[Lore]

That was a good dozen years after the period I was in JHS, which was 1963-64. Which was when the popular media was reporting it, when Walter Cronkite commented on it, and when it made the rounds as dinner party conversation.

Which period is not even covered in the document you linked. Nor were any of the papers referenced even written then.

Clear miss on your part.

So, because Walter Cronkite mentioned it, it must be true? I always thought he was a journalist and not a scientist? Nice try, but not what the deniers are referring to. If anything, even less relevant.

You should listen to me, I'm your elder here.

I would add from the study I referenced, in the first sentence of the abstract says; "Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s." Which means that your statement that climate scientists were all on the band wagon for an upcoming ice age is blatantly false.

[Dybbuk]

Seems like the premise being argued here is "since scientists were wrong in the past, you can disregard anything that scientists say today". If that's the case, should we just throw all research findings in the trash, disband all institutes related to science, and cancel all science classes in school?

[KaiserJeep]

Nope, clear miss there. The message was that some of the same scientists that insist that AGW is real now, were equally insistent that an Anthropogenic Ice Age was upon us in the early '60's, and being a naive teenager and them being "scientists", I believed and was frightened then.

That is in fact exactly what I said before, no need to interpret anything. No need to make over the top conclusions. No need to take away anything other than some of the same people were wrong in the opposite direction before. "Before" they declared climate to be a "science" in the 1970's.

As if labelling something changed it's nature.

[Keith_McClary]

I am going to say this once. I was born in 1951, and I was in Junior High School when the great majority of Climate Scientists were screaming that we were about to induce an Ice Age. They were blaming a wide variety of causes, everything from paving over grasslands to acid rain to algae blooms caused by fertilizer runoffs. Some were even talking about the then new technology high altitude jets - the Boeing 707 was the popular target - destroying the ozone layer and causing the planet to first cloud up worse than Venus, and then freeze.

Source please. Turns out there was cooling due to various FF air pollutants - did any of them say that?

It was not "one NewsWeek article" as Maher puts it. Popular Science magazine had a cover with glaciers crunching over Manhattan, toppling the tall buildings. Scientific American published the latest and greatest on the approaching Ice Age nearly every month. Even Boy's Life, a publication from the Boy Scouts of America, was offering helpful hints about waterproofing frame structures, then earth-berming them so that you could survive the coming harsh winters.

Provide proof of your claims about Scientific American. I don't think Popular Science and Boy's Life represent the great majority of Climate Scientists

Now all of you are foaming at the mouth, ready to jump in my sh*t, and tell me that I am WRONG about the things I personally experienced, and that you can prove that I am wrong, by linking me to some BS text somewhere on the internet, ...

No, you are making these extraordinary claims, the onus is on you to provide proof you are RIGHT. I don't personally remember more then a fleeting flurry of so-called "science journalism" of the same sort that featured personal jet packs and space colonies.

[KaiserJeep]

I'm very curious, what do YOU mean by "proof"?

If by any chance, you mean that I should provide links to online information that backs up what I said about the life I personally lived, then THANK YOU VERY MUCH for making the exact point I was arguing, which is that for people such as yourself, the virtual reality of the internet trumps actual reality, the personal experiences of yourself and others. Nothing is quite real for you until you read about it online, is it? That is one f*cked up way to live your life, and one in which you are practically guaranteed to deceive yourself.

For the record, I have not paid for online access to any of the four Scientific American archives. At the time, I was reading the publication in hardcopy, from the JHS Library. Nor do I feel the need to fill some of the emptiness in your head - that is in fact your job.

Have a nice day.

[Lore]

Nope, clear miss there. The message was that some of the same scientists that insist that AGW is real now, were equally insistent that an Anthropogenic Ice Age was upon us in the early '60's, and being a naive teenager and them being "scientists", I believed and was frightened then.

That is in fact exactly what I said before, no need to interpret anything. No need to make over the top conclusions. No need to take away anything other than some of the same people were wrong in the opposite direction before. "Before" they declared climate to be a "science" in the 1970's.

As if labelling something changed it's nature.

