Watch: Flashback 1980 CBS News w/ Walter Cronkite warns of ‘greenhouse effect’ causing ‘disruptive changes’ in ’50-70 years’ – Cites ’16 degrees F’ warming & ‘goodbye Miami’ & ‘boating at foot of Capitol’

CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite – April 3, 1980: “The ongoing Iran Hostage Crisis, surgery for Iran’s Shah, numerous nations boycotting of the Moscow Summer Olympic Games, hostages in Colombia, the FY 1981 budget for the US Government, new mortgages, a drop in auto sales, a brief stock market summary, a House subcommittee on the Three Mile Island accident, a warning for a major eruption at Mt. Saint Helens, why coal and other greenhouse gases could lead to a warming planet, a railroad accident in Boston, a death notice of former Supreme Court justice Stanley Reed, Bert Lance acquitted of some major charges, and the latest on Ronald Reagan’s bid for the presidency.”

Transcript from CBS News climate segment: 
CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite: “Concern about air quality usually centers on pollution as in the ironic observation if you can’t see it don’t breathe it. Increased reliance on coal is a crucial part of the Carter Administration energy program but the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee heard warnings today that a coal-burning society may be making things hot for itself. Nelson Benton reports.
CBS News correspondent Nelson Benton: “The so-called greenhouse effect is created by carbon dioxide a colorless odorless gas. In small concentrations, it helps to sustain almost all life on Earth. The relatively small amounts of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere filter the warming rays of the Sun to the Earth’s surface but like a greenhouse carbon dioxide also prevents heat given off by the earth from escaping into space. Researchers say increasingly large amounts of CO2 are accumulating in the atmosphere. They fear the earth will gradually become warmer causing as yet uncertain but possibly disruptive changes in the Earth’s climate 50 to 70 years from now. Fossil fuels, when burned release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Coal, the worst culprit, oil and natural gas to lesser degrees. Scientists and a few politicians are beginning to worry that global energy planning does not take the greenhouse effect seriously enough. If the earth gets too warm for example ice caps could melt raising the level of the Seas.”
Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-Mass) Senate Energy Committee: “It’s possible probable we really don’t know. But if it happens it means goodbye Miami, goodbye Corpus Christi, goodbye Sacramento, goodbye Boston — which obviously is much more of a concern. Goodbye New Orleans. Goodbye Charleston, Savannah, and Norfolk. On the positive side, it means that we could enjoy boating at the foot of the Capitol and fishing on the South Lawn.” 
 
Gordon MacDonald, Mitre Corp Chief Scientist: “One model of climate the Jason climate model predicts that doubling carbon dioxide will result in August and Washington DC that are 9 degrees centigrade warmer or 16 degrees Fahrenheit than current summers but that the winters will only be 2 degrees centigrade warmer changes of this. Changes of this magnitude are very probably going to have a profound effect on agriculture, on all of the aspects of energy use and generation, and on water and land use.”
CBS News correspondent Nelson Benton: “One scientist put the urgency of the greenhouse potential in biblical terms citing the warning given to Noah in the old testament. Noah knew trouble was coming, he said and he prepared for it. Nelson Benton CBS News Capitol Hil.”
#
Watch Now: Flashback 1972: Walter Cronkite on CBS Warned of ‘New Ice Age’On Sept. 11, 1972, Cronkite cited scientists’ predictions that there was a “new ice age” coming. He called that prediction from British scientist Hubert Lamb “a bit of bad news.” 
Climate Depot’s Morano: “Climate fear promoters switched effortlessly from global cooling fears in the 1970s to global warming fears in the 1980s. In the present day, the phrase ‘global warming’ has lost favor in favor of ‘climate change’ or ‘global climate disruption’ or even ‘global weirding,’

Climate Depot Note: Just a few years earlier in the 1970s, the media was expressing concern over global cooling. The Armadillo: a mascot used for global cooling in the 1970s and again by climate alarmists in the present day. Watch new Morano Minute

The media also hyped DC sea level rise scares for over a century. See: 

Update: AP’s Seth Borenstein at it again hyping Antarctic melt fears – Recycles same claims from 2014, 1990, 1979, 1922 & 1901! – Climate Depot’s Point-By-Point Rebuttal

#
The 1970s global cooling era was just ending when this 1980 CBS News report came out.

1970s Global Cooling Scare: ‘Almost every major climate organization endorsed the 1970s ice age scare, including NCAR, CRU, NAS, NASA – as did the CIA’ — Sound Familiar?!

Should Nixon have been jailed for not listening to Steven Schneider’s 1970s global cooling warnings?

Share: