Wrong, Wrong, Wrong Again?

In November 22, 1922, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times simultaneously published an AP article containing absolute scientific evidence that the Antarctic sheets and glaciers were melting, and the Earth was doomed because of global warming. The article proclaimed with certainty that, because of warmer waters and changing oceanic currents, the fishing industry and world economy were doomed. Curious Independent readers can get the full 1922 story with a Google search.

On April 28, 1975, Peter Gwynne, wrote a Newsweek article “The Cooling World,” complete with color graphs and charts, that revealed that Earth was heading for a new Ice Age. Gwynne prophesied that falling temperatures could lead to crop failures and worldwide famine. Here is a quote from Gwynne’s story: “Meteorologists are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century … ” and “The resulting famines could be catastrophic.”

Recently, Gwynne has written a “do-over” story, now admitting that his original article was “over-enthusiastic.” His rationale was, at the time, that a majority of climate scientists agreed the chill was coming. He now hopes that “deniers” of human-caused global warming won’t use his 1975 story as “ammunition” to prove that scientific “consensus” is sometimes wrong.

My question to Gwynne is “Why shouldn’t we?”

Experts, 150 years ago, believed that speeds faster than 100mph would kill a human and that malaria was caused by foul air. On your web browser, type in “Top 10 Most Famous Scientific Theories that Turned Out to Be Wrong,” and consider what climate scientists in 100 years will be saying about today’s global warming theories.