[movies] The seventies was a cooling scare!

[El_Machinae]

It's a common view that the 70s were all about the global cooling scare.

I recently watched the movie Split Second, which both had the premise be based on Global Warming and have the protagonist seek for what he called a Big [Effing] Gun. But 1992 is its release date, and thus too late to counteract the idea that the 70s were focused on cooling.

Can we think of 70s and 80s movies that had the future including warming? How much of the scientific concern purcolated to Hollywood, and people are just having selective memory?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

It's a common view that the 70s were all about the global cooling scare.

I recently watched the movie Split Second, which both had the premise be based on Global Warming and have the protagonist seek for what he called a Big [Effing] Gun. But 1992 is its release date, and thus too late to counteract the idea that the 70s were focused on cooling.

Can we think of 70s and 80s movies that had the future including warming? How much of the scientific concern purcolated to Hollywood, and people are just having selective memory?

I don't know about that "common view." I was in high school in the seventies, and greenhouse gasses and ozone depletion were the environmental issues of the times. I don't recall anything from movies either way, but the youth of the times weren't talking about any "global cooling."

 

[Cutlass]

I was actually reading recently a encyclopedia of sci-fi. None of the sci-fi movies of the 70s dealt with global cooling. And they were pretty eclectic on what they were considering a sci-fi movie.

I know of 1 sci-fi book that thought global cooling was a real possibility. But Niven and Pournell, a libertarian and a conservative, let their politics color their science. And that wasn't published until 1991, and was probably something of a backlash against warming theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_(science_fiction_novel)

This article on climate change in popular culture only mentions warming, not cooling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_popular_culture

 

[El_Machinae]

Soylent Green had global warming being a part of the dystopian future.

I'm mainly interested in movies about warming.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't think that in Silent Running they ever specify what went wrong, but I know I assumed global warming when I watched it.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Silent Running was the first thing I thought of too, but it's been a long time since I saw it, and I can't remember the nature of the ecological disaster.

fwiw, I've also never heard of this "global cooling" thing.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

There were three impressively harsh winters (77-79, IIRC) at the end of the decade, and people were talking about an ice age at the time - and I've heard the occasional righty mention that as the basis for their global warming denial...

 

[Cutlass]

Silent Running was the aftermath of nuclear war.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Silent Running was the aftermath of nuclear war.

Well, that's certainly consistent with the seventies. I remember telling people who were probably among the very earliest environmental activists not to worry, because there seemed to be no chance whatsoever that we would survive long enough to do any harm with mere spray cans. Thankfully, I have been proven wrong so far.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Damnation Alley was after a nuclear war, too. I think The Crazies and The Omega Man were weaponized disease outbreaks. I can't remember if Logan's Run involved a natural disaster or if it was just a political dystopia, a la 1984.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

Political dystopia - I don't recall if it's made clear in the movie, but the book had it an extreme end of a social trend. There was something about overpopulation at the root of it, I think.

 

[Serutan]

Silent Running was the aftermath of nuclear war.

I don't think so - at one point they get a message, and Bruce Dern's character says "I think they're going to restore the National Park System". So I think it was more about rampant development destroying all the natural areas on Earth.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

From the little bit I've read on the subject, I got the impression that the 'global cooling scare' was not nearly as forefront in the public's mind and certainly never close to being a consensus view with climate scientists as it has been made out to be. Particularly, it seems the conservative media and politicians in the US have essentially used the fact that the words 'global cooling' were ever uttered as a foil for global warming. They make it out to have been some BIG THING(tm) and also SCIENTIFIC FACT(tm) when it was never either of those things.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I swear to god, this thread is the first time I've ever heard of this "global cooling" thing. It must be really fringe.

 

[El_Machinae]

Keep in mind, we've had a global consensus on the risk of global warming since 1992. So, Cooling mainly something people cling to if they're significantly older than that, or have been confused about basic chemistry by older people.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

From the little bit I've read on the subject, I got the impression that the 'global cooling scare' was not nearly as forefront in the public's mind and certainly never close to being a consensus view with climate scientists as it has been made out to be. Particularly, it seems the conservative media and politicians in the US have essentially used the fact that the words 'global cooling' were ever uttered as a foil for global warming. They make it out to have been some BIG THING(tm) and also SCIENTIFIC FACT(tm) when it was never either of those things.

I swear to god, this thread is the first time I've ever heard of this "global cooling" thing. It must be really fringe.

It was a really late seventies thing, and only laymen speculating as far as I recall hearing - but there was a lot of talk. The deniers didn't actually make that one up.