Conservatives love to recall how Newsweek heralded a new ice age back in 1975 just as the current warming trend was getting under way. Now the Washington Times has actually printed on line the article from thirty years ago, The Cooling World by Peter Gwynne.
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... The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
That must have got their attention back in the April 28, 1975 edition of Newsweek. The growing season in England had declined by 2 weeks between 1950 and 1975, and guess what: violent weather was a factor.
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.
You gotta love this stuff. An outburst of tornados means we are in for global cooling. But what about the devastating hurricanes of the 1960s. Don’t they get a mention? Then there are the experts.
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.
Of course, Newsweek was deeply worried that nothing was being done about the looming crisis. “The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.” There’s a voice from the past. Remember the “planners?” Haven’t heard much about them lately. Not since the end of the Soviet Union.
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