7 2 April 2017
ENVIRONMENT
I
N THE 1970s, climate scientists knew there was a
link between CO2 and global warming, the cooling
effects of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere and
even of Earth's cyclic change of orbit around the sun,
believed to be the precursor to the planet's ice ages.
Between the 1940s and 1970s was a period of global
cooling in the Northern Hemisphere; ground tempera-
tures dropped, the polar caps appeared to be growing
and weather patterns brought unseasonal amounts of
snow and ice cover. In particular, satellite imagery
revealed a sudden increase in Northern Hemisphere
snow cover between 1971 and 1972.
As far back as 1938 an analysis of long-term warming
trends from the 1870s had been published, demonstrat
-
ing for the first time that temperature increase was
linked to the onset of the industrial revolution and CO2
emissions. A survey of scientific literature from 1965 to
1979 found 7 articles predicting cooling and 44 predict
-
ing warming, but it was global cooling that made media
headlines.
In the early 1970s, scientists debated why the Earth
appeared to be cooling, and it was hypothesised that
sulphate aerosols – which reflect sunlight – might be
countering the warming effects of carbon dioxide. A
small number of scientists posited the notion that the
Earth might, in fact, be heading toward an ice age.
America and Europe had escaped the 500-year-long
so-called 'Little Ice Age' around 1850, and it was feared
there could be a worldwide return. Moreover, it had been
discovered that the present interglacial age was in fact
an anomaly in Earth's history and that a new glacial age
was due 'soon'. How soon was open to wide debate.
Echoing these concerns, Professor Kenneth E.F. Watt,
scientific and policy advisor to the Center for the Study
of Carbon Dioxide, said in 1970: “If present trends con
-
tinue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the
global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder
by the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take
to put us in an ice age”.
NASA too, was concerned, and in July 1971, NASA sci
-
entist S.I. Rasool predicted that if fossil-fuel dust
continued to be injected into the atmosphere over sev-
eral years, “such a temperature decrease could be
sufficient to trigger an ice age”.
At a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS) in January 1974, certain scientists suggested the
evacuation of six million people from the Sahel region in
Africa. They feared faced starvation due to the effects of
global cooling.
Well-meaning 1970s celebs got in on the act. Leonard
Nimoy narrated the apocalyptic T.V. documentary, 'In
Search Of The Coming Ice Age'. In his authoritative
Vulcan timbre, Nimoy intoned:
“Climate experts believe the next ice age is on its
way...if we are unprepared for the next advance, the
result could be hunger and
death on a scale unprecedented
in all of history...during the life-
time of our grandchildren, arctic
cold and perpetual snow could
turn most of the inhabitable
portions of our planet into a
polar desert”.
Predictably, the press seized
on all these apocalyptic
by Ken Phelan
Lessons for the warming but confused
citizenry from the failed 1970s predictions
of global cooling
Professor Kenneth E.F. Watt, scientific and
policy advisor to the Center for the Study of
Carbon Dioxide, said in 1970: “If present trends
continue, the world will be about four degrees
colder for the global mean temperature in 1990,
but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000"
HOT AIR
ON COLD AIR
April 2017 7 3
Predictably, the press
seized on these apocalyptic
cooling predictions, ignoring
1970s scientific consensus,
and campaigners inevitably
picked up on the journalism
predictions and, ignoring 1970s scientific con-
sensus, afforded credibility to the global cooling
theorists as they revelled in the story's sensa-
tionalist potential. Very soon, global cooling
found new advocates as reporters fell behind the
new narrative.
Even the reputable, 'quality' press foretold the
end of civilisation: 'New Ice Age Coming – It's
Already Getting Colder' (L.A. Times, Oct 1971);
'Scientist Sees Chilling Signs Of New Ice Age'
(L.A. Times, Sept 1972); 'Science: Another Ice
Age?' (Time magazine, Nov 1972); 'Ice Age,
Worse Food Crisis Seen' (The Chicago Tribune,
Oct 1974); 'The Cooling World' (Newsweek, Apr
1975); 'The Big Freeze' (Time magazine, Jan
1977).
