A New Scandal

You may have read Keelin McDonell or Kriston Capps on the scandals at the Smithsonian Institution that forced Lawrence Small's resignation. Nevertheless, it was still somewhat shocking that when I went with Young Nick to the Natural History museum on Friday, we saw this on display:

Global Cooling?

In (sort of) defense of the museum, this panel was more-or-less part of a human evolution display that was marked with a disclaimer explaining that the science was outdated and that the museum was hoping to get a new exhibit up soon. Worst of all, I've now been forced to choose between posting this funny photo and the knowledge that people will seize upon it to try to discredit contemporary global warming science. For the record, here's a good place to start on the difference between the highly speculative "global cooling" scare of the 1970s and the much firmer, more widespread global warming consensus of today.

4/2/07 10:39AM del.icio.us this incoming links

Comments

I should add a disclaimer that I'm a layman and understand the science poorly but the ideas are not exactly wrong. We actually are in a cold period if your scale is the last 500 million years or so. During most of the time, life has been on earth, it has been a lot warmer than it is now. The problem is the point gets misunderstood and we end up with a lot of the silly arguments that you often hear. Obviously just because the climate can and will change without the effect of pollution doesn't mean that humans don't have an effect or that we shouldn't worry about man made changes because these changes ccould happen without our interference. You might as well argue that shooting someone isn't so bad because in the long term, the person is going to be dead anyway.

Posted by: Gabe on April 2, 2007 11:56 AM

there is nothing wrong with the science in the display. We are in an interglacial period which will end at some point, there was warming from 1890-1945 and there was a period of cooling stretching from the 40's to the 70's.

Posted by: the invisible pimp hand on April 2, 2007 12:00 PM

the comment above is correct - glacial/interglacial cycles operate on a timescale of 100,000 to 20,000 years and are thought to relate to the shape of the Earth's orbit and orientation of Earth's axis (Milankovitch cycles). warming and cooling during historical times works on a timescale of 100's of years (or less) and appears to be related to ocean currents and greenhouse gases

Posted by: Geology Prof on April 2, 2007 12:19 PM

The Smithsonian sign is wrong. There have not been "signs of cooling in the last few decades." In fact, it is a strong opposite: the world has seen a rate of warming unlike hardly any other in its history.

Posted by: Thomas on April 2, 2007 12:26 PM

Great, I can see this as the backdrop to one of Bush's future speeches. Drudge and Hannity and Rush will pick up on it and Gore will be pilloried for being out of touch with the most current science. All thanks to Matt. Wingnut blogs are biting the bullet as we speak and linking to you..........

Posted by: steve duncan on April 2, 2007 12:44 PM

Some 40-plus years ago, I read a science fiction story based on the premise that there had been another Ice Age, covering most of the (currently) non-equatorial Earth in ice, and people lived underground, sometime boring through the ice to get to the surface. It wasn't very good, but I never saw a glacier again without thinking: "So what do we do when it happens again?" And I still have no idea. At least it won't be my problem.

Posted by: CJColucci on April 2, 2007 12:55 PM

Current temperatures are demonstrably higher than any time in the past 1100 years. And probably higher than much, much longer than that. (Did nobody read the IPCC?) The Medieval Warm Period was cooler than now, and there's strong doubt that the MWP was a global phenomenon. CO2 levels are higher than essentially forever. A million years or so.

That said, we are probably in an interglacial period, but the causes of glaciation are currently absent. Read up on Milankovich Cycles here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

There has been no cooling in recent decades. That sign is a scandal.

Posted by: Jeffrey Davis on April 2, 2007 01:23 PM

Hey don't blame the sign, blame the scientists, they must be George Will fans.

Posted by: Fred on April 2, 2007 03:03 PM

Of course the right wing global warming deniers could never use this sign to support their argument, it would require admiting that the Earth is real, real, real old, No Noah's ark and so on...

Posted by: Eric on April 2, 2007 06:34 PM

People, the sign is almost certainly a couple of decades old, if not older. That makes the information on the sign correct for when it was made. That's why, as Matt said, they had a disclaimer saying that the display was outdated.

Posted by: Steve Reuland on April 2, 2007 07:46 PM

Where was I in the 80's? I don't recall the global cooling scare at all.

The closest thing I can come up with is the "nuclear winter" scare that argued that torching all of our cities and forests would blacken the skies and lead to a new ice age. If I recall, this was considered to be a bad thing.

Posted by: FS on April 2, 2007 11:02 PM

Re: Where was I in the 80's? I don't recall the global cooling scare at all.

Where did you live? I grew up in Michigan, and the "New Ice Age!" headlines were well-known there in the late 70s/ (very) early 80s. We had a whole series of record-breaking, ferociously bad winters (77, 78, 82) that made it credible. One year there was so much snow in the UP, that in some wooded areas unmelted snow drifts endured well into June.

Posted by: JonF on April 3, 2007 06:51 AM

Global warming is much much better than a new Ice Age would be. Well, at least for me -- my current location would be under 3 miles of ice.

If the continents weren't preventing the circulation of water, and if temperatures were 15 degrees warmer, like in age of dinosaurs, well that still might not be too bad for me.

Antarctica and northern Canada would be like South Carolina.

Posted by: anon on April 3, 2007 07:05 AM

Wikipedia has a map of average world temps:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:All_palaeotemps.png

Posted by: anon on April 3, 2007 07:16 AM

It's still there! I saw that on a field trip in high school, and it turned me into a global warming skeptic until that Easterbrook paper last year. It's something of a milestone for me... it's where I realized divination will never be a science, and that anyone in the business of predicting the future, economists, climatologists, etc, are not exactly charlatans, but not exactly scientists either. I can't believe it's still there! Thanks for taking the picture.

Posted by: Boring on April 3, 2007 02:13 PM

Y'all are going crazy over nuthin' more than bad kerning. The sign acutally says "We Are Still in a Nice Age", which, given how often someone says "Isn't it nice out?' I think we can all agree is true. We DO live in a nice age.

Unless one lives in Iraq or Darfur (or one of those other places Bush should've ignored but didn't, or shouldn't ignore but still does), of course, in which case an Ice Age would be a goddamned relief.

Posted by: MFA on April 3, 2007 02:59 PM

This section is badly out-of-date because everytime archaeologists find a new skull fragment, the entire history of "human origins" has to be rewritten. It's somewhat of a joke--everytime you see a newspaper article about a discovery, it always includes that line.

Seriously, if Matt recently visited the Smithsonian he must have seen it's treatment of evolution. Specifically, room after room asserting, displaying, and patiently explaining how evolution is responsible for the diversity of life on earth and in the fossil record. So it's kind of hard to argue the museum has an agenda. This sign is surely just an ananacroistic oversight.

Posted by: Mike S. on April 4, 2007 03:51 AM

That should read, "it's kind of hard to argue the museum has an agenda against science." The Smithsonian clearly has a pro-science aganda. Christ, where is this country that I had to write that last sentence.

Posted by: Mike S. on April 4, 2007 03:53 AM

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