...on being scientific

Boy, this global warming is a lot colder than they made it sound.

OK, jokes aside, I'm not a global warming denier, honest. But I'm not an advocate either. I'm like most people: I have my suspicions, but I don't really know what to believe. And I'm precipitously close to not caring.

"Look at the science," climate change evangelists cry! Well and good, but the science available for layman like me is, at best, contradictory. Especially when viewed over time.

Speaking of time...Time magazine's March 2006 cover reads, "Be Worried, Be Very Worried," with a subtitle of, "Climate change isn't some vague future problem--it's already damaging the planet at an alarming pace." Time followed this up in April of 2007 with a cover reading, "The Global Warming Survival Guide."

But back in April of 1975, Time's lead science story was, "The Coming Ice Age." It spoke of global cooling resulting in famine and claimed, "the evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it."

Of course, Time wasn't the only magazine touting global cooling. In June of 1974, Newsweek ran a lead story entitled, "Another Ice Age?" that explained, "when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing." In March of 1975, Science magazine predicted, "a full-blown, 10,000 year ice age." And in August of 1976 The New York Times reported, "many signs that Earth may be headed for another ice age."

Flash forward to 2006 and Time magazine is telling us, "Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us." A year later, Al Gore would win the Nobel Prize for An Inconvenient Truth and his work evangelizing global warming.

So you explain it too me. I'm willing to listen and learn. Explain to me why science now is right and science in the '70s, which was right, is now wrong. And why science now won't be equally as wrong in 30 years. Explain to me why leading climate change scientists are getting caught fudging the numbers in favor of a conclusion that will ensure them additional grant money. Tell me where this notion that "the debate is over" ever found it's way into science. And tell me why it's so darn cold outside.

But please don't tell me what to think. Got plenty of that around here already. All stocked up. I'm also all stocked up on reading materials, especially news articles from the '70s promoting the science of an imminent ice age. Guess I could stack all those articles up on my desk right beside the stack of recent articles on global warming and go insane and cross-eyed reading them all.
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1969 - New Ice Age Threat Seen (St. Petersburg Times, January 15, 1969)
1969 - Worrying About a New Ice Age (The New York Times, February 23, 1969)
1969 - Ice Age Biggest Threat According to Archeologist (The Hartford Courant, November 21, 1969)
1970 - Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age - Scientists See Ice Age In the Future (The Washington Post, January 11, 1970)
1970 - Is Mankind Manufacturing a New Ice Age for Itself? (L.A. Times, January 15, 1970)
1970 - Pollution Could Cause Ice Age, Agency Reports (St. Petersburg Times, March 4, 1970)
1970 - Pollution Called Ice Age Threat (St. Petersburg Times, June 26, 1970)
1971 - U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming (The Washington Post, July 9, 1971)
1971 - Ice Age Around the Corner (Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1971)
1971 - New Ice Age Coming - It's Already Getting Colder (L.A. Times, October 24, 1971)
1972 - Air pollution may cause ice age (Free-Lance Star, February 3, 1972)
1972 - Scientist Says New ice Age Coming (The Ledger, February 13, 1972)
1972 - Scientist predicts new ice age (Free-Lance Star, September 11, 1972)
1972 - Ice Age Begins A New Assault In North (The Age, September 12, 1972)
1972 - British climate expert predicts new Ice Age (The Christian Science Monitor, September 23, 1972)
1972 - Scientist Sees Chilling Signs of New Ice Age (L.A. Times, September 24, 1972)
1972 - Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, November 13, 1972)
1973 - Weather-watchers think another ice age may be on the way (The Christian Science Monitor, December 11, 1973)
1974 - New evidence indicates ice age here (Eugene Register-Guard, May 29, 1974)
1974 - Another Ice Age? (Time Magazine, June 24, 1974)
1974 - 2 Scientists Think 'Little' Ice Age Near (The Hartford Courant, August 11, 1974)
1974 - Ice Age, worse food crisis seen (The Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1974)
1974 - Believes Pollution Could Bring On Ice Age (Ludington Daily News, December 4, 1974)
1975 - Climate Changes Called Ominous (PDF) (The New York Times, January 19, 1975)
1975 - Climate Change: Chilling Possibilities (Science News, March 1, 1975)
1975 - B-r-r-r-r: New Ice Age on way soon? (The Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1975)
1975 - The Ice Age cometh: the system that controls our climate (The Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1975)
1975 - The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)
1975 - Scientists Ask Why World Climate Is Changing; Major Cooling May Be Ahead (PDF) (The New York Times, May 21, 1975)
1975 - In the Grip of a New Ice Age? (International Wildlife, July-August, 1975)
1976 - Worrisome CIA Report; Even U.S. Farms May be Hit by Cooling Trend (U.S. News & World Report, May 31, 1976)
1976 - The Cooling: Has the Next Ice Age Already Begun? (Book, 1976)
1977 - The Big Freeze (Time Magazine, January 31, 1977)
1977 - The Weather Conspiracy: The Coming of the New Ice Age (Book, 1977)
1977 - We Will Freeze in the Dark (Capital Cities Communications Documentary, Host: Nancy Dickerson, April 12, 1977)
1978 - The New Ice Age (Book, 1978)
1978 - Winters Will Get Colder, 'we're Entering Little Ice Age' (Ellensburg Daily Record, January 10, 1978)
1978 - Believe new ice age is coming (The Bryan Times, March 31, 1978)
1978 - The Coming Ice Age (In Search Of TV Show, Season 2, Episode 23, Host: Leonard Nimoy, May 1978)
1978 - An Ice Age Is Coming Weather Expert Fears (Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1978)
1979 - New ice age almost upon us? (The Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1979)