30 years ago scientists warned Congress on global warming. What they said sounds eerily familiar

Interesting read here concerning climate concerns raised by scientists 30yrs ago; it was predicted back then what we are seeing today, Back thenthe charge was led by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.) a Republican member in Congress but not so much these days. Other notable environmental warriors back then are: Al Gore who was a newly elected Congressman, and James Hansen the famed climate scientist.

Thirty years ago, on June 10 and 11 of 1986, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works commenced two days of hearings, convened by Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), on the subject of “Ozone Depletion, the Greenhouse Effect, and Climate Change.” “This is not a matter of Chicken Little telling us the sky is falling,” Chafee said at the hearing. “The scientific evidence … is telling us we have a problem, a serious problem.” The hearings garnered considerable media coverage, including on the front page of The Washington Post (see below). “There is no longer any significant difference of opinion within the scientific community about the fact that the greenhouse effect is real and already occurring,” said newly elected Sen. Al Gore, who, as a congressman, had already held several House hearings on the matter. Gore cited the Villach Conference, a scientific meeting held in Austria the previous year (1985), which concluded that “as a result of the increasing greenhouse gases it is now believed that in the first half of the next century (21st century) a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than in any man’s history.”

So, scientists have known about the climate issue for a long time now but Republicans dropped the ball...why? 30years is a long time in politics so why hasn't more been done up to now? It seems some of what was said back then is happening now, just as predicted. So will action be taken to thwart climate-doom? What says ATS?

www.washingtonpost.com... sounds-eerily-familiar/

I remember in 1975 they were worried about global cooling
Maybe they averted that a little to well

Believe what you want to believe I guess

the oil industry might acknowledge it when houston is under water

maybe

“Ozone Depletion, the Greenhouse Effect, and Climate Change.”

Memes then and now. I remember them. But what about environmental pollution from nuclear power, coal mining, deforestation, oil production and (ahem) consumption, mining and petrochemical run off, jet exhaust, plastics, aggressive war-- blah, blah…. boring.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled weather broadcast.

in the 80's, i remember acid rain was going to kill us all.

I don't believe china and india has changed their style, yet acid rain is not a headline anymore. it's like a new/better fear came into be

a reply to: lostbook

but Republicans dropped the ball.

In the last thirty years, the Democrats have had control of both houses of Congress and the White House simultaneously two different times.
What did they accomplish at those times?
Yet they didn't drop the ball?
I think Washington has done exactly what Washington has wanted to do for a very long time. The R's and D's just give the peons a half to be angry with... when we should be angry at all of them.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: lostbook

but Republicans dropped the ball.

In the last thirty years, the Democrats have had control of both houses of Congress and the White House simultaneously two different times.
What did they accomplish at those times?
Yet they didn't drop the ball?
I think Washington has done exactly what Washington has wanted to do for a very long time. The R's and D's just give the peons a half to be angry with... when we should be angry at all of them.

Good point. No one is doing anything on either side. Al Gore did bring this issue to the forefront, however, but the movement hasn't progressed much since then. We've have the recent Climate agreements and a few others but it just doesn't seem to be enough, does it?

originally posted by: Raggedyman
I remember in 1975 they were worried about global warming
Maybe they averted that a little to well

Believe what you want to believe I guess

Yeah ,there is that freakin name again, Gore. Wasnt that around the time he was digging the trenches for his upcoming internet he invented? Or the time he was supposedly living on the farm when records show how was living in a penthouse in new york ? We gonna trust that big of a liar ? I'm not.

Apparently some ignoramuses in government were warning against warming , while scientists were predicting the coming ice age. Showed how much all of em knew . (or was it just their group's agenda ? ) . But they were all wrong...

Well if global warming doesn't get you, an asteroid or a pandemic, hole in the ozone, the commies, acid rain or the aliens will. Whatever you do, just stay worried about something.

originally posted by: korath
Well if global warming doesn't get you, an asteroid or a pandemic, hole in the ozone, the commies, acid rain or the aliens will. Whatever you do, just stay worried about something.

So true. If the water rises we just have to move. Maybe a cool boat to live on.

Was it the seventies when 'scientists' were saying the world was heading for an ice age? the way the weather feels to-day, I think they could be right, but what does a mere mortal know who goes outside every day, so actually feels the cold wind, unlike people who get into a car inside their garage, never feel the weather at all?

a reply to: lostbook

Its normal. Warming and cooling over and over again and again for millions of years...and it will continue changing forever.

What the REAL issue is? Its man's effect-affecting these normal changes. Even hurricanes, ice ages, tsunamis etc etc....are totally normal in Earth processes.