The New York Times, in particular, left impar
-
tiality and journalistic standards out in the cold.
In the period from 1924 to 2005, The Times
reported four climate changes, each one contra-
dicting the last: 'MacMillan Reports Signs of New
Ice Age' (Sept 1924); 'America in Longest Warm
Spell Since 1776...' (Mar 1933); 'Scientists
Ponder Why World's Climate is Changing; A
Major Cooling Widely Considered to be Inevita-
ble' (May 1975); 'Past Hot Times Hold Few
Reasons to Relax About New Warming' (Dec
2005).
It was these inconsistencies and the prefer-
ence of sensationalism that obfuscated genuine
debate and misinformed the general public,
obscuring very real concerns over global warm-
ing. It could be argued that journalists were
simply reporting what scientists were saying,
but much of the information was misrepre
-
sented, only a minority of the scientific
community were referenced or quoted, and con-
flicting scientific literature was not referred to. It
was unbalanced, unscientific.
Campaigners inevitably picked up on the jour-
nalism. At the first Earth Day celebration in April
1970, environmentalist Nigel Calder warned “the
threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside
nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death
and misery for mankind”.
A number of 'solutions' were put forward to
counter the cooling, including pumping extra
CO2 into the atmosphere, diverting arctic rivers
and even melting polar caps by covering them
with black soot. However, climatologists – not
implausibly - believed these measures would
only create more problems than they would
solve.
The impact of CO2 was never forgotten and
some attempted to establish a sort of CO2/aero-
sol calculus. The opposing effects were weighted
in a 1971 paper by Rasool and Dr Steven Schnei-
der; the conclusion of this study was that an
increase by a factor of four in global atmospheric
aerosol could be enough to trigger another ice
age. Critics noted that the effects of aerosols in
the atmosphere had been overestimated in com-
parison to the warming effects of CO2.
In 1975, the NAS backtracked on its initial con-
cerns, reporting: “Our knowledge of the
mechanisms of climate change is at least as frag-
mentary as our data...Not only are the basic
scientific questions largely unanswered, but in
many cases we do not yet know enough to pose
the key questions’. The heat was cooling.
By 1980, predictions of an imminent ice age
had largely ceased, as scientists agreed it would
take thousands of years before the next one
occurred. Hot scientists welcomed their prodi-
gally colleagues back into the heat.
However outliers subsisted and in 2004 -
again in a gross misrepresentation of the facts
- The New York Times quoted the 1972 NAS report
as reading: “Judging from the record of the past
interglacial ages, the present time of high tem
-
peratures should be drawing to an end, leading
into the next glacial age”.
What the NAS report actually read was: 'Judg
-
ing from the record of the past interglacial ages,
the present time of high temperatures should be
drawing to and end, to be followed by a long
period of considerably colder temperatures
leading to the next glacial age some 20,000
years from now”.
In October 2006, Senior Editor of Newsweek
Jerry Alder – whose publication had been one of
the main promulgators of the ice- age myth –
admitted that a report on global cooling in 1975
was “spectacularly wrong about the near-term
future”, but went on to claim that even Isaac
Asimov had concerns over climatic change and
food production.
The conclusion drawn must be that there was
indeed a significant drop in Northern Hemi-
spheric temperature during the 1970s, that a
minority of scientists favoured the view of over-
all global cooling, and that the press
misrepresented scientific papers and failed in
their duty to provided balanced, informed
reporting.
Today, 97% of climate scientists believe that
the Earth is warming, that it is largely driven by
anthropogenic factors, and that the situation is
dire. Few of the minority believe in global cool
-
ing. Scientists know that temperatures have
risen since the onset of the Industrial Revolution,
that CO2 and other gases are the main driving
force, and that the fate of our planet now rests
in our hands.
The technology we now have and knowledge
we have accumulated were largely not available
thirty years ago. Climate sceptics will point to
the 1970s as 'proof' that climate change is a
hoax, but will fail to acknowledge the facts as
laid out by twenty-first-century science. The
Earth is warming fast, and has been steadily
warming since the mid 1800s when the indus-
trial revolution began – of that there is no
question.
The real question now is whether the public
will trust the media to report the science.

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