Article Lost opportunity: We could’ve started fighting climate change in 1971

[C C]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/04/...but-didnt/

INTRO: In 1971, President Richard Nixon’s science advisers proposed a multimillion dollar climate change research project with benefits they said were too “immense” to be quantified, since they involved “ensuring man’s survival,” according to a White House document newly obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive and shared exclusively with Inside Climate News.

The plan would have established six global and 10 regional monitoring stations in remote locations to collect data on carbon dioxide, solar radiation, aerosols and other factors that exert influence on the atmosphere. It would have engaged five government agencies in a six-year initiative, with spending of $23 million in the project’s peak year of 1974—the equivalent of $172 million in today’s dollars. It would have used then-cutting-edge technology, some of which is only now being widely implemented in carbon monitoring more than 50 years later.

But it stands as yet another lost opportunity early on the road to the climate crisis. Researchers at the National Security Archive, based at the George Washington University, could find no documentation of what happened to the proposal, and it was never implemented.

“Who knows what would have happened if we had some kind of concerted effort, just even on the monitoring side of things?” asked Rachel Santarsiero, an analyst who directs the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project... (MORE - details)

[Syne]

Alarmist twaddle. Monitoring would have saved the world? What a joke.

[Zinjanthropos]

We could have used that 13000 yrs ago when things were getting cold. In time when we’ve adapted to being warmer then I guess early detection of glacier building will prompt ways to stop that from happening.

[geordief]

The "alarmists" alarm has been shown to be justified(if erroneous in detail at the time)

On another forum I was asked how long I had I been suffering from "climate anxiety".

I said 50 years and the sarcastic retorts dried up.

It was clear 50 years ago that we were using the planet as our backyard and consequences would be consequences.

When it was clear global warming was that main consequence it felt good to me that we finally had a common purpose.

Sadly ,this is still not the case and many are happy to look the other way., with different justifications .

Sure ,let them eat cake .I will be gone .Suck on that naive fools.

[Syne]

Alarmism, so far, has not been justified. Generally, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. have been decreasing. Yes, you can cherry-pick the region, like tornadoes in Dixie Alley and hurricanes in the North Atlantic to claim they are increasing, but only in those specific regions. While there has been an increase in hurricane intensity, there has been a decrease in tornado strength. This means that coastal areas, that have always been at risk, are still at risk, while inland is less so.

This is how the UN, and others, mislead people about the issue:

Destructive storms have become more intense and more frequent in many regions.
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/scie...ate-change

That's a half-truth at best.
They do the same with droughts:

Over the last half century, extreme “dry rainfall shocks” – i.e., below-average rainfall -- have increased 233% in certain regions.
- https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/featur...nd-drought

Reading further...

Poor countries that are typically in arid and semi-arid regions experience more dry shocks and are also more vulnerable to these shocks.
...
A similar drying pattern is not found in higher income countries that are typically in temperate and moist areas...

So like hurricanes and tornadoes, those places that have always been at greater risk are still at risk while others generally are not. Again, you have to cherry-pick specific regions to make any alarmist claims.

Climate change increases the factors that put and keep people in poverty. Floods may sweep away urban slums, destroying homes and livelihoods. Heat can make it difficult to work in outdoor jobs. Water scarcity may affect crops. Over the past decade (2010–2019), weather-related events displaced an estimated 23.1 million people on average each year, leaving many more vulnerable to poverty. Most refugees come from countries that are most vulnerable and least ready to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
- https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/scie...ate-change

The fact that "urban slums" are already rife with poverty, not to mention violence and crime, again, mean the areas most effected aren't really changed.
And the threat of other effects are highly dependent upon the ability "to adapt."

You'd think that people who tout "follow the science" so much would be advocating for adaptation, which is how evolution got us all here in the first place, right?
With newer research on things like epigenetics, we've even learned that humans can adapt, genetically, faster then previously thought.

[confused2]

You'd think that people who tout "follow the science" so much would be advocating for adaptation, which is how evolution got us all here in the first place, right?

Science to the rescue! Instead of air conditioning just interbreed with someone adapted to life in hotter conditions. In reality migration is "what got us where we are today" - on a planet without national borders and a human population counted in millions this worked well. I don't know how well the average American would take to the idea of millions of migrants all prepared to kill them to get their land - which is how (most) Americans got where they are today - not, as Syne suggests, by 'evolving'.

[Syne]

Apparently someone doesn't understand what adaptation is. Nor does he understand that epigenetic adaptation is much faster than the slow, generational process of breeding. Nor even that the average American is better armed than any would-be killer migrants. Nor even the faulty history of Americans conquering to get where they are. This is the kind of ill-informed people who are readily mislead by "in many regions."