Retro news: Cronkite's 1980 global warming alert. — The Daily Climate.

Yes, people have been warning about this for quite a while.

This is also why I doubt the delay can be blamed upon energy company misinformation and obfuscation — and the Citizens United decision. According to Professor Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton, the only reason the USA signed on to the IPCC UNFCCC was because they thought it would “get away from them”. But indeed they signed on, and, thereby, they committed to keeping the increase of global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius.

No, the reason why nothing at all has been done is because the American public is apathetic about it, and is unwilling to change their purchasing habits and lifestyles. The propaganda which energy companies and their political allies in Congress and elsewhere simply reinforces that, and counteracts the increasing number of signals the public is seeing that something is very wrong.

They who keep their heads in the sand drown.

(Hat tip to Paul Lauenstein for point this out to me.)