Reid Bryson: University of Wisconsin Climatologist and Meteorologist

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The following chart shows that as particulates in the air increase, surface temperature decrease and vice-versa. Data for the chart was compiled from both Northern Hemisphere surface temperature readings and Dr. Bryson's dust veil measurements.
The following chart shows that as particulates in the air increase, surface temperature decrease and vice-versa. Data for the chart was compiled from both Northern Hemisphere surface temperature readings and Dr. Bryson's dust veil measurements.
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Dr. Reid Bryson in his office.
Dr. Reid Bryson in his office.

To be very blunt about it, several journalists (apparently looking for a sensational “peg” upon which to hang a story) have quoted Dr. Bryson out of context so that he appears to the casual reader to be some sort of mad scientist shouting that “the next ice age is coming to get you .”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Reid Bryson is a very reasoned, calm, realistic man in his mid 50s whose credits in meteorology, climatology, and related fields fill four pages. Still, it would be unfair to try to fit Dr. Bryson into a single neat box labeled “climatologist.” Reid Bryson is an environmentalist in the broadest sense and his thoughts on the planet, its human population, and that population’s activities range as widely and carry all the force of such acknowledged environmental spokesmen as Barry Commoner, Paul Ehrlich, and Dave Brower.

Bryson is a compassionate man and has a sense of humor. But he speaks with conviction and has the facts and figures to back those convictions. And he pulls no punches: Dr. Bryson uses the term “successful famine” in a way that makes you think he’s given a lot of thought to what it really means — as Bill Hanley found out recently when he interviewed Bryson in his office at the University of Wisconsin.


  • Published on Mar 1, 1976
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