1948: An article giving strong evidence of global warming

An article giving strong evidence of global warming « Fabius Maximus

The publication date is October - December of 1948. And yes, he sees global warming as beneficial to humanity. Why do we find this strange? Throughout history cooling has been the malefactor, associated with crop failures and plagues. Warming, while often disruptive (like any change), means better growing conditions for most areas. People die from overheating in the summer, but far more die from freezing in winter.

My conclusions

The useful conclusions from this have nothing to do with the correctness of this paper’s data, reasoning, or conclusions.

(1) Anthropological global warming (AGW, caused by us) is more difficult to prove than global warming

The data showed clear indications of global warming in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Hence the difficulty of demonstrating AGW as a substantial driver of current warming, since the natural warming trend was established before massive global industrialization. Proving causation requires more than showing a trend, since the trend was already there. This is a repeated fallacy of general media articles about global warming (but not, of course, of the climate science literature).

(2) Keeping the public ignorant of normal climate cycles

The inconvenient truth about 19th and 20th century warming is
omitted from many “educational” articles and movies, along with any
mention of past climatic swings. Doing so makes it easier to arouse
fears about AGW by exploiting the public’s ignorance of history and
logic. AGW can be proven by appealing to post hoc ergo propter hoc
— if industrialization preceded warming, then industrialization must
have caused warming. This is a wonderful use of propaganda: false
fact used to support false logic.