Its when we hasten or worsen it by our destructive and abusively polluting ways.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: lostbook

Its normal. Warming and cooling over and over again and again for millions of years...and it will continue changing forever.

What the REAL issue is? Its man's effect-affecting these normal changes. Even hurricanes, ice ages, tsunamis etc etc....are totally normal in Earth processes.

Its when we hasten or worsen it by our destructive and abusively polluting ways.

Agreed. I believe that we are accelerating the natural process.

originally posted by: Raggedyman
I remember in 1975 they were worried about global cooling

And in the, 20's 30's, 40's expedtions to measure the ice........snzzzzzzz....snzzzz...snzzz...

a reply to: lostbook

the list of spectacularly failed predictions by the global warming doomsayers is only eclipsed by their ever-present hype & hysteria


global warming apocalyptic predictions

originally posted by: Raggedyman
I remember in 1975 they were worried about global cooling
Maybe they averted that a little to well

Believe what you want to believe I guess

I believe what scientists say. Scientists, collectively, were far from in agreement about global cooling in the 1970's, it was recognized there were multiple physical causes and possibilities but the knowledge at that time was insuffiicent.

The knowledge and understanding today is no longer insufficient: it is clear, and has been clear for decades, that warming from human-added greeenhouse gases will predominate.


Myth of 1970's global cooling consensus

The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus

Thomas C. Peterson
NOAA/National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
William M. Connolley
British Antarctic Survey, National Environment Research Council, Cambridge, United Kingdom
John Fleck
Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Add to Favorites Email Download Citation Track Citation
DOI: dx.doi.org...
Published Online: 1 September, 2008

Abstract
Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.

originally posted by: pikestaff
Was it the seventies when 'scientists' were saying the world was heading for an ice age? the way the weather feels to-day, I think they could be right,

They were and still are right, we were heading for an ice age in 10,000 to 50,000 years from now in the absence of additional greenhouse gases.

originally posted by: thinline
in the 80's, i remember acid rain was going to kill us all.

I don't believe china and india has changed their style, yet acid rain is not a headline anymore. it's like a new/better fear came into be

Acid rain was real, and was alleviated by humans being less selfish and changing their behavior for the benefit of the many.

That's because there was collective regulatory action pursued and enforced by Congress and the Reagan and Bush I administrations. Polluters strongly changed their behavior and were incentivized by an economically efficient 'cap and trade' system, which was the Republican 'pro-free-market' solution.

This system is still in place.

And yes, the pollution in China from coal is absolutely atrocious.

originally posted by: Tellurian
a reply to: lostbook

the list of spectacularly failed predictions by the global warming doomsayers is only eclipsed by their ever-present hype & hysteria

global warming apocalyptic predictions

Yes, this is atypical of who-flung-dung-on-a-night-out. I did a thread some time ago here on the, '2000 snow will soon be a thing of the past' meme, my first thread I think, not exactly captivating here at the time.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: mbkennel

originally posted by: Raggedyman
I remember in 1975 they were worried about global cooling
Maybe they averted that a little to well

Believe what you want to believe I guess

I believe what scientists say. Scientists, collectively, were far from in agreement about global cooling in the 1970's, it was recognized there were multiple physical causes and possibilities but the knowledge at that time was insuffiicent.

The knowledge and understanding today is no longer insufficient: it is clear, and has been clear for decades, that warming from human-added greeenhouse gases will predominate.


Myth of 1970's global cooling consensus

The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus

Thomas C. Peterson
NOAA/National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina
William M. Connolley
British Antarctic Survey, National Environment Research Council, Cambridge, United Kingdom
John Fleck
Albuquerque Journal, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Add to Favorites Email Download Citation Track Citation
DOI: dx.doi.org...
Published Online: 1 September, 2008

Abstract
Climate science as we know it today did not exist in the 1960s and 1970s. The integrated enterprise embodied in the Nobel Prizewinning work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change existed then as separate threads of research pursued by isolated groups of scientists. Atmospheric chemists and modelers grappled with the measurement of changes in carbon dioxide and atmospheric gases, and the changes in climate that might result. Meanwhile, geologists and paleoclimate researchers tried to understand when Earth slipped into and out of ice ages, and why. An enduring popular myth suggests that in the 1970s the climate science community was predicting “global cooling” and an “imminent” ice age, an observation frequently used by those who would undermine what climate scientists say today about the prospect of global warming. A review of the literature suggests that, on the contrary, greenhouse warming even then dominated scientists' thinking as being one of the most important forces shaping Earth's climate on human time scales. More importantly than showing the falsehood of the myth, this review describes how scientists of the time built the foundation on which the cohesive enterprise of modern climate science now rests.