Help! A Short History of Climate Alarmism

by GWPF, July 15, 2020


One of the perennial sources of amusement among sceptics is to look back at the crazy things scientists and activists were saying about global warming back in the early days, when the scaremongering first kicked off.

Who can forget, for example, James Hansen’s notorious speculation in 1988 that large chunks of Manhattan would disappear under the rising waters in the first decades after the millennium? Fortunately, being a thick-skinned fellow, the failure of even small chunks of New York to disappear in the last thirty years since seems to have dented his confidence not one jot, and he cheerfully fends of allegations of alarmism, putting them down to the ignorance of the general public.

Or what about climate scientist David Viner at the University of East Anglia who told the Independent 20 years ago – apparently with a straight face – that snowfall was going to become “a very rare and exciting event” and that children “just aren’t going to know what snow is”? That one hasn’t turned out too well either.