For several years now, Internet users have been distributing the old covers of Time magazine along with more fresh, dedicated to the problem of global warming, and thereby trying to show that climate change is nothing more than loud headlines in the media. We checked whether releases with such covers actually came out.

The fact that the world media scares their audience either with cooling, then warming, with reference to the covers of Time 40 years ago are reported by users of social networks (""VKontakte" X, "Classmates") And the Platform blog (Livejournal, "Picabu","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 story"(55,000),"Global 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 four covers. The first of them allegedly refers to the release for December 1973 and contains the header "Big Frost". The same phrase is on the cover dated to the janvre of 1977. In April of the same year, Time allegedly released the number with the heading “How to survive in the upcoming ice age”, and in December 1979-with the signature “Cooling of America”.

Three of the four covers are real. So, in December 1973, c January 1977 and c December 1979 on covers really depicted freezing people and placed the same headlines. However, if you study Articleswhose names were Medicated On the first lane, It turns outthat the question in all three texts is not at all about global cooling, but on fuel crises. In those years, residents of the United States really had to face a deficit (and, therefore, a rise in price) of fuel for heating houses in the winter. For example, in 1973, Arab states - members of the organization of oil exporters (OPEC) superimposed embargo In response to the support of oil in the USA in response to the support that the United States provided Israel in the war day. In 1978, Iran began in Iran Islamic Revolution, which led to a reduction in production and, as a result, oil exports in 1979 - this was already the second oil crisis in a decade. Winter 1976-1977 in the USA I got it Unusually frosty, in January the lowest temperature record was recorded in the 200-year history of observations. This caused 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.

Moreover, none of the April covers In 1977, available in the Time archive, does not coincide with the one that Internet users distribute. “Verified” could not be found on the magazine’s website and an article with a heading about the impending ice age. But it was discovered statement Time editors that a cover with a penguin and an apocalyptic prediction in the heading is a fake. However, its basis was the real cover, under which the issue of the magazine I went out In April 2007, with a completely different heading: "Hood for survival in conditions of global warming." Appropriate article He contained advice how everyone can delay the climate change.

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

“Verified” failed to establish where and when the edited cover first appeared, but for the first time Time Refuted Its authenticity back in 2013 - and even then the editors clarified that the image spreads on the network for several years.

Thus, on the covers of Time magazine in the 1970s there were no Alarmist headings about the upcoming global cooling. Some of the covers used by critics of the existing climatic problems and its lighting in the press are real, but the content of articles does not apply to climate change. At the same time, one of the covers was edited, and in the original heading on it it was just about global warming.

Photo on the cover: Image on the left - social networks, on the right - Time