Climate Change: How Long Have We Known?

Climate change has been nearly continuously in the press over the past few years, and is likely to remain in the headlines for the years to come. But it hasn’t always been that way.

The theory behind the global warming causing climate change first started to hit the press in the 1960’s. Using Google’s news search tool, you can actually look for the stories that are published online by date yourself. Here are some highlights:

The Virgin Island Daily News – Feb 18th 1970

In a small section on page 7 titled “Other Views” we have a brief mention of global warming. It states that scientists are warning that pollution could alter the earth’s climate. However it claims that scientists are split, half believing it will cause a global warming effect, and half believing it will lead to a new ice age. Theories being that gasses would either reflect the suns radiation causing cooling, or trap it causing warming.

So until the scientists come up with new ideas, we can look forward to living in a global hothouse or freezing to death. In the meantime, we had all better get busy and do something effective about pollution.

The Blade – June 12th 1979

This article reports that Carbon Dioxide levels are rising in the atmosphere, and that it could lead to a global warming trend. It already mentions the “green house effect” and the fear that climate change could melt the polar ice caps. It claims Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere were 335 ppm in 1978 and predicts that levels could reach 600 ppm between 2025 and 2075. That, they predicted, would cause 2.7 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit of warming (that’s 1.5 to 3 degrees C). CO2 levels are now thought to be 385 ppm

Interestingly however, they don’t seem that worried about the polar ice caps.

But it would take perhaps 1,000 years of unusually warm climate to cause substantial melting of the polar ice caps

However a New York Times article from the same year reports that climatologists were warning that newborns could live to a time when the north pole will have melted due to climate change.

New York Times – October 19th 1981

A whole article, with the title “EVIDENCE IS FOUND OF WARMING TREND”. Research showed evidence for the first time that “carbon dioxide pollution is causing a potentially dangerous warming of the earth’s climate”. This story was covered in most newspapers.

The Courier – July 20 1986

“Global Warming trend could cost billions”. The title of an article which is more informative and precise than most of the crap you can read in nowadays press, showing concerns of food and water shortages and crop degradation, as well as predicting that climate change could cost “as much as $200 billion to adjust to irrigation patterns alone”.

So it seems that we have not only known of the cause and effects of climate change for nearly 30 years, we have done nothing about it. Most of these predictions have been fairly accurate, so surely appropriate action could easily have been decided upon and taken. Apparently not. In-fact, despite 30 years of proof and research, we are still arguing about whether it exists. With statistics like that, climate change seems inevitable, unless we get smart and get smart now.

In part 2 see the history of climate change in scientific discovery.

Click Here For Part 2 of the History of Climate Change