Into the 1980’s scientists began to truly understand climate change and the threat facing our entire planet; although, at the time it was termed global warming.
Global Warming: the gradual increase in earth's temperatures due to the greenhouse effect (today scientists prefer to use the term climate change
After the “Global Cooling Scare of the 1970’s”, climate experts settled on global warming as the most likely phenomenon to occur as a result of increased carbon emissions and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In fact, in the late 1980’s, some scientists were so convinced, they began to take matters directly to the public, urging them to help make change before it was too late. Taking matters directly to the public also meant involving political figures into the conversation. This time period is, in our opinion, the beginning of the polarization of beliefs about global warming. With scientists urging the regulation and reduction of emissions, and political figures arguing about the cost, and big corporations spending large amounts of money to create distrust in the scientists; it is easy to see how political unrest and uncertainty could be born.
The 1980’s saw a lot of change in the way the general population thought about global warming and the natural environment. In the beginning of the decade, few people were likely to bring up the topic in conversation and few even knew of the dangers associated with global warming. By the end of the decade, there were institutions established to protect some facets of our natural world. These include: The National Resources Defense Fund, The World Wildlife Fund, Environmental Defense Fund, and The World Resources Institute. With new institutions, and a more educated population, global warming was on everyone’s minds. However, that doesn’t mean they were on the same page. Throughout the 1980’s, global warming became more polarized politically, leading to few advancements towards solving the issue.
All that being said, there was one development regarding global warming from the 1980’s that has stood the test of time, and in our opinion, deserves to be spotlights today. In 1981, a documentary (Warming Warning) about global warming was released, which to this day remains daily accurate. The third link includes clips and excerpts from this documentary, and if you have time we would really suggest taking a look at what scientists thought about climate change in 1981. We will share one of the impactful clips from this documentary with you today.
“Uncertainty will permeate energy policy, if only because such a policy needs to be introduced before the irrefutable evidence that it is needed. They’ll be difficulties, too. The call for restraint in a society built on the exploitation of energy may meet irresistible forces. There is, for example, the vested interests that many of the world’s great corporations have in fossil fuels and the power they could wield on their behalf. International agreement will be needed to control the use of fossil fuels, but with the third world likely to benefit from climatic changes, and while China and Russia have vast reserves of coal, that seems unlikely.” - Warming Warning
In this quote they are saying that we need to take action immediately, but without global cooperation, nothing is likely to change. The people that suffer the most (and would in turn benefit the most from environmental changes) are individuals from third world countries. Furthermore, with countries like China and Russia, who have excess supplies of fossil fuels ready to distribute to the world, things aren’t likely to change.
This is a sad fact that has become a reality during our lifetime. If you look at this quote and documentary, and think, “Wow, things haven’t really changed much in the last 40 years”, you aren’t the only one. Watching this documentary really opens your eyes to the fact that we as a society have done a lot of talking about the problem, and not enough fixing. Thankfully, we haven’t just been all talk, and in our next blog post we will talk about the Paris Climate Agreement which is working to correct our climate change crisis.
- The Edible Landscape Initiative
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