Unless you’ve put the time in to study the issue, you’re probably one of those people who think that we’re in the midst of a climate catastrophe called “Global Warming”.   Now, I’m not poking fun at you if you do.  After all, you only think this because the media has reported it and reported it and reported it.  But did you know that there have been 4 separate media predicted climate catastrophes in the last 100 years including a “Global Cooling” warning as recent as 1975.  You didn’t know that?  Interesting.

Global Cooling 1895-1932

On February 24, 1895, Americans awoke to this New York Time’s headline: “Geologists Think the World My Be Frozen Up Again.”   The article went on to suggest that if recent observations continued, we will be facing a second glacial period.  Over the next three decades, dire warnings of Global Cooling infested the print media.  In 1912, the Times reported: “Prof. Schmidt Warns Us of an Encroaching Ice Age.”   I don’t know who Professor Schmidt was but he must have been pretty important because The Los Angeles Times reported on the same day: “Fifth ice age is on the way.  Human race will have to fight for its existence against cold.”   Scary predictions followed, including the Chicago Tribune in 1923: “Scientist says Artic ice will wipe out Canada”, and The Washington Post that same year: “North America will disappear as far south as the Great Lakes and huge parts of Asia and Europe will be wiped out.  Switzerland will be entirely obliterated and parts of South America will overrun.”   In 1923, The New York Times reported that Captain Donald MacMillan traveled to the Artic to investigate the “menace of the new ice age.”  Other media outlets jumped on the story.  Then in 1924, the New York Times dropped this bomb: “MacMillan Reports Signs of New Ice Age.”   Et tu MacMillan? 

Global Warming: 1932-1960

The New York Times made the transition easy when in 1932 they reported: “the earth is steadily growing warmer”, and then one year later reported that the nation has entered its: “longest warm spell since 1776” and “that next ice age, if one is coming…is still a long way off.”    They weren’t alone.  The Los Angeles Times reversed course and reported: “Most geologists think the world is growing warmer and that it will continue to get warmer.”   British amateur meteorologist G.S. Callender made a bold claim in 1938: man was responsible for heating up the planet with carbon dioxide.  His article was published in the Royal Meteorological Society periodical, but unlike today, he concluded that the warming “is likely to prove beneficial to mankind in several ways besides the provision of heat and power.”  This calmed the masses until the Chicago Daily Tribune in 1939 ran an article titled: “Experts Puzzled over 20 year Mercury Rise”.   It read: “Chicago is in the front rank of thousands of cities throughout the world which have been affected by a mysterious trend toward warmer climate in the last two decades.”  The New York Times carried the torch so to speak in the 1950’s when they reported: “we have learned that the world has been getting warmer in the last half century.”   Their evidence: the Eskimos had added cod fish to their diet.  A fish they had never encountered before 1920.  Pretty scientific.  Of course in 1959, the old standby surfaced again.  The New York Times reported that the “ice in the Artic ocean is about half as thick as it was in the late 19^th century.”  Sound familiar?

Global Cooling: 1960-1976

The very next year, another threat was reported: a new ice age.   Actually, Global Cooling alarms had been sounding since the mid 1950s but grew louder in the 1970s.  The Washington Post ran an article titled: "Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age”.   It read: “get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters---the worst is yet to come.”  Fortune Magazine won a Science writing award for its analysis of the danger: “as for the present cooling trend, a number of leading climatologists have concluded that it is very bad news indeed.”  Lowell Ponte in his 1976 book, appropriately titled: “The Cooling”, wrote: “cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people in poor nations.”  He went on to report that Global Cooling, if proper measures weren’t taken, would lead to: “world famine, world chaos, and probably world war, and all this could come by the year 2000.”  Time magazine agreed: “the weather aberrations they are studying may be a harbinger for another ice age”.  They showed charts depicting growing Artic snow and ice.   U.S. News and World Report even had this headline in 1976: “Worrisome C.I.A. Report: Even U.S. Farms May be Hit By Cooling Trend.”  This was only good news for frozen vegetable fans.    

Global Warming: Present-????

Not much more to say here.  Just pick up any paper on any day and you will find the dire Global Warming prediction du-jour.  Just be forewarned: there may be a quote from Al Gore in there like this one: “Our ability to live is what is at stake.”

Conclusion:

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions on this one.  But before you paint your sunroom windows black, just keep in mind that impending climate catastrophes sell papers and get viewers and that sells advertising.   Now I know what you’re thinking…what about all of the scientists afraid of global warming today?  Well stay tuned, because next week we’ll take a look at what happens when big money and big politicians get involved in climate crisis.   Until then, stay warm…or cold…or whatever you currently believe is happening.

Much of the factual information in this article was taken from a special report from the Business and Media Institute entitled: Fire and Ice: May 17^th 2006.

 ...more columns by Todd A. Carges