Time Magazine on Drought, 2007 Versus 1974

NewsBusters ^ | Nov 21, 2007 | Amy Ridenour

[como_1996]

Time magazine, November 26, 2007 (Michael Grunwald):

[Georgia's] drought was a natural event transformed into a natural disaster by human folly. And while it's still hard to say whether global warming caused any particular drought or flood or fire, it's going to cause more of all of them.

Time magazine, June 24, 1974:

In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims... Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.

[como_1996]

and the MSM doesn't have an agenda?

[ClearCase_guy]

Just as an aside, in 1974 references to classical mythology ("climatological Cassandras") seemed pretty basic -- the reading public was likely to grasp the allusion. Today, the cultural illiterates would wonder if Cassandra is that babe on the weather channel.

But, hey, at least we have a deep scientific undertanding of complex scientific matters.

[Proverbs 3-5]

Viva Rat Milk!!

[sergeantdave]

And who can forget that we were all going to die from the ozone hole.

I recall pictures of little kids in Australia running around in floppy hats and sunglasses to protect them from the ozone hole monster. Scarey stuff.

[sticker]

This Cassandra?

[meowmeow]

Good observation.

[qam1]

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. – The Cooling World Newsweek, April 28, 1975

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. -- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. -- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000. -- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

"There is very important climatic change (Global Cooling) going on right now, and it’s not merely something of academic interest. It is something that, if it continues, will affect the whole human occupation of the earth – like a billion people starving. The effects are already showing up in a rather drastic way.” - American Institute of Physics February 1974

"Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," - Barry Commoner Washington University Earth Day 1970

NOAA announced its predictions for the 2006 hurricane season, saying it expects an "above normal" year with 13-16 named storms. Of these storms, the agency says it expects four to be hurricanes of category 3 or above, double the yearly average of prior seasons in recorded history. With experts calling the coming hurricane season potentially worse than last year's, oil prices have jumped 70 cents per barrel in New York and made similar leaps elsewhere. Economists anticipate that demand for oil will rise sharply over the summer, when as many as four major hurricanes could hit the United States. -- Seed Magazine 5/19/06

But this time they are surely correct? Yeah Right!!!

[SoFloFreeper]

The MSM: confused, deluded, and retarded.

[KarlInOhio]

Just as an aside, in 1974 references to classical mythology ("climatological Cassandras") seemed pretty basic -- the reading public was likely to grasp the allusion.

Is there any classical opposite of Cassandra? For those who don't want to look it up, Cassandra had the power of prophecy but was cursed so that no one would believe her. I'm looking for a name to use on someone who is talking out of his or her backside but whom everyone believes.

Maybe in a thousand years Algore will be used to describe such a person.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Ooh! She’s going to get such a cold in her chest.

[ClearCase_guy]

In the story of the Emperor's New Clothes, the people seem to know that their leader is a fool, but they are afraid to tell him so. That's one aspect.

The other aspect is "drinking the kool-aid" in which people will believe absolutely anything their leader tells them.

[DustyMoment]

Without reading anything about this, let me see if I can guess - Time is pushing the Global Warming hoax and suggesting that we need to immediately um, . . . . 1) reduce our use of and dependence on fossil fuels, 2) only drive hybrids or electric cars, 3) join carpools, 4) give up our electric appliances, 5) stop polluting, 6) stop drinking the earth’s dwindling water resources, 7) end all CO2 emissions, 8) stop clear cutting the rain forest, 9) sign Kyoto, 10) watch “An Inconvenient Truth” 20 times as punishmenty for doubting OwlGore, 11) etc., 12) etc. . . . . . . . . .

[itsamelman]

"The Cooling World" - by Peter Gwynne

April 28, 1975 Newsweek

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. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the 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.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras – and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.

Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 – years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases – all of which have a direct impact on food supplies. “The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.” Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

[treesplease]

Ta names to use on someone who is talking out of his or her backside but whom everyone believes, are minister, priest, pope, reverend...

:-)

[como_1996]

....and vote for liberals

[Don W]

That was Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I used to watch her, then switch away from the movie she was introducing. I had NO interest in the cheezy flicks, but she was HOT!

[Don W]

I just realized that her REAL name was Cassandra. MYBAD!

[sticker]

“MYBAD”

For missing the connection or for enjoying watching her “show”?

[Don W]

For missing the connection. I'd watch her show opening today if it was in production. That said, she is still working. Woot!

[steveab]

I’ve always liked your Cassandra. She could warm up Mars and Earth at the same time.