Originally blogged at Realclimategate
Despite protestations to the contrary, from todays climate scientists, the ice age reallywas threatened by the scientists, politicans and the media in the 70’s and 80’s. Stephen Schneider in particular gets a mention. CO2 was to blame!!.
Over at Bishop Hill (h/t) there are lots of comments about the scientific literature, journals,media, politicians and TV of the time,frightening the public with a coming ice age, with almost identical themes (as seen in the video) that we see with man made climate change (warming this time) popular delusion
….this is now denied 😉
my example, is the fact that it made it into popular culture and also that so many people remember, this is all ignored as well..
from the iconic 1970’s song – ‘London Calling’ – (The Clash)
CHORUS
The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
Cause London is drowning and I, live by the river
I don’t remember that much of the 70′s, (born in 69) but there definitely was an apocalyptic gloom and doom, ‘end of the world’ mentality going on, nuclear destruction, an ice age was coming, (due to CO2 and other pollutants ) followed in the 80′s, by fears of nuclear war and the take up of the catastrophic man made global warming vision.
The ’Meltdown’ referred to in the lyrics of ‘London Calling’ was refering to ‘Nuclear Meltdown’ – the Three Mile Island incident and because of this (and now Japan , decades later, the Environmentalists won’t let politicians build nuclear power stations to solve the Green Energy Gap problem, in fact all nuclear power stations in Germany are to be closed.
So another generation now has the end of the world vision, now due to CAGW, when in reality it might be aGW – ie tenths C)
Certain environmental groups and politicians almost seem to relish it, a modern 21st equivalent of 17th, 18th or 19th century end of the world cults (and a few more recent raptures). As an observer of history, the human race does seem to be endowed with the ability and even a need to scare itself beyond reason, with a whole new catastrophic idea every generation and it is always different ‘this time’ and ‘real’.
London Calling – The Clash
full lyrics – very doom gloom, nuclear doom, ice-age, london drowning, etc….
London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared – and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard,you boys and girls
London calling, now don’t look to us
Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain’t got no swing
‘Cept for the ring of that truncheon thingCHORUS
The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
Cause London is drowning and I, live by the riverLondon calling to the imitation zone
Forget it, brother, you can go at it alone
London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out – and draw another breath
London calling – and I don’t wanna shout
But while we were talking I saw you *running out
London calling, see we ain’t got no high
Except for that one with the yellowy eyesCHORUS x2
The ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin
A nuclear error, but I have no fear
Cause London is drowning and I, I live by the riverNow get this
London calling, yes, I was there, too
An’ you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won’t you give me a smile?
London CallingI never felt so much alive, alive, alive…
How about Van Der Graaf Generator’s After The Flood, 1970 ?
Continuing the story, humanity stumbles–
gone is the glory, there’s a far distant rumble.
The clouds have gathered and exploded now:
axes shattered, there is no North or South!
Far off, the ice is foundering slowly…
the ice is turning to water,
the ice is turning to water.
The water rushes over all,
cities crash in the mighty wave;
the final man is very small,
plunging in for his final bathe.
This is the ending of the beginning…
this is the beginning of the end,
middle of the middle, mid-point, end and start:
the first peak rises, forces the waves apart.
Far off, the ice is now re-forming:
poles are fixed once more,
water’s receding, like death-blood.
And when the water falls again,
all is dead and nobody lives.
And then he said:
‘Every step appears to be the unavoidable consequence of the
preceding one, and in the end there beckons more and more
clearly total annihilation!’
This is the ending of the beginning…
this, the beginning of the end.
And when the water falls again
all is dead and nobody lives….
I remember it well, just a few years before it was blamed on nuclear weapons testing.
I guess what all these Mann Made Global Warming ™ nuts totally and utterly ignore is that the countries that recover the quickest from disasters are the wealthy ones. The same would go for any so called Mann Made Global Warming ™, you want your country to be wealthy so that it can withstand temperature changes but instead all we get is wealth redistribution (to corrupt government officials pockets) and the attempt at destroying Western industry!
You know…I almost want us to be plunged in to a ice age just so we can tell all the Mann Made Global Warming ™ cultists to shut the f9ck up! 🙂
Regards
Mailman
It is this maleable self-serving view of history that was one of the aspects of the AGW movement taht informed my skepticism.
Keep up the good work.
At 4:40 it’s made clear that CO2 causes the world to warm is what is being postulated. The take out messages from this film should be 1. CO2 causes warming 2. Scientists have always said that 3. That warming will have other effects that require further analysis.
To simplify it to “The Ice age really was coming” and “CO2 was to blame!!” is to misrepresent the science as it was then.
The Rah Band were best known for ‘Clouds Acroos The Moon’. This lesser known song worries how the children will cope with a cooling planet:(
Well I do remember that period very well, and yes it is true there was talk of an impending ice age at the time.
I live in Australia and I distinctly remember that Melbourne was a lot colder beginning in the early 1970s, which meant that we were malleable to the idea of a coming ice age. It was a period in which there was a growing awareness of things like nuclear tests etc. etc. I should point out that we had lots of smog at the time. This has always been my focus – getting rid of the smog.