> "Doomsayers were worried about something they called the 'greenhouse effect.'"
I picked up a strange anthology from 1971 for classroom use, Science Fiction: The Future [ISBN 0155786504], from a street vendor a couple days ago. Here is an excerpt from "The Human Race Has, Maybe, Thirty-Five Years Left" by David Lyle, originally appearing in 1967 Esquire:
"Dr. Barry Commoner reported recently (in his book, Science and Survival) that the burning of fuels has caused the carbon-dioxide content of the earth's atmosphere to rise fourteen percent in the past century. This has produced a general warming effect on the atmosphere. The President's [Johnson, I suppose] Science Advisory Committee concludes that this warming may begin melting the Antarctic ice cap by the year 2000 (raising sea levels four feet a decade and, of course, finally inundating huge land areas and major cities, like New York)."
I remember thoughts of global warming floating in my head since the 1970s, perhaps, vaguely, having to do with chlorofluorocarbons and holes in the ozone layer. But I don't recollect anything about increased carbon dioxide. Hence, I was a bit amazed and surprised when I read about carbon dioxide in this old Esquire article last night.
> Ice age was the preferred senario of the Doomday crowd back then.
I picked up a strange anthology from 1971 for classroom use, Science Fiction: The Future [ISBN 0155786504], from a street vendor a couple days ago. Here is an excerpt from "The Human Race Has, Maybe, Thirty-Five Years Left" by David Lyle, originally appearing in 1967 Esquire:
"Dr. Barry Commoner reported recently (in his book, Science and Survival) that the burning of fuels has caused the carbon-dioxide content of the earth's atmosphere to rise fourteen percent in the past century. This has produced a general warming effect on the atmosphere. The President's [Johnson, I suppose] Science Advisory Committee concludes that this warming may begin melting the Antarctic ice cap by the year 2000 (raising sea levels four feet a decade and, of course, finally inundating huge land areas and major cities, like New York)."
I remember thoughts of global warming floating in my head since the 1970s, perhaps, vaguely, having to do with chlorofluorocarbons and holes in the ozone layer. But I don't recollect anything about increased carbon dioxide. Hence, I was a bit amazed and surprised when I read about carbon dioxide in this old Esquire article last night.
> Ice age was the preferred senario of the Doomday crowd back then.
I had not heard of nuclear winter until the 1980s. Wikipedia (definitive source ;-) confirms "nuclear winter" buzz began in the early '80s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#History