Ch. 32 What is Global Warming?
"Twenty-five years ago, people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse." - Desmond Tutu Global Warming (which is the cause of climate change) became a buzz term in the early 1990s. For many people, this is when awareness of climate change first began. However, humanity has had fair warning on the effects of greenhouse gasses on global temperatures since at least 1896. That’s when Svante Arrhenius wrote his famous paper On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground . Of course, his work was largely ignored in his own time, until we reached the 1970s and the effects of greenhouse gasses were plain for all to see. What is global warming? "Global warming occurs when carbon dioxide (CO2) and other air pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb sunlight and solar radiation that have bounced off the earth’s surface. Normally this radiation would escape into space, but these pollu...