I think the "Ice Age" prediction was soon overturned, we are still in one anyway; and natural, low-amplitude, short-term climatic oscillations are common in geological time.
However the real change now is artificially-driven and is of
climate, not a universal "global warming" of
weather.
Instead it is a small sea and air
temperature rise showing a vast
energy rise bringing
climate change that for the higher latitudes means blurred seasons and greater extremes of
weather.
So what we have been seeing over the last few decades is consistent with changing climate: one year to the next is not enough to mean much; nor are individual storms, cold-snaps, droughts or blizzards. We need proper, longer-time data, not single frosts and childhood holiday memories. These data exist and show the change is too rapid to be wholly natural.
The overall hazard was predicted well over 100 years ago; but ignored because the danger-point calculated then was too far ahead to worry anyone, and faced with a common belief science and engineering would "tame Nature" and solve all of humanity's problems.
It was based on projecting from contemporary population rise and the consumption of coal, the universal fuel at the time. In the 1900s petroleum-derivative fuels were still new and natural-gas was yet unknown, or was wasted by burning it off at oil well-heads.
We now know most solutions can too easily create their own, new problems!
I first learnt of the history of this knowledge from a newspaper article cited in a technical magazine a few years ago, but a quick look here and now found:
The history of the scientific discovery of climate change began in the early 19th century when ice ages and other natural changes in paleoclimate were first suspected and the natural greenhouse effect was first identified. In the late 19th century, scientists first argued that human emissions of greenhouse gases could change Earth's energy balance and climate. The existence of the greenhouse effect, while not named as such, was proposed as early as 1824 by Joseph Fourier.[2]
[Wikipedia]
The full article there interestingly shows purely-local or regional, man-made effects on the climate were observed in antiquity - when there were still too few humans and artifices to affect the climate world-wide. So the knowledge that mankind can alter natural processes, and not always for the best, is not new!
The lesson is that we as a whole have ignored it all for too long so are now in panic mode, shown by "knee-jerk" policies, "green" enthusiasm combined with technical ignorance, and by outright denial.
The denial seems similar to that in many people trying to mask a fear of a dangerous disease; but also has powerful commercial and political imperatives. It does not prove the answer it argues for, only that ignorance is bliss.
