Does anyone remember the World Book Encyclopedia?  If you went to elementary school in the 1970’s you probably remember them in your school library or learning center.  They tended to be the primary source of information for many of us at that time.  We even bought a set for our home.

Every year the World Book would issue a Year Book, which would update the basic set.  The Year Book contained special reports as well, covering the more intriguing topics of the prior year.  I got my hand on the 1979 Year Book, and the special reports from that issue are:

1. Aid for Your Aching Back, by Patricia Skalka

2. How to Cope with Rising College Costs by Alexander G Sidar, Jr

3. Saudi Arabia, Allah’s Will and Oil Wells by Edward R.F. Sheehan

4. Australia’s Living Pogo Sticks by Terence J. Dawson

5. Where There’s Hope, There’s Life, an interview with Bob Hope, conducted by Roger Ebert

6. Colder Weather Ahead – Unless It’s Warmer by Peter Gwynne

7. How Real is America’s Religious Revival? by Garry Wills

In addition to noting that we still are dealing with a lot of issues, look at the title of #6.  Contrary to popular conservative belief, there was no consensus on “Global Cooling” in the late 1970’s, at least according to the title of the article.  Further investigation is required…

The subtitle of the article is:

Extremely cold winters and hot summers may point to a major climate change, but scientists lack data to solve this puzzler

Hmmm.  Sounds like further evidence that the scientific community was grappling with trying to understand what was going on with the weather, and that it was far from any consensus due to a lack of data.  The most recent years provided