x 'Scientists' predict an Impending Ice Age In September, 1979, then President Carter, responding to the Global Cooling crisis, signed into law in the USA, the Climate Control Program Act, to predict the climate and combat Global Cooling.

Global Cooling Death by Frostbite In the 1970 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, it is recorded that early in geological times, Earth's normal temperature was comparatively warm, with few temperature extremes. Both polar latitudes were cool, with open seas. Britannica reported further that around the year 1550, glaciers began to grow and advanced steadily until a warm-up commenced in the mid 1880s. That warming continued until 1940, with Arctic ice retreating several hundred miles. Then Earth's temperatures again began to fall. Cooling continued for some years, and glaciers grew once more until the 1970s. Winter in 1962-63 was the coolest in four centuries in the northern hemisphere.               By the mid 1970s, 'scientists' were sounding               the alarm about Global Cooling. In April, 1975,               Newsweek magazine published an article titled               "The Cooling World," spelling out the grim               predictions of a frigid future. The impact of Global Cooling, it was said, would be most severe on agriculture industries. Wheat growing countries would be especially hard hit. The world's food supply was forecast to drop significantly in as little as ten years. That would have been by 1985, just twenty five years ago. The growing season in England was said to have shrunk by two weeks from 1950 onward, because of the increasing cold. Underscoring those chilling predictions, a 1974 survey by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported a half-degree drop in the northern hemisphere's temperature in the twenty-three years between 1945 and 1968. That's about .022° per year. Two NOAA scientists reported on a study that concluded sunshine in the USA diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972. Dr.George Kukla of Columbia University reported that satellite photos showed a sudden increase in snow cover in the northern hemisphere during the 1971-2 winter. Along with Robert Matthews of Brown University, Dr.Kukla convened an international conference that reached a consensus on the cooling crisis, prompting them to warn then President Nixon of the climate deterioration, said to be worse than anything that civilized mankind had ever experienced.               The cooling was compared to that which               brought on the last ice age, and a severe               winter in 1976-7 reinforced the prophesies               of Earth's impending doom.               The seemingly scientific validity of those               predictons, moved President Carter to sign               the Climate Control Program Act into law               to combat Global Cooling. Significantly, the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO²) in the atmosphere at that time was 335 parts per million (ppm). The current level, 380 ppm, is a mere 45 ppm above that, well within the range of past variations. Historically, fluctuations of 45 ppm or more in atmospheric CO² have occurred frequently over various periods of time.

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The Vostok Ice Core and Carbon DiOxide In 1988, the United States, Russia and France collaborated in an ice-drilling project at the Russian Vostok base in East Antarctica and recovered an ice-core from the deepest level ever reached up to that time. Scientific examination of that core revealed a record of climate for the past 400,000 years, and defined four major climate cycles during that period. Four times, at intervals of approximately 100,000 years, Antarctic temperature peaked at about 3° to 4°C (37 to 39° F) then fell again to lows in the range of minus eight to minus nine C (-8 to -9°C) or 16 to 18° F.               Coincidentally, the concentration of CO² in               the atmosphere rose and fell synchronously               with those temperature fluctuations. Four               times, as the temperature peaked in those               100,000 year cycles, the CO² level topped               out at around 300 ppm, and four times as               the temperature bottomed, the CO² level               dropped to about 180. Within each of those 100,000 year cycles, there were repetitive shorter oscillations of both CO² and temperature, in lockstep. Those oscillations were often as great as 55% of the overall fluctuation range and variations in carbon dioxide levels were often as much as 60ppm. That is about the same as the change we've seen in the past fifty years.               Just as the Vostok ice core revealed the               parallel between temperature and the CO²               fluctuations, it also indicated that the rising               and falling temperature may have led the               rise and fall in CO² by about 800 years in               each cycle. Thus if there is cause and effect between atmospheric CO² and temperature, it appears that temperature changes cause CO² changes, rather than vice verse, so the present focus on carbon dioxide as the culprit would seem to be misdirected.               Even if some would debate that however,               one thing is certain; Earth's atmospheric               temperature and CO² fluctuations over               those 400,000 years were not man-made               (or anthropogenic, as scientists say.) We               were not even here in any numbers until               about 60,000 years ago.

Vostok Ice Core Record for 400,000 Years prior to 1950.
Variations in Atmospheric CO² (ppm-v) --- red scale
and Antarctic Temperature °C --- blue scale


