Global Something

I remember being told the world was coming to an end back in the 70’s. Global Cooling. Yep, we were all going to freeze to death. No doubt about it.
Time Magazine warned of this on June 24th, 1974 with it’s cover story titled “Another Ice Age?” Meteorologists had determined the average global temperature had been gradually cooling for the last three decades. Climatologists warned us about an impending ice age, the telltale signs were everywhere. There was the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice surrounding Iceland. Ice in the Northern Hemisphere had grown 12% since 1971 and had persisted ever since. Areas of the Canadian Arctic, once free from snow in the summer, were now covered year round. There was talk of food shortages and mass starvation. University Climatologist Kenneth Hare gave the world this dire warning. The world’s population won’t be sustainable if there are three 1972’s in a row. This was pretty scary stuff. I was pretty sure we were all doomed, and half expected to see the return of the Wooly Mammoth. That never happened, but would’ve been cool.
The 70’s gave way to the 80’s then the 90’s, eventually we entered a new century. Still no Ice Age. The doom and gloom, end of the world crowd was starting to look a little foolish. They had to do something quick, they needed a new strategy. No problem.
Welcome to the new politically charged, money making, end of the world strategy. Global Warming. Once again Time Magazine is at the forefront of this latest effort. In March of last year their cover story was titled “Be Worried, Be Very Worried.” Some of you might remember it. They had a picture of this poor, helpless polar bear floating on a piece of melting ice. We were supposed to believe this polar bear was trapped on this piece of ice floating out to the open sea to it’s death. I guess we weren’t supposed to know that polar bears are excellent swimmers and they’ve been swimming and floating around on broken pieces of ice in search of food for as long as they’ve been around. But why let silly facts get in the way of a good story.
Global Warming is the same as Global Cooling, only different. The world is still going to end, we’re all still doomed. Instead of freezing to death, we’re going to have worldwide drought which will halt food production which will starve us to death. Different strategy, same result. We all die.
How about our buddy Al (the bore) Gore, the High Priest of the Global Warming movement. You’ve probably heard of him, he’s the guy who never quite got over losing the Presidency to George Bush a few years back. He paid attention to all this hype and decided to make a documentary to prove to the world that the doom and gloom crowd had it right this time. He won an Oscar and made millions to boot. Not bad. Wish I’d have thought of it first.
I’ve always wondered how we went from Global Cooling to Global Warming so I did a little googling over the weekend and there it was, two reports that explained it all. “Global Cooling Causes Global Warming.” And another one that claimed “Global Warming Causes Global Cooling. Imagine that.
Sorry, but this old guy thinks life’s to short for all this nonsense. Remember to hug your kids.
You can reach Kevin McGinty at: kevinmcginty@sbcglobal.net