Cienciaes.com: A little history about the science of global warming.

by time news

2024-04-05 19:00:00

I read somewhere that scientists tend to be more trusting than other people. I do not know if it is true, but I believe that I am, because I have never considered that someone in power of scientifically acquired knowledge intends to hide it, much less deny it, from the rest of humanity, for the simple fact that this concealment or denial suits their interests, normally their economic interests.

For this reason, I have viewed with great skepticism the revelations, made by some media outlets, that the major oil companies knew that the massive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, resulting from the combustion of ever-increasing quantities of oil, would affect the planet’s climate. For example, on January 30, 2024, Oliver Milman, a journalist specializing in environmental issues, published an article in the British newspaper The Guardian in which he stated that certain documents demonstrated that the oil industry had financed the investigation of some of the pioneering scientists in climatology since 