[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 190 (Tuesday, December 15, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H14948-H14949]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           THE COOLING WORLD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, we debate throughout the world the 
concept of global warming, but we don't call it that any more; we call 
it climate change. All the big leaders of the world are in Denmark 
talking about how they can figure out a way to control man, to make 
sure that man, the evildoer, the polluter of the world, does not 
continue to pollute our wonderful climate.
  The consensus has been for some time that global warming, climate 
change, continues because man is the perpetrator. Now we are beginning 
to learn that may not be true, that there is not a consensus that there 
is global warming or climate change. We now have heard about 
Climategate, where the expert scientists hid emails in England that 
disagreed with the so-called consensus that there is global warming and 
global climate change. We have heard now new evidence that even NASA is 
involved in not revealing evidence that contradicts climate change.
  I think a history lesson is in order, Madam Speaker, and I would like 
to read from a couple of well thought of, in the science community, a 
couple of magazine articles. One of them is under the Science section 
of Time magazine. It's dated June 24, but the year is 1974. The article 
begins with this comment, ``Another Ice Age?'' So much for global 
warming.
  As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather patterns of the 
past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to 
suspect that many seemingly contradictory events are occurring in 
global climate upheaval. The weather widely varies from place to place 
and time to time.
  When meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe, 
they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler the 
last three decades and the trend shows no indication of reversing. Let 
me repeat that. According to scientists in 1974, the trend shows no 
indication of reversing the cooling trend.
  Scientists are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather 
aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another Ice Age.
  If we were to live in 1974, and, you know, I actually lived in 1974, 
I read this article then, I believed it. I believe we were all going to 
freeze in the dark. It goes on to say that a part of the problem is man 
polluting the atmosphere with farming. Because man farms and the dust 
gets up into the air, that blocks the sun rays from coming to Earth, 
and that actually cools the Earth. Maybe that's another new idea of 
carbon emission cooling that was in 1974.
  The following year that notable news magazine, Newsweek, April 28, 
1975, under its Science section in the back, talks about the cooling 
world. There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have 
begun to change dramatically and that these changes may be bringing a 
drastic decline in food production throughout the world.
  To scientists these dramatic incidents represent the advanced signs 
of a fundamental change in the world's whether. The central fact, you 
got that word, fact, is that after three-quarters of a century of 
extraordinarily mild conditions, the Earth's climate seems to be 
cooling down. And that's from Newsweek.
  Here is a chart they put in their expert scientific article, and it's 
entitled--I think it's nice they put it in the ice-blue color--
Newsweek, ``The Cooling World,'' and it shows that average temperatures 
are getting colder. Of course, it goes off the chart, colder and 
colder, April 28, 1978.
  Like I said, Madam Speaker, I believed we were all going to freeze in 
the dark. The scientists told us that we were going to freeze in the 
dark because of the weather patterns. Climates do change, Madam 
Speaker. In the 1970s it was getting cooler. Now they say it's getting 
warmer. Now they just say it's climate change.
  Climates do change. That's what seasons are. Most of the world up 
here in the north has seasons. Now, we don't have seasons in Houston. 
We have two seasons--we have summer, and we have August. Other than 
that, the seasons change. In most parts of the world they get warm, 
they get cold.
  We are going to try to trust the world's climate predictions to a 
group of people from the 1970s and now, 2000, to a group of people who 
can't even predict correctly tomorrow's weather. You know, people in 
the weather industry are the only people I know who consistently can be 
wrong and keep their jobs. But yet, these same people who can't predict 
tomorrow's weather are trying to predict the weather from now on, that 
climate change is occurring because man is the culprit.
  And that's just the way it is.

                     [From Newsweek, Apr. 28, 1975]

                           (By Peter Gwynne)

                           The Cooling World

       There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns 
     have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may 
     have

[[Page H14949]]

     drastic decline in food production--with serious political 
     implications for just about every nation on earth. The drop 
     in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only ten years 
     from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the 
     great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the 
     north, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient 
     tropical areas--parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, 
     Indochina and Indonesia--where the growing season is 
     dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.
       The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun 
     to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-
     pressed to keep up with it.
       In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline 
     by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant over-all loss 
     in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually. 
     During the same time, the average temperature around the 
     equator has risen by a fraction of a degree--a fraction that 
     in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in 
     the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 
     twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a 
     billion dollars' worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states.
       Trend: To scientists, these incidents represent the advance 
     signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather. The 
     central fact is that after three quarters of a century of 
     extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to 
     be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and 
     extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific 
     impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost 
     unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural 
     productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic 
     change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the 
     resulting famines could be catastrophic. ``A major 
     climatic change would force economic and social 
     adjustments on a worldwide scale,'' warns a recent report 
     by the National Academy of Sciences, ``because the global 
     patterns of food production and population that have 
     evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the 
     present century.''
       A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the 
     National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a 
     drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the 
     Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to 
     George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos 
     indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere 
     snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released 
     last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of 
     sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. 
     diminished by 1.3 percent between 1964 and 1972.
       To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature 
     and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the 
     University of Wisconsin points out that the earth's average 
     temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about 7 
     degrees lower than during its warmest eras--and that the 
     present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way 
     toward the Ice Age average. Others regard the cooling as a 
     reversion to the ``little ice age'' conditions that brought 
     bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 
     1600 and 1900--years when the Thames used to freeze so 
     solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when 
     iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New 
     York City.
       Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages 
     remains a mystery. ``Our knowledge of the mechanisms of 
     climat- ic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,'' 
     concedes the National Academy of Sciences report ``Not 
     only are the basic scientific questions largely 
     unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to 
     pose the key questions.''
       Extremes: Meteorologists think that they can forecast the 
     short-term results of the return to the norm of the last 
     century. They begin by noting the slight drop in over-all 
     temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers 
     in the atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of 
     westerly, winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air 
     produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local 
     weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long 
     freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature 
     increases--all of which have a direct impact on food 
     supplies.
       ``The world's food-producing system,'' warns Dr. James D. 
     McQuigg of NOAA's Center for Climatic and Environmental 
     Assessment, ``is much more sensitive to the weather variable 
     than it was even five years ago.'' Furthermore, the growth of 
     world population and creation of new national boundaries make 
     it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their 
     devastated fields, as they did during past famines.
       Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will 
     take any positive action to compensate for the climatic 
     change, or even to allay its effects. They concede that some 
     of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting 
     the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or 
     diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater 
     than those they solve. But the scientist see few signs that 
     government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the 
     simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the 
     variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections 
     of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the 
     more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change 
     once the results become grim reality.

                          ____________________