Wikipedia scrubbed topic? Mini_ice_age (ended ~1970)...empty page, now redirects to Little_ice_age (ended ~1890). Change history, mostly empty, wayback machine mostly empty....prose statistics 9,007 Words, 32 Sections...

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[–]WoodyWoodPecker 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (14 children)

Liberals at the time claimed that aerosol destroyed ozone and led to a cooling down of the planet, a mini-ice age. Now they are coving up their mistakes. Because now it is global warming and those days were hot and not cold after they fudged the numbers at NOLAA.

[–]weavilsatemyface 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (11 children)

Liberals at the time claimed that aerosol destroyed ozone and led to a cooling down of the planet, a mini-ice age

I think you are making that up, I've been following climate change since the 1980s and I've never heard that before.

Are you thinking of the 1970s theory by a bunch of science fiction authors, like Jerry Pournelle, that we were about to start a new Ice Age?

[–]Canbot 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (8 children)

by a bunch of science fiction authors,

What he said does sound wrong, but claiming that the global cooling prediction was nothing more than science fiction is an outright lie.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

claiming that the global cooling prediction was nothing more than science fiction is an outright lie.

You are right that global cooling is not "nothing more than science fiction", but I never said that it was.

Of course we know that the earth has gone through cooling periods in the past. We know that massive injections of soot and ash into the atmosphere can reflect sunlight back into space, causing cooling. We've seen it following volcanic eruptions, and after the Kuwaiti oil wells were set on fire. Historically, massive volcanic eruptions were usually followed by a year or two of cold temperatures and poor harvests. Even regular industrial pollution can cause some cooling effect. In principle, there is no reason why the earth couldn't be cooling. It just happens to be that even in the 1970s, it wasn't cooling.

Global cooling was heavily promoted by science fiction authors like Jerry Pournelle and especially Joseph W Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction (later called Analog Science Fiction and Fact), rightly considered the father of modern sci-fi. (By the way, science fiction fans in the 1970s and 80s hated the term "sci-fi", considering that it only applied to space opera like Star Wars and not the thoughtful hard SF they were reading.) Campbell, Pournelle and co were paleoconservatives, and they argued for more power stations (especially nuclear) to combat the imminent threat of a new ice age. They were the ones that were heavily promoting the idea that the earth was "due" for an ice age (as if they come along regular as clockwork...) and it was only the greenhouse gases from the Industrial Revolution that was keeping it at bay.

I'm a big fan of Pournelle's SF. I especially love his collaboration with Larry Niven, "The Mote In Gods Eye", and his Janissaries series. As a teenager, his take on science was a big influence on me. But science marches on and his views on global cooling were wrong.

I think that they also liked the idea that it would be the hardest technology of all, nuclear reactors, to save the world from turning into a giant ice ball. "Take that, you stupid hippy anti-nuclear technophobes! You would freeze in the dark without us!"

And of course the mainstream press loved the idea of an imminent ice age too, especially Newsweek. They love their disaster stories, and "ice age" is more relatable to Americans than "a hundred years of drought". The dust bowl was a memory, but most Americans have some experience of having to wait for the snow plough to clear the roads so they can get out. Most people prefer it when it is hot ("sun! surf! sand!") and it's only farmers who really know how brutal a heatwave can be.

In the 1970s, there was a small number of scientific papers that suggested we were moving into a cooling period. See table 1 at the very end of this paper, where they found that between 1965 and 1979, there were 7 scientific papers suggesting global cooling (one per two years!) compared to 19 which were neutral, and 42 which suggested warming.

There was never a scientific consensus for global cooling or an imminent Ice Age. There's a good explanation of the origins for the "global cooling myth" here, and the state of the science in the 1970s.

Even in the 1970s, the majority view was that the world was warming, and by the 1980s the evidence for warming became undeniable.

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There was never a scientific consensus for global cooling or an imminent Ice Age.

Consensus is not science. Data is science. Appeal to consensus is a logical falacy akin to appeal to authority.

The point to understand here is not that the scientists who predicted global cooling were right, nor that because there are contradicting predictions that this means global warming can't be real.

The point is that science is guesswork, interpretaton, and extrapolation. That it is full of errors. That the further out you extrapolate the greater the errors become.

That is why science needs to be done in the open. The data needs to be openly available to everyone. The methods need to be open to inspection and deliberation. The scientific method needs to be followed. That is NOT being done with global warming claims. It is a political topic pushed by propagandists.

Show me the equations and the inputs that lead to the conclusions. If those create predictions that turn out to be false then we need to stop claiming they can predict the future.

Every global warming prediction to date has been proven false. From the "new york will he under water by 2020" to "the actic will be ice free in 10 years" to "this glacier will be gone by 2019" and on and on and on.

And none of those failed predictions ever change the narrative because the narrative does not care about facts.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Global cooling was heavily promoted by science fiction authors

...

