The 1970s Global Cooling Scare (and how the warming scare could not have happened without it)

The 1970s Global Cooling Scare (and how the warming scare could not have happened without it)

This is the second post drawing on themes raised in Searching for the Catastrophe Signal.

Forty-five years ago today, two geologists penned a letter to the president of the United States warning that the rocky descent into the next ice age might have already begun.

Letter from Kukla and Matthews to the President of the United States, 3 December, 1972

A letter written by two Quaternary geologists George Kukla and Robert Matthews to Richard Nixon raised concerns that recent bad weather might indicated that the present interglacial was ending. This letter helped to set in train a series of events that raised the profile of climate anxieties in the USA and globally. Source: Reeves & Gemmill.

The year 1972 remains infamous in the annals of meteorology for extreme weather events all around the globe. Towards the end of that year, in a letter dated 3 December 1972, two geologists George Kukla and Robert Matthews warned President Nixon that… Continue reading