For several years now, Internet users have been distributing old Time magazine covers along with more recent ones dedicated to the problem of global warming, in an attempt to show that climate change is nothing more than loud headlines in the media. We checked whether issues with such covers were actually published.

Social media users report that the global media are frightening their audiences with either colder weather or warming, with reference to Time covers from 40 years ago (“VKontakte", X, "Classmates") and blogging platforms (LiveJournal, "Peekaboo", "Zen"), as well as Telegram channels "Lost past"(241,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Alexander Semchenko"(87,000), "Coincidence"(56,000), "Forgotten history" (55,000), "World conspiracy"(41,000). Mention these covers supposedly predicting global cooling, and on forums in thematic discussions.

Most often, viral posts are accompanied by one or more of the four covers. The first is supposedly from the December 1973 issue and contains the headline "The Big Freeze." The same phrase appears on the cover, dated January 1977. In April of that year, Time allegedly published an issue with the headline “How to Survive the Coming Ice Age,” and in December 1979, with the caption “America Cooling.”

Three out of four covers are real. So, in December 1973, in January 1977 onwards December In 1979, the covers actually showed people freezing and featured the same headlines. However, if you study articles, whose names were passed to the front page it will become clearthat all three texts are not talking about global cooling, but about fuel crises. In those years, US residents actually had to face a shortage (and, therefore, rise in price) of fuel for heating their homes in the winter. For example, in 1973, Arab states members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) imposed embargo to supply oil to the United States in response to the support that the United States provided to Israel in the Yom Kippur War. In 1978, Iran began Islamic revolution, which led to a reduction in production and, as a consequence, oil exports in 1979 - this was the second oil crisis in a decade. Winter 1976–1977 in the USA it was a great day unusually frosty, January recorded the lowest temperature record in the 200-year history of records. This has created extreme demand for fuel in densely populated areas. But neither Time nor other authoritative publications then wrote about global cooling in the sense of climate change, because weather and climate different things.

However, none of the April covers in 1977, available in the Time archive, does not match the one distributed by Internet users. “Verified” could not be found on the magazine’s website and an article with a headline about the impending ice age. But it was discovered statement Time editors that the cover with a penguin and an apocalyptic prediction in the title is a fake. However, it was based on a real cover, under which the magazine number came out in April 2007 with a completely different title: “A Guide to Surviving Global Warming.” Corresponding article contained advice on how everyone can delay climate change.

Source: left - Time, on the right - social networks

"Verified" was unable to determine where or when the edited cover first appeared, but Time denied its authenticity dates back to 2013 - and even then the editors clarified that the image had been distributed on the Internet for several years.

Thus, the covers of Time magazine in the 1970s did not feature alarmist headlines about the coming global cooling. Some of the covers used by critics of current climate issues and their press coverage are real, but the content of the articles does not concern climate change. At the same time, one of the covers was edited, and the original headline on it was about global warming.

Cover photo: image on the left is social media, on the right is Time