Yes, but those scientists that did speculate on global cooling, which should have been occurring by the way, have adjusted their thinking in the light of new evidence and the majority of the rest were found to be correct. That the planet was indeed on its way to actually getting warmer.

[Lore]

I'm very curious, what do YOU mean by "proof"?

If by any chance, you mean that I should provide links to online information that backs up what I said about the life I personally lived, then THANK YOU VERY MUCH for making the exact point I was arguing, which is that for people such as yourself, the virtual reality of the internet trumps actual reality, the personal experiences of yourself and others. Nothing is quite real for you until you read about it online, is it? That is one f*cked up way to live your life, and one in which you are practically guaranteed to deceive yourself.

For the record, I have not paid for online access to any of the four Scientific American archives. At the time, I was reading the publication in hardcopy, from the JHS Library. Nor do I feel the need to fill some of the emptiness in your head - that is in fact your job.

Have a nice day.

So, in the end here you have nothing more to add to the conversation then your word and a confused understanding with no basis in reality, or even the integrity to attempt to back it up. How lame... Why should we believe then anything you have to say? Oh, because you say so.

Feel free to walk out of your corner once the paint drys.

[Keith_McClary]

I'm very curious, what do YOU mean by "proof"?

If by any chance, you mean that I should provide links to online information that backs up what I said about the life I personally lived, then THANK YOU VERY MUCH for making the exact point I was arguing, which is that for people such as yourself, the virtual reality of the internet trumps actual reality, the personal experiences of yourself and others. Nothing is quite real for you until you read about it online, is it? That is one f*cked up way to live your life, and one in which you are practically guaranteed to deceive yourself.

For the record, I have not paid for online access to any of the four Scientific American archives. At the time, I was reading the publication in hardcopy, from the JHS Library. Nor do I feel the need to fill some of the emptiness in your head - that is in fact your job.

Have a nice day.

I have a bunch of old Sci Ams in the basement. In HARDCOPY.

I never said ONLINE. I just think you were an impressionable youngster who took some pop-sci stuff too seriously.

[KaiserJeep]

It rose above pop sci, and it was selected by my exceptionally talented Science instructor as a week-long topic when we studied climate and weather. Walter Cronkite discussed it on CBS Evening News, when they called him the "most trusted man in America".

It was almost as real as nuclear war, in a time when a lot of people had Fallout Shelters, like the one in our backyard. Four years after that, discussing Moby Dick in a sweltering "temporary classroom" in Virginia, I was wishing for some Ice Age, and beginning to realize we might still have a few years of life before the ice came.

The take-away life lesson: Be wary of men in white lab coats, prophesying climate changes.

Thank you, Lore, for confirming my opinion about you. Nothing is real but the Internet, and you have your head entirely within it.

[Lore]

That was a good dozen years after the period I was in JHS, which was 1963-64. Which was when the popular media was reporting it, when Walter Cronkite commented on it, and when it made the rounds as dinner party conversation.

Which period is not even covered in the document you linked. Nor were any of the papers referenced even written then.

Clear miss on your part.

I call BS on KJ here.

He went from the articles on global cooling in a few mass media magazines to Walter Cronkite as a young JHS. Which as he says, scared him silly. The reality is he is just surfing around picking up this crap.

First of all the Walter Cronkite report was a brief 24 second end of broadcast segment in which the tongue in cheek broadcaster made mention of British professor Hubert Lamb's work. This was on September 11, 1972, which would have made KJ an impressionable youngster of 21. He is just picking this stuff up from deniopshere sites that were running this a couple of months ago and is trying to pull a swift one is all. I guess KJ got all confused since the broadcast was in black and white and he thought it must have come from the 60s....

Here is the brief Walter Cronkite report.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4JX1S9YZBo

Also, a brief search on Hubert Lamb would fill you in on what the professor is all about.

