ominous warnings

“There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth…Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.” ---Newsweek article from 1975

So what ominous signs were they warning us of then?
A global ice age...

And the remedy? “Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.”

So when they found a slight cooling trend of approximately .5 degrees over 30 years concerned scientists sounded the alarm bells and recommended all sorts of policy changes to those dim-witted political leaders including melting the ice caps...

The truth is that we do not know enough about how global temperatures change over time and we do not understand how all of the variables individually contribute to measurable warming and/or cooling. Is it astrophysical phenomenon, solar flares, the earth's wobble on it's axis, or other variables.

One more thought...I live in a temperate zone of the northern hemisphere--temperatures vary drastically within one day. In fact this morning it was in the upper 30's and tomorrow it is expected to approach 70 degrees. That's a 40 degree swing in about 48 hours. I know-I know weather and climate are two different things, but it begs the question---how can temperatures in almost every climate vary drastically from day to night, every day...but a virtually undetectable raise of less than one degree of global mean temperatures over the course of 100 years is enough to send us past the tipping point?