1970s Ice Age Myth and Time Magazine Covers- BUSTED

[Miigwech]

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/06/04/the-1970s-ice-age-myth-and-time-magazine-covers-by-david-kirtley/


"......The entire purpose of this myth is to suggest that scientists can’t be trusted, that they will say/claim/predict whatever to get their names in the newspapers, and that the media falls for it all the time. They were wrong about ice ages in the 1970s, they are wrong now about global warming.

But why fake the 1977 cover? Since, according to the fake-skeptics, there was so much news coverage of the imminent ice age why not just use a real 1970s cover?

I searched around on Time’s website and looked through all of the covers from the 1970s. I was shocked (shocked!) to find not a single cover with the promise of an in-depth, special report on the Coming Ice Age. What about this cover from December 1973 with Archie Bunker shivering in his chair entitled “The Big Freeze”? Nope, that’s about the Energy Crisis. Maybe this cover from January 1977, again entitled “The Big Freeze”? Nope, that’s about the weather. How about this one from December 1979, “The Cooling of America”? Again with the Energy Crisis.

Now, there really were news articles in the 1970s about scientists predicting a coming ice age. Time had a piece called “Another Ice Age?” in 1974. Time’s competition, Newsweek, joined in with “The Cooling World” in 1975. People have collected lists and lists of “Coming Ice Age” stories from newspapers, magazines, books, tv shows, etc. throughout the 1970s. ......"

[jen1980]

1. It did happen

I've seen this story mentioned on Facebook from some of my CONservative friends:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

I don't know if that story made the cover though.

[Kilgore]

2. Discussed it high school

Mr Arnolds science class right after lunch. Not sure why it stuck with me this many years.

[Ms. Toad]

3. Sorry - but it is not a myth.

The cover may well be fake. It is not magazine covers I remember vividly - but the substance of the concern that an ice age was coming.

[outside]

4. I was in high school

in the mid 70s. It was a major topic in science class all four years. California was also going through a drought at the time. The coming ice age was do to smog blocking out the sun and the drought was from the cooling Pacific.

[SheilaT]

5. We had two spectacularly cold and snowy

winters in the mid-70s, and there was a lot of speculation that we were headed to another ice age.

Last fall at Mile Hi Con (a science fiction thing in Denver in October) I attend a talk by a scientist about ice ages, what we think causes them, and how this connects to continental drift. It was quite fascinating. I didn't take notes but what I remember the most was that we are at a point in the normal 100,000 year cycle of ice ages, that we should be heading into another one in about 10,000 years or so. The scientist did look at the current global warming and essentially said that at this point we cannot tell if that warming will prevent the next ice age from occurring, or if it will happen anyway.

It was quite fascinating.