A warning about Global Warming....... from1958!

[FredStembottom]

My brother recently had me over to watch re-releases of the Bell Labs science instruction videos made by Frank Capra (Yes. That Frank Capra) that we enjoyed so much as kids.

It was great.

But my jaw hit the floor as we neared the end of Unchained Goddess. Unchained Goddess was an ambitious introduction to all things weather-related that was made for school-kids in 1958.

Please watch a clip from this 51 year old movie - which was conveniently already posted at YouTube - and see if you don't have a head-spinning reaction like I did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lgzz-L7GFg

[Double T]

1. If washington d.c. will be underwater, global warming may be well worth it.

:evilgrin:

[JVS]

3. Florida and the deep South too!

Maybe I've been hasty to think GW is a bad thing!

[Double T]

6. No wonder china, india and the rest of asia are polluting the hell out of the air and water.

washington d.c. will be under polluted water.

[intheflow]

11. From the graphic in the clip, looks like we'll lose most of Texas, too.

OTOH, I'll finally be able to eat fresh seafood here in Denver.

[ohheckyeah]

2. wow. Pretty neat.

I remember an old Twilight Zone episode about the earth being too hot.

[kristopher]

4. You'll be interested in this timeline

From my notes:
A Brief History of Global Warming Science
1859: Tyndall establishes that CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

1890s: Arrhenius surmises that the climate of the earth could potentially be changed by the CO2 emitted from the human use of fossil fuels.

1930s: Guy Callendar assembles evidence that the effects of CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are capable of being perceived.

1950s: Plass, Suess and Revelle follow up on Callendar’s research.

1960s: Keeling uses systematic measuring to establish that concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising.

1965: Environmental Pollution Board of the President’s Science Advisory Council warns that by 2000 there will be 25% increase in CO2 concentrations from 1965 level. “his will modify the heat balance of the atmosphere to such an extent that marked changes in climate...could occur.”

1965: President Johnson states in Special Message to Congress that “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through...a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

1966: U.S. National Academy of Sciences Panel on Weather and Climate Modification repeats warning.

1974: Weinberg, Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory “realized that climatological impacts might limit oil production before geology did.”

1978: Robert White (NOAA’s first administrator and a President of the National Academy of Engineering states “We now understand that ... carbon dioxide released during the burning of fossil fuels, can have consequences for climate that pose a considerable threat to future society ... The potential ... impacts ominous.”

1979: JASON committee (Stanford Research Insitute) publishes 184 page technical report warning of expected doubling of CO2 concentrations “by about 2035” with wide variety of undetermined possible geophysical, economic, political and social consequences.

1979: Carter Science Advisor Frank Press requests National Academy of Sciences for review of JASON committee report. Academy committee headed by MIT meteorologist Jule Charney concurs with JASON report “If carbon dioxide continues to increase, find no reason to doubt that climate changes will result, and no reason to believe that these changes will be negligible.” (Oreskes, 2006)

[jwirr]

8. Interesting. I wonder what Weinberg 1974 was thinking about when

he is talking about climate limiting oil production?

[FredStembottom]

9. I'm riveted.

Thanks, kristopher.

[obliviously]

5. If it was in an old movie that proves it!

[FredStembottom]

10. If it was in an old movie......

.....and if that movie predicted* what might happen and 50 years later that prediction (melting ice caps) is now happening, then right-wing claims that "more study" is needed seem well..... kinda hollow.



*using "stone knives and bear-skins".

[slipslidingaway]

7. knr nt

[petronius]

12. Despite all the blather about the 'Great Global Cooling Scare of the 1970s',

which never really happened in any realistic way, the potential for anthropogenic global warming (and associated regional changes) has been under discussion for a very long time...

[defendandprotect]

13. k

[tk2kewl]

14. k&r