The increased solar activity of the late 20th century was predicted. There were concerns over satelites, communications, and the power grid, in the US Military in the late '80s.
I figured out the global warming/climate change fraud early, I recall two of the first global warming alarmists in the early 80's had written a paper about an impending ice age.
That made sense, if you look at a timeline of the ice ages, we're about due, but they were saying it was because of our industrial emissions blocking the sun to a tipping point. I was doubtful, because I knew the KGB seeded western 'environmental' groups with with millions to try to reduce our growth and industrial output. Brilliant subversion technique, by the way, the groups cost little to start, nothing to maintain, because they feed off donations from western dupes and fellow travelers. They use those funds to attack, stall, and make prohibitavely expensive any industrial development, and they've been very effective, though they most often damage the environment worse than they help.
When these same two 'scientists' wrote a paper in the early 80's claiming our industrial and consumer emissions were now causing the opposite climatic effects, I knew theirs was a 'solution' in search of a problem. Lots of very respectable people who should know better fell for it.
People are starting to catch on, though the 'environmentalists' have smoothly shifted from global warming to "climate change", a self fulfilling prophecy.