carbon

More about CO² and The Greenhouse Effect Pollutant or Life Support Ominous warnings of Global Warming have now replaced the threats of Global Cooling that prevailed in the 1970s, but failed to materialize. In the currently popular Global Warming scenario, man-made Carbon Dioxide is the greenhouse gas being blamed for the predicted horrors; but we're seldom reminded that the greenhouse effect is what keeps us warm. It does that by absorbing the long-wave reflection of solar radiation from Earth's surface, and converting it to heat in the atmosphere. Without greenhouse gases, life on Earth would become extinct, and Earth would become a replica of Mars. But CO², is not the only gas that creates the greenhouse effect. The largest single contributor is water vapor, while important others include methane and nitrous oxide. Time magazine reported in April 2007, that there were 1.5 billion cattle and buffalo on Earth, plus 1.7 billion sheep and goats, all producing nitrous oxide from manure and methane from digestive processes. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has said that 18% of all greenhouse gases are generated by the meat industtry.               Irrespective ot that, worldwide initiatives are               under way to attack the perceived problem of               Carbon Dioxide (CO²). But those efforts largely               ignore the fact that this ubiquitous gas is not               a contaminant in the atmosphere. It is a natural               component of air and is vital in the life cycle. Vegetation feeds on CO² and produces Oxygen. We, like other animals, breathe in Oxygen and exhale Carbon Dioxide; and as our numbers grow, we naturally exhale more. There are now five times more people on Earth than there were in the depression years of the 1930s, so a fivefold increase in human production of CO² should not be surprising. In addition to breathing, we create CO² through a host of our normal day to day activities. We drive motor vehicles. We burn fuel for warmth and power in our homes and factories. Even the mundane process of baking bread or biscuits, releases CO² from the reaction of yeast and baking soda used.               But huge amounts of CO² are also generated               by some of Earth's natural functions, and at               the same time, huge amounts are consumed               and absorbed in natural processes. For hundreds of thousands of years before humans appeared on Earth, nature maintained a fluctuating relationship between the production and absorption of CO².   As revealed in the Vostok ice core, the concentration of CO² in the Antarctic atmosphere repeatedly oscillated from a low of about 190 parts per million (ppm) to a high of 300 ppm or more. That is a variation of 74% from low to high. Expressed in percentage, the concentration of CO² in the air, ranged from 0.019% to 0.03%.   Oxygen, by comparison makes up 21% and Nitrogen, 78%. Trace amounts of other gases account for the less-than 1% remaining. For many recent centuries of human habitation, CO² held steady at about 280ppm. But around 1880 AD, the level began to creep up slowly. While rising and falling successively in the 130 years since, the general trend has been up, in lockstep with the increasing population.                   Beyond question, human activity is one                   of the many facotrs involved in carbon                   dioxide production.                   Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity                   produced about 2.3 million tons of CO²                   in 1999, in the USA alone. But that huge                   number takes on a realistic perspective,                   only when viewed against the vastly                   greater volume of 130 million tons spewed                   into the air each year by volcanoes. It is hard to mentally reconcile the tiny percentage of CO² in the air with the enormous tonnage discussed regularly in the media. One can visualize a ton of coal because it has volume and visible dimension; just as ten pounds of water visibly fills an Imperial gallon. But grasping the concept of a ton of CO² is as difficult as grasping the gas itself. Perhaps a ton of CO² is a mathematical construct, based on molecular weight, but it is puzzling how a quantity of gas, floating freely in the atmosphere can be expressed in tons, a unit of measure which is a product of gravity. An imperial gallon of water weighs ten pounds at sea level, but is considerably lighter atop Mount Everest. Can the same be said of some volume of CO²? A ton of CO² is an obscure quantity, but the use of tons (or metric tonnes) as a measure of quantity, carries a psychological and emotional impact. It evokes the image of an immense amount of CO² and sounds much more terrifying than 3/100 of one percent (0.03%) or 380 parts per million. When climate-crisis advocates, refer to metric tonnes of CO², they amplify the fear being instilled in the public and help reinforce the extreme forecasts of Global Warming, melting polar ice, a huge rise in sea level and dead polar bears. It is tempting to call such extreme projections irrational or irresponsible or misleading or mischievous, or perhaps all four, but if we must continue to quantify CO² by avoirdupois, it is useful to remember that each 'ton' of CO² suspended in the atmosphere at a concentration of 0.03%, is diluted by 67,000 lbs of air; (oxygen, nitrogen etc.). At 385 parts per million (ppm) it is mixed with 999,615 parts of those other gases. Can you picture that?               As to the effect of CO² on Earth's climate;               In 1975, the concentration of Carbon Dioxide               in the atmosphere was 335 ppm, at which level               another ice age was said to be imminent.               No one made a video then, urging us to take               extreme steps to drive up the the CO² level               to combat Global Cooling. Perhaps nature               did that for us. Conversely now, with CO² at 380 ppm, just 13% above the 1975 level, it is being cited as the cause of deadly Global Warming, and extreme measures are being pushed to drive it down. As might be expected, politicians worldwide are positioning themselves vocally on the politically correct side of the ‘Green’ agenda. Governments are paying lip-service to environmentalists by introducing a number of revenue producing initiatives. The simplistic carbon tax idea, which conspicuously offers nothing to reduce CO² emissions, has been largely abandoned in favor of a complex 'cap-and-trade' plan which, in effect, provide a license to generate carbon dioxide for a fee. The 'carbon trading market' that will develop from this is seen as a profit opportunity by many in the financial world, who expect they'll be able to 'game' the system. A direct attempt to actually reduce the amount of CO² in the atmosphere by capturing it, compressing and liquifying it, and then burying it deep in the ground, is widely considered to be too costly, so more simplistic proposals are urged on consumers. These include such trivia as a legislated switch from incandescent light bulbs to more costly spiral fluorescent lamps and a ban on leaf blowers. Restrictions on electric tooth brushes might be next. While we are thus being relentlessly driven to reduce CO² emissions molecule by molecule, and cut energy consumption one erg at a time, legitimate doubts can be cast on the fundamental assumption of Global Warming. Is it real or is it really an illusion?