Climate doom prophets and profiteers assert that their "science is settled," that the crisis is immediate and dire. They just can’t seem to agree over time regarding whether Earth is going into a deep freeze or is about to boil over.
On Oct. 7, 1912, for example, the Los Angeles Times alerted readers, “Fifth Ice Age Is on the Way: Human Race Will Have to fight for Existence in Cold.”
By Aug. 9, 1923, the situation had already become desperate, causing the Chicago Tribune to declare on its front page, "Scientist Says Arctic Ice Will Wipe Out Canada."
A complementary story posted that huge parts of Asia and Europe were also threatened.
The world soon appeared to be warming again by the 1930s, however, causing some scientists and news reporters to suggest that CO2 might be the cause.
But by the 1940s, it had become apparent that global mean temperatures had begun to fall again – which by the 1970s — and despite enormous releases of CO2 into the atmosphere by World War II-led to concerns that the Earth was once more heading toward a new Ice Age.
In 1973, Science Digest concluded, "At this point we do not have the comfortable distance of thousands of years to prepare for the next Ice Age, and that how carefully we monitor our atmospheric pollution would have direct bearing on the arrival of this weather crisis."
Consequently, the scientists warned, “Once the freeze starts, it will be too late.”
The March 1, 1975 cover of the respected Science News magazine depicted the City of New York being swallowed by an approaching glacier, and announced, "The Ice Age Cometh."
The threat was clear and urgent, "Again, this transition would induce only a small change in global temperature — two or three degrees — but the impact on civilization would be catastrophic."
The prestigious National Academy of Sciences agreed.
In 1975, it issued a warning that there was a "finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the Earth within the next 100 years."
That grim deep freeze prospect then again took a reverse turn a mere decade later during then-Senator Al Gore’s 1988 Committee on Science, Technology and Space hearings.
The star witness, NASA’s James Hansen, claimed 99 percent certainty that global temperatures had increased with some greenhouse influence, although he made no direct connection between the two.
The scheduling and staging of then-Sen. Al Gore’s hearings were carefully orchestrated for theater. As later recounted by his co-planner, then-Senator Timothy Wirth, D-Colo., in an interview with PBS's "Frontline":
"We called the Weather Bureau and found out what historically was the hottest day of the summer . . . so we scheduled the hearing that day, and bingo, it was the hottest day in Washington, or close to it . . . we went in at the night before and opened all the windows so that the air conditioning wasn’t working inside the room."
The rest, as they say, became contemporary history.
Al Gore scored a Nobel Prize for climate science, along with an Oscar for producing a science fiction horror movie on the same subject.
"The Goricle" also became enormously wealthy.
James Hansen went on to gain public notoriety as head of NASA’s Godard Institute of Space Studies (GISS), a tiny climate modeling shop located above a restaurant in a midtown Manhattan office building. Hansen and GISS became "go-to" media sources of virtually all alarmist "NASA reports warmest year, month, day in history" headline fodder.
Disgracefully for NASA’s rich scientific legacy, Hansen continued to retain his politically-protected government position throughout four handcuffed arrests for noncompliance with police orders during anti-fossil energy demonstrations.
Former Stanford University professor Stephen Schneider, author of an alarmist 1976 global cooling book, "The Genesis Strategy," later became a lead author of multiple U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports trumpeting an opposite global warming crisis.
Interviewed in 1989 by Discovery magazine, Schneider candidly defended the weaponized use of unsupportable climate alarm tactics in order to achieve individually — determined virtuous outcomes:
"On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. On the other hand, we are not just scientists, but human beings as well. And like most people, we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change.
"To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. Or we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have."
In other words, trust not what they tell you, but believe that they have your best interests in mind because their personal intentions are ethical.
Remember that when they are found to exaggerate the truth in order to get your attention, they did so for a righteous cause.
Or then again, maybe not.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. He is the author of several books, including “The Weaponization of AI and the Internet: How Global Networks of Infotech Overlords are Expanding Their Control Over Our Lives” (2019), "Reinventing Ourselves: How Technology is Rapidly and Radically Transforming Humanity" (2019), "Thinking Whole: Rejecting Half-Witted Left & Right Brain Limitations" (2018), "Reflections on Oceans and Puddles: One Hundred Reasons to be Enthusiastic, Grateful and Hopeful” (2017), "Cosmic Musings: Contemplating Life Beyond Self" (2016), "Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom" (2015) and “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax” (2011). He is currently working on a new book with Buzz Aldrin, "Beyond Footprints and Flagpoles." To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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