Lamb was one of the first to propose that climate could change within human experience, going against the orthodox view of the time that climate could be treated as constant for practical purposes.[1] He developed early theories about the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. He became known for his prediction of gradual global cooling and a coming glacial period (colloquially, an "ice age"), and he subsequently highlighted a more immediate future prospect of global warming.[3]

In 1973 and 1975 he arranged for two international conferences which were hosted in Norwich. He was known as “the ice man” because of his view that global cooling would lead to a future glacial period within 10,000 years with some abrupt cooling phases occurring "within one to two thousand years".[6]:368 However he also acknowledged that global warming could have serious effects within a century.[6]:365

Lamb's 1977 book Climatic History and the Future described studies of fossil pollen showing an abrupt change from a glacial era of pinewoods to oak trees,[7] pointing to "great rapidity of climate change". He discussed research on the complex effects of human caused pollution, and suggested that "On balance, the effects of increased carbon dioxide on climate is almost certainly in the direction of warming but is probably much smaller than the estimates which have commonly been accepted."[8]

In the preface to his 1984 edition of the book, Lamb noted studies of the "carbon dioxide problem" and called for more investigation of past climate, particularly "evidence that some major climatic changes took place surprisingly quickly." He outlined recent research suggesting that the next glaciation would begin in 3,000 to 7,000 years, and wrote "It is to be noted here that there is no necessary contradiction between forecast expectations of (a) some renewed (or continuation of) slight cooling of world climate for some years to come, e.g. from volcanic or solar activity variations; (b) an abrupt warming due to the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, lasting some centuries until fossil fuels are exhausted and a while thereafter; and this followed in turn by (c) a glaciation lasting (like the previous ones) for many thousands of years.”[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Lamb

Yes, KJ the Internet is a wonderful thing. Glad you're using it. Just don't screw up next time you're using it and making your bogus claims.

[Tanada]

People need to take a step back from the accusatory language on this thread.

Human memory is an imperfect resource to draw upon. Often when a trusted source tells us something and a lot of time passes our memory puts that knowledge in the 'Trusted' file and refiles it as something known for as long as we can remember ever hearing about whatever the topic is.

When the human later discusses the topic their personal memory says X happened at Y time. Usually they are wrong, but their memory tells them they are correct. For myself I first got exposed to the environmental movement around single digit age because one of my older teen age sisters had environmentalist posters on the walls of her bedroom that I saw frequently. Later in life, in High School or College, I saw a short movie based on the book Silent Spring. I looked it up once and I could not have seen the movie any earlier because it had not been made yet. However in my memory I think I saw it in elementary school. My memory is faulty because it links a long held belief with a later event that supports that belief. That does not make me a liar or a deceiver, it makes me a normal human being.

When discussing personal memories we should always presume the person speaking fully believes their own memory is correct. Sometimes pointing out an error of date will cause them to realize they are not remembering facts correctly, but more often you will just cause them to dig in their heels and conclude you are a nasty person because you are challenging their personal memory experience.

In the end accusations of ly8ing about memory accomplish nothing and waste your time. I urge all participants to keep this in mind in the future.

[Lore]

That's why I always check and recheck my sources.

[ennui2]

The message was that some of the same scientists that insist that AGW is real now, were equally insistent that an Anthropogenic Ice Age was upon us in the early '60's

You're wrong. The level of alarm of AGW today (backed up with tons of empirical data of AGW actually taking place, like melting glaciers, etc...) is orders of magnitude greater than whatever obscure concerns were frothing about in academia in the 60s about new ice ages. In fact there is a famous old film from the 50s that talks about the greenhouse effect and raising concerns about the long-term effect of CO2 emissions from cars and factories. AGW and the science behind it has been well-known for over half a century and the only doubts about it originate from people who don't want to believe it for one reason or another, not because the science is so difficult or imperfect.

[KaiserJeep]

Look, I have a distinct memory of discussing this topic in Junior High School in 1963-64. I remember my lab partner Stephanie's amazing blue eyes. I remember the Science instructor Mr. Riley, smiling because he had found a subject with some traction to hang his lessons on. I remember discussing with my parents how untenable life in Southern Illinois might become when the glaciers came - and they knew what the issue was, it had widespread publicity at that time.

