Global Warming, As Seen from 1982

Yet another factor enters into the world food picture – a new and ominous phenomenon. The climate of the world seems to be changing; it may, say our best scientists, be warming up. This slight, almost imperceptible, but relentless warming of the past ten years has already brought tragedy, and may forecast worse. The southern fringe of Africa’s Sahara desert, the Sahel, has already spread to parch central Africa. A decade of sorrow and starvation have followed. The same climactic change has punished Russian food production — first in 1972, again in 1975, and again in 1981.

White, Theodore H. 1982. America in Search of Itself: The Making of the President, 1956-1980. Harper & Row, New York. pp 139.

I don’t have enough information about the two specific events cited above (African starvation or the three bad harvests in Russia) to know if the causal claim (e.g. climate change –> drought –> starvation) is robust, but a mainstream journalist discussed the concept 31 years ago, and yet there are some who still debate the phenomenon. While I don’t know the extent to which the actions of humankind were blamed in 1982 (which does seem to be a fair percentage of the remaining debate), by the time I was taking meteorology in college in 1988 the existence and cause were both clear, but not yet embraced as consensus. Given that my meteorology class in 1988 was treating it as cutting edge science, I’m impressed to see White put it in print in 1982.