Hmm.
Please have a read of this latest tweet from John Simpson:
Obviously, Big John is displaying his usual impartial disdain for Donald Trump here, but I'm struggling against the thought that The Donald might actually have got one over here on the BBC's World Affairs Editor, intelligence-wise.
In the 1970s 'global cooling' was a scientific conjecture widely reported in the media (however much it might have been a minority view amongst scientists at the time) and now the media is widely reporting that 'global warming' could prove catastrophic for the planet (however much it is a majority view amongst scientists of our time).
On January 11, 1970, the Washington Post reported that "Colder Winters Held Dawn of New Ice Age.
So did super-intelligent John Simpson simply misunderstand what the US President was saying? Because I can't see anything wrong with what Donald Trump said. Can you?
Ah, and someone actually raised this with him on Twitter:
Hmm.
John's reply is eagerly awaited.
And if you read the very Washington Post article that John Simpson doubtless read before issuing that tweet you might see that John was simply regurgitating the Washington Post's present-day take on things - a take that cites magazines like Newsweek and Time over 'global cooling' (in the 1970s) but doesn't cite its own equivalent 1970s articles (such as the one cited on Wikipedia quoted above).
Or am I missing something? (Please feel free to tell me if I am).
Don't think you're missing anything.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the very important Mr Simpson has banned/blocked/barred Chris Forwood yet.
John Simpson might like to read The Weather Machine And The Threat Of Ice by Nigel Calder [ISBN 0 563 12646 9] published by a little-known company with the grand title of 'British Broadcasting Corporation'.
ReplyDelete"The threat of a new ice age turns out to be more ominous than the experts thought, even a few years ago. Ice sheets have buried the northern lands far more frequently and rapidly than anyone had imagined until now - and a great glacier marched up the English Channel [because of Brexit?]."
Not only that but back in the late 60s Paul Erlich received huge publicity for his predictions that humanity would be dead because of pollution within 20 years...we're still here and so I believe is Erlich, or he was last year!
ReplyDeleteI believe we should apply precautionary principles in what we do to the environment but I also predict that the CO2 scare will be forgotten within 40 years. Firstly wind and solar plus cheap storage are simply going to be the cheapest energy sources by far within 20 years (just take a look at the price graphs over the last 20 years and there is nothing to stop solar going much, much lower). Secondly, there are many potential technological solutions to then reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere should that prove necessary.
The link if you feel like doing in. John huffs a lot. He’s good at that, is John.
ReplyDelete