CIA on climate change

From The Australian:

World weather crisis can aid us

A dramatic shift in world weather patterns could mean an economic bonanza for Australia.

The inference is being drawn from a CIA report on a shift in global climatic conditions.

The report, released yesterday, is based on studies by several of the world’s leading meteorologists and climatologists.

It warns that the world has already entered a phase of weather adverse to many densely populated countries and that it will cause widespread drought, famine and starvation.

The CIA goes as far as to suggest that the new global patterns considered likely to last at least 40 years and possibly centuries, could cause political and economic upheaval “beyond comprehension”.

The climatic shift had started in the 1960s, but few had thought it would continue, the report said.

[Dr Reid A. Bryson, climatologist with the environmental studies department at the University of Wisconsin] said Australia, although not mentioned specifically in the CIA’s report, had already seen some consequences of the climatic shift.

“The floods of 1974 were an indication that the climate was changing,” he said. “Since then – and possibly in years just prior to these floods – there had been consistently high rainfall in outback areas.”

…

The CIA report says the changes will mean India will suffer a major drought every four years, resulting in the possible starvation of 150 million people.

China will suffer major famine in five-yearly cycles and Russia will lose one million tons in grain production.

…

A former Pentagon research consultant, Mr Lowell Ponte, yesterday criticised the report for overlooking the possibility of nuclear blackmail by hungry nations.

Front page news from The Australian, 5 May 1976