You are right that global cooling is not "nothing more than science fiction", but I never said that it was.

You are purposefully implying that global cooling was not proposed by scientists but by people who are known for writing falsehoods. You are intentionally trying to imply that the people who point out that scientists claimed the earth was cooling are fools who mistakenly attribute science fiction writings to scientists.

You are a liar. Fuck you.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It just happens to be that even in the 1970s, it wasn't cooling.

It was. The big lie here is that you specifically name one year, but one year does not make a trend. One decade does not make a trend when refering to climate change. There were hundred year cycles that were discovered from ice core samples that showed that the earth had reached a peak in the cycle and was trending downward. They predicted that the trend would continue into a deep chill and anothet "ice age". Which really was nothing more than a cold period in the current ice age we are in.

We still have permanent ice on earth. It's silly to say that getting more constitutes an ice age but the amount we have now does not.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

One decade does not make a trend when refering to climate change.

Correct, one decade does not make a trend.

Since 1900, eleven out of twelve decades have been warmer than the previous decade. That is a trend.

They predicted that the trend would continue into a deep chill

Who is "they"? Name the studies. Let's read the papers and see what they actually said, and lets see how many of them there were.

Seven cooling papers in 14 years, compared to forty-two warming papers in the same period.

the current ice age we are in.

Well done on recognising that technically we're still living in an ice age. To be precise, an interglacial. I mean that sincerely.

But in common usage, we don't consider the current climate optimum to be an ice age. We mean periods when New York was covered by 2000 feet of ice. I'm pretty sure you know that.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Who is "they"? Name the studies.

I'm not a librarian, I will leave it to others to post the papers if they wish. But I am not going to play the game of "hur dur if you can't produce the papers that the established power players are suppressing you can't talk".

I have seen more than enough lies and propaganda come out of the "authority" figures and institutions to see what their agenda is. Anyone who has an honest interest in the topic will find those papers themselves.

I'm here to talk logic and philosophy.

But in common usage, we don't consider the current climate optimum to be an ice age.

Why?

That is an appeal to normalcy fallacy. That falacy underpins the false belief that this is the correct, stable, or otherwise proper climate. It simply is none of those.

The fact is earth has been thawing from the time that new york was covered by 200 feet of ice until the present day. It has never stopped, but is not a smooth linear thaw. There are interglacial cycles.

Now at the near end of that million year process you are being told by known liars that the temperature change is your fault and (((they))) have the right to do anything they want in order to save the world from you. That is transparently bullshit.v

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The fact is earth has been thawing from the time that new york was covered by 200 feet of ice until the present day. It has never stopped

And so the Little Ice Age didn't exist, gotcha. Or the cooling in the mid forties and fifties (which for the record just might have had something to do with all those cities being burned). Righto.

Now at the near end of that million year process

Since the peak of the last glaciation, the earth's temperature has risen about 10°C in eight thousand years, or roughly a degree per thousand years. The temperature rise was remarkably constant, aside from a cooling period of around two thousand years around 13,000 years ago. So that's an average increase around 1.7°C per thousand years, or less than 0.02°C per decade.

Since 1880, the temperature rise has been more than four times that natural rate, 0.08°C per decade. And since 1980 is has been more than double that figure, 0.18°C per decade, about ten times faster than the natural rate. If we do nothing, that will continue to accelerate due to population growth, increase in fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, and feedback loops such as the melting of permafrost.

you are being told by known liars that the temperature change is your fault

Ah, you're talking about the so-called "personal carbon footprint" concept, which was invented by BP's marketing department to take the focus off oil producers. Correct.

The truth is that individual people have very little influence on anthropomorphic global warming, but there are 8 billion of us, and 8 billion times a little bit is a lot. Focusing on individual action alone is just greenwashing. Sure, individuals can do their bit by being less greedy and wasteful, but big changes can only come from industry.

and (((they)))

"OMG! OMG! THE JOOS!? 😲 RUN FOR THE HILLS BOYS! THEY'RE A COMIN' FER YA!"

Oh dear, and you were doing so well up to this point, you snowflake.

have the right to do anything they want in order to save the world from you.

Bad, power-hungry people will latch on to any excuse to try to gain power. Sometimes they invent nonsense conspiracy theories about "(((them)))" that in the 21st century is laughable and sad, and fools only racist idiots. But the clever ones have now latched on to a real threat, not a made up pretend one.

"Filet mignon and private jets for us, insect-based protein cakes and five-minute bubbles for you." That is a problem, but denying the reality of global warming and climate change doesn't make it go away, and blaming THE JOOS is just idiotic.

[–]weavilsatemyface 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Who is "they"? Name the studies.

I'm not a librarian

Ah right, so in other words with the world's scientific information at your fingertips thanks to the Internet, you cannot provide even the least and tiniest piece of evidence for your claims. Gotcha.

