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The Cooling World (Newsweek, April 28, 1975)
Newsweek ^ | April 28, 1975

Posted on 02/07/2007 5:40:45 PM PST by Jean S

Here is the text of Newsweek’s 1975 story on the trend toward global cooling. It may look foolish today, but in fact world temperatures had been falling since about 1940. It was around 1979 that they reversed direction and resumed the general rise that had begun in the 1880s, bringing us today back to around 1940 levels. A PDF of the original is available here.

A fine short history of warming and cooling scares has recently been produced. It is available here. — D.D.

 

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. 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. 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.”

Excerpt


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 1975; climatechange; doomage; globalcooling; globalwarming; iceage; newsreek; newsweak; newsweek; wearedoomed; weweredoomed

1 posted on 02/07/2007 5:40:46 PM PST by Jean S
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To: Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; Mrs. Don-o; RW_Whacko; honolulugal; gruffwolf; BlessedBeGod; ...

FReepmail me to get on or off

- great read -

2 posted on 02/07/2007 5:46:30 PM PST by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: DaveLoneRanger

ping


3 posted on 02/07/2007 5:46:42 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: JeanS

good find


4 posted on 02/07/2007 5:48:26 PM PST by TheRedSoxWinThePennant
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: DaveLoneRanger
Oh man, this is like a regular occurance at FR, the monthly posting of the Global Cooling story. This is probably the seventh time I've seen it...

Can't happen enough, far as I'm concerned.

6 posted on 02/07/2007 5:50:56 PM PST by paulat
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To: xcamel

Good Day xcamel...please add me to your Global Warming ping list....I have been compiling some info. myself on the junk science and the Global Warming Gestapo....thanks!


7 posted on 02/07/2007 5:55:53 PM PST by all4one (Global Warming is just another UN policy to get their hands in our pockets)
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To: DaveLoneRanger
this is like a regular occurance at FR, the monthly posting of the Global Cooling story

It is probably helpful with so many newbies and journalists from ESPN coming here now.

8 posted on 02/07/2007 6:00:03 PM PST by alrea (Because the press told them to, day in and day out, 24/7, headline after headline, for six years.)
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To: DaveLoneRanger
Oh man, this is like a regular occurance at FR, the monthly posting of the Global Cooling story

My apologies, I'm sorry for boring you. I searched before posting.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?m=all;o=time;s=the%20cooling%20world

9 posted on 02/07/2007 6:01:57 PM PST by Jean S
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: JeanS

bump


11 posted on 02/07/2007 6:47:14 PM PST by jeltz25
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To: JeanS

It seems to me we ought to mass email this story to everywhere and everyone...... SPAM the stuff.


12 posted on 02/07/2007 6:54:22 PM PST by Porterville (Through experience I have discovered that Yoda is a dumbass and Karma is a lie.)
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To: JeanS

Hee hee, I sent the link to everyone in my contacts list.


13 posted on 02/07/2007 8:55:27 PM PST by vpintheak (Like a muddied spring or a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way to the wicked)
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To: JeanS

Excellent! Thank you!


14 posted on 02/07/2007 9:01:50 PM PST by BlessedBeGod (Benedict XVI = Terminator IV)
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To: All

BUMP!


15 posted on 02/11/2007 9:08:28 AM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: JeanS
Thanks for posting this article, I'm passing it around!

Combating leftist propaganda for the war at home.
16 posted on 02/11/2007 9:14:56 AM PST by roses of sharon
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