I am not wrong about this. The fact that the rest of you doubt this, because you cannot find corroborating evidence online, is simply another indicator of how sick our popular online culture is. It is now possible to edit reality online and even if that online reality diverges from the printed texts, you are all ready to accept the online version and declare that to be your reality.

I remember a time not so long ago, when the internet could not be used as a reference, the only acceptable sources were written and printed journals. Well, the truth to BS ratio has declined since that time, and for some of you, the BS online world is the only true reality that you will acknowledge.

The online world is a better opiate for the masses than even television.

Right now, I will make a prediction. Within two decades, there will be more reporting of virtual news than real news describing real events in the real world. Shortly after that, it will become possible to synthesize a political candidate digitally, and optimize that candidate for each local market, and the best online synthesist will see his virtual candidate win. If there is any public face put forward, that person will be an actor.

The direct election of candidates, taking the Electoral College and unpredictable people out of the equation, was already proposed last time around. Oregon tried an online election, even. See how much further it goes this time.

Clearly, humans are now organizing into a cybernetic hive mind. There are times when I think, OMG, what have I done.

[Lore]

I have a clear memory on this as well and the fact that we only have your word with no references does not bode well for your argument. I've pointed to mine. Sorry if you want to ignore them. Yours on the other hand is essentially a disjointed spread out mishmash of personal experiences. Which is fine, but if you want to make a definitive case for why we should ignore today's science based on the distend past, you'll have to do better.

Rambling off into talk about cybernetic hive minds doesn't help the discussion either.

[Dybbuk]

Back in the early 60's, there wasn't the glut of "information" bombarding us that we see today. So something that wasn't a big deal might seem like a big deal in retrospect, because it didn't have as much other stuff to compete against for the typical person's attention span, unlike today.

But regardless, a better question is, why does it matter? What's the relevance to today's topics whether a few scientists and media outlets were wrong about something 50 years ago?

[KaiserJeep]

Well, the biggest reason I can think of, is that those same scientists - and others who are younger but just as fallible, might be just as wrong today.

The history of science is replete with examples of where the majority of scientists - even in some cases everybody except one man - were completely and totally wrong about a topic.

It's nothing more than in another few years we will know so much more than we know now, that a new understanding will unfold, something we cannot conceive of today.

I am convinced that the day will come - within the short lifetime remaining to an old fart like me, that the present controversy over AGW will be resolved - and that the present crop of true believers will be revealed to be fools.

An amusing lot, mind you - but still fools.

[Keith_McClary]

Look, I have a distinct memory of discussing this topic in Junior High School in 1963-64. I remember my lab partner Stephanie's amazing blue eyes. I remember the Science instructor Mr. Riley, smiling because he had found a subject with some traction to hang his lessons on.

Good teaching strategy (especially since he was competing with distractions). Today teachers might hang some lessons on cloning dinosaurs.
Was Mr. Riley teaching this as fact, or using it to stimulate critical thinking?

[ennui2]

The history of science is replete with examples of where the majority of scientists - even in some cases everybody except one man - were completely and totally wrong about a topic.

So on the one hand, you think all scientific theories should be met with suspicion, and on the other, you believe in some flavor of techno-singularity where we all merge into some sort of hive-mind?

In other words, you want the goodies that science has to offer but don't want to accept certain inconvenient truths they discover.

[Tanada]

Well, the biggest reason I can think of, is that those same scientists - and others who are younger but just as fallible, might be just as wrong today.

The history of science is replete with examples of where the majority of scientists - even in some cases everybody except one man - were completely and totally wrong about a topic.

It's nothing more than in another few years we will know so much more than we know now, that a new understanding will unfold, something we cannot conceive of today.

I am convinced that the day will come - within the short lifetime remaining to an old fart like me, that the present controversy over AGW will be resolved - and that the present crop of true believers will be revealed to be fools.

An amusing lot, mind you - but still fools.

Sorry KaiserJeep but in this case I think you will be the one ending up with egg on your face. I believed all the BS about the science not being settled until 2007 when the Arctic Sea Ice collapsed instead of waiting until 2080 to do so as the conservative climate models had predicted.