(By the way, those papers are named in the link I send you earlier. If you actually had an open mind, and were willing to read the evidence, you could have named those papers instantly. I guess you've shown your true colours here.)

But in common usage, we don't consider the current climate optimum to be an ice age.

Why?

Because people are scientifically naive and don't distinguish an ice age from a glacial period. Because to non-experts, "the Ice Age" was 20,000 years ago when cave men with animal furs and stone spears hunted wooly mammoths across a frozen Europe. Because it's pretty silly to refer to right now as "an Ice Age" when most of the world is not covered in ice.

Whatever. The name isn't that important. The important thing is that in the 1970s the meme that the world was going to drastically cool was:

  1. Promoted by Newsweek for a very short time.
  2. Promoted by some conservative, pro-technology science fiction authors for rather longer.
  3. Backed only by a handful of scientific papers.
  4. And in contradiction to the much larger number of papers which were proposing warming.

And most important of all, fifty years later, we can clearly see that the scientists who proposed warming were right, and those that proposed cooling were wrong. The scientific method worked. More data came in, the evidence pointed to warming, the scientists who initially thought that cooling was happening changed their mind based on that new evidence, and fifty years later, they are proven right. Despite what Newsweek and Joseph W. Campbell said, there are no glaciers over New York now.

[–]WoodyWoodPecker 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. https://archive.is/wip/mwo0V We were told to quit using aerosol because of a hole in the ozone layer causing cooling. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-ozone-montreal-treaty/fact-check-the-hole-in-the-ozone-layer-was-a-real-threat-but-has-been-healing-due-to-international-action-idUSL1N2ZE1UB

I provided two sources that conflict with each other. This is because climate change is a lie and they fudge the numbers to scare people into compliance.

[–]weavilsatemyface 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s.

So did I.

I provided two sources that conflict with each other.

No they don't. Did you bother to read them? I mean, actually read them, completely, in full, from start to finish? Every word, not just the headline?

Probably not, because if you did, you would realise that the first article doesn't mention ozone at all. It has nothing to do with ozone and is entirely about a different topic. You should actually read the articles, you might learn something.

The first is about the agreement to phase out ozone-destroying CFCs, and it has nothing to do with "global cooling" and everything to do with protecting the ozone layer, which in turn protects us, and our crops and livestock, from dangerous ultraviolet radiation. But you would know that if you actually read it.

That agreement was a huge success. In a matter of a few years, we halted the production of ozone-destroying CFCs, swapped to less dangerous chemicals which did not destroy ozone, and in just a few decades we can see the ozone layer returning to normal.

The second is about a completely unrelated matter, namely the very short period in the 1970s, at the very birth of climate science, where scientists had not yet worked out which of two competing factors was winning out:

  • long-lasting greenhouse gases, which cause warming over a long period of time;
  • short-lasting smoke and pollution, which causes rapid cooling but only lasts a short time.

CFCs are a greenhouse gas. They don't cause global cooling. You are confusing three separate matters:

[–]SoCo[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Once the world worked hard to cut aerosol use, the global average temp raised in a suspicious correlation.

[–]WoodyWoodPecker 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The ozone hole closed up and they stopped talking about it. To fight climate change just release CFC into the air. Simple as that.

[–]SoCo[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Wiki page with redirect disabled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mini_ice_age&redirect=no

Wiki change history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mini_ice_age&action=history

Wayback Machine showing the page was always a redirect....but somehow was captured with a non redirect link:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130901000000*/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini_ice_age

Using the Wiki API, you can get the page statistics...showing the prose:

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/en.wikipedia.org/Mini_ice_age

What is prose?:

Get statistics about the prose (characters, word count, etc.) and referencing of a page.

https://xtools.readthedocs.io/en/3.6.6/api/page.html

Why does a page, for a controversial but large topic, that purportedly was always an empty redirect, have 9,007 Words and 32 Sections?...

[–]package 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Wayback Machine showing the page was always a redirect....but somehow was captured with a non redirect link

Wikipedia redirects arent normal http redirects and will return the body of the redirected page at the requested url. If the way back machine crawled the original url (which it would have found recursively from the redirected page) it will record the original url as the one it requested.

Using the Wiki API, you can get the page statistics...showing the prose:

This page is identical to the one for the little ice age.

[–]SoCo[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This page is identical to the one for the little ice age.

You're right, those word counts and sections are just from the Little ice age page.

I can't imagine there isn't a Mini ice age page....even if to clamor about it being a mistake, or trying to explain it was a regional thing that lead to controversial assumptions, which were widely reported, televised and talked about in scientific circles for decades.

[–]weavilsatemyface 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

If this genuinely is what it looks like, and you haven't just conflated that it has always been a redirect, that's pretty shitty of the wikipedia admins.

[–]SoCo[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I guess they just remove any and all discussion and always have, I'd suppose.

[–]Alphix 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is the world of IngSoc, 1984.