusual is happening:
“The Midwest suffered the wettest April in 116 years,”— Thanks for reminding us that it was wetter 116 years ago. BEFORE man’s CO2 emissions.
“drought-plagued Texas suffered the driest month in a century. “ — Thanks for reminding us that it was dryer 116 years ago. BEFORE man’s CO2 emissions.
Thanks
JK
Well, assuming a lack of CO2 is telling. Plow farming turns out nitrous oxide, far more damaging than CO2. Prior to the plow burning a forest was the best way to get nitrogen enriched soil, hence CO2. I’m not saying we’re the cause, because the climate is changing, just saying check your science before quoting it. Now, since wheat grows better with more CO2 (ask about atmosphere in controlled growing environments) I don’t think 450 ppm will be an issue and we’ll have more food, so good. It’s ether feed the masses or let them die and know you could have done something, but lies make us happy.
They can keep recycling the same cold/hot scare articles from now until the end of time.
Its just another way to sell advertising and beef up the special interests of those who are involved.