When Newsweek Sold the Next Ice Age
Newsweek, 1975: Meteorologists Are 'Almost Unanimous' Cooling Will Cut Farm Output for the Rest of the Century
Peter Gwynne packaged a cooling scare with famine subtitles; yields did not collapse, and he later called the piece incomplete.
What was said
“The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth's climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century.”
— Peter Gwynne (Newsweek science writer), packaging then-current cooling concern · said Apr 28, 1975 · due Food drop within ~10 years; farm hit for the rest of the century
Northern Hemisphere and global temperatures rose after the mid-1970s. Agricultural productivity did not suffer a cooling-forced century-long collapse. Gwynne himself later called the 1975 hypotheses 'seriously incomplete.'
The Story
April 1975 was a good month to sell ice. Newsweek's Peter Gwynne told readers the Earth seemed to be cooling down, that meteorologists were almost unanimous farm output would suffer for the rest of the century, and that famine could turn catastrophic. The rest of the century preferred carbon dioxide. Decades later Gwynne asked deniers to stop using his story as a cudgel — which is the closest a magazine scare gets to a refund.
Later spin
In 2014 Gwynne wrote that the cooling hypotheses 'seemed right at the time' but were 'seriously incomplete,' and that climate scientists now know the atmosphere is warming.
Receipts
Verbatim from the April 28, 1975 Newsweek text reprinted at sealevel.info. Opening also warns food-output drop 'perhaps only 10 years from now.'
As of Oct 25, 2026
since it didn't happen
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