Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 05, 2014

Duke, you could promote the island as tropical-ski resort.

Not that it applies here, but there really WERE people fearing an incipient ice age back then and every weather fluke was taken as proof..Just a few years after this one, scientific advisors for President Carter predicted an extra cold winter and he used his power to order the refineries to produce more heating oil rather than gasoline. It was unexpectedly warm and the heating fuel demand was low and gasoline demand high, leading to gas lines around the country..This contributed to less trust of scientists and government, but at least they could blame the evil oil companies for following orders. It probably contributed to President Carter’s defeat in his bid for reelection.And everything which followed

Nuclear fall out from Bikini Atoll??

I don’t know about A. Samoa, but in Hawaii that would just be the ash from a sugar cane burn-off.

It is in my top 3 of all times.

BTW, in 80s I was in Key West FL when it snowed. Of course, it did not stick. According to news reports from that day, it also snowed in Miami FL

I still love these older strips——but when is Mr. Trudeau getting back to work?

I’d like to see Obama try to use his power to dictate what refineries produce. Pretty sure no president could unless in wartime.

“I deleted my reply to you about the Virgin Islands from yesterday’s thread.”.I noticed. Up to you. Better to leave the truth up to correct my error, but your decision.Again, thanks

“Not many and the preponderance of evidence was contradictory to those who misread the signs. Majority of climate scientist did not agree. Didn’t stop some from trumpeting it then and now.”-The slope of many curves depends greatly on starting and stopping points for your curve fit efforts. We had some really cold winters in the fifties, record making cold winters..And, like I said, some of those few you mention caught the President’s ear and he made energy policy based on the expectation of colder winters ahead...I was just looking up sea-level change a few minutes ago. EPA,, since the government is more likely to be fair and unbiased, and noticed it mentioned world-wide sea level change was a rise of 0.06 inches per year since 1880. But that the increase lately was 0.12 inches per year (after being essentially unchanging for 2.000 years — according to them). .An average of six inches per century doesn’t sound as bad as twelve inches per century and a doubling of rate makes one imagine further doubling to much higher numbers in a very few years. Conversely, we could imagine the past few years were a fluke rather than a portent and average the change over 2,000 years and decide there is nothing to worry about..We could be wrong either way.We need more study lest we mess things up badly. No, we need to act NOW lest we wait too late.Place your bets and take your chances.Billions of lives depend on getting it right.

(By the way, some of the recent rises in average global temperatures followed desulphurization of coal, which puts fewer sulfates into the atmosphere. This should help reduce acid rain but also reduces the known cooling effect of sulfates in the atmosphere blocking incoming radiation, thereby raising the average temperature..Now China has joined the game by vastly increasing the amount of coal they are burning for power — and more to come. This means more greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere and could well accelerate the warming effect predicted, but some are saying the sulfur they are burning without cleaning it up first could be masking the harm they are doing by renewing the cooling effect — and acid rain, of course.)

According to NOAA carbon dioxide constitutes 80% of greenhouse gases, current level around 400 parts per million andaccording to measurements on Mauna Loa, increasing by 2 ppm per year.Rather than a 6% per year increase, that looks like a 0.5% annual increase and would take two hundred years to double at current rates..And according to NASA the massive extinction event you talk about was a combination of supervolcanism covering some two million square miles of Siberia with lava near massive coal beds and a sizeable asreroid strike. Others mention it also coincided with formation of a single supercontinent, resulting in drying out of formerly humid areas which would have trapped many species and led to their extinction..NASA also points out there was an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by 2,000 ppm, an increase requiring a thousand years at current rate of increase..The sky probably IS falling, but maybe not as hard as you imply. Consider our level of technology in 1014 or in 1514 or in 1814 or even 1964. There is no reason to think we can’t solve the problem within 40 years.NuclearWind SolarGeothermalGenetic engineeringChemical engineeringRecyclingOceanic resource extractionImproved constriction and manufacturing techniques.There are too many possible paths to think NONE of them will pan out.