[self_assembly]

> In the late 70's, I can remember a rash of stories on the nightly news, telling us that scientists were predicting that half of Florida was going to be underwater by the 2000's. Perhaps, even as a kid, I was sensitized to reporting on science, since my 4th-grade science text book was also predicting we'd be in a mini ice age in the 80's, and completely out of oil by 2000. And, dang it, I was looking forward to driving.

Isn't the difference with today the consensus among scientist. In any time period you can probably find some scientist making exaggerated claims about X. It feels a lot different when you have hundreds of scientist coming together to write things like IPCC reports. This isn't just some scientist says X. This is the vast majority of scientist more or less agree that X is a major problem.

[triangleman]

I think you may have been misinformed. There is a consensus that CO2 in the atmosphere has an affect on global temperatures. I don't think there is any consensus that it's a major problem, nor is there a consensus on the best course of action (of course that's a political question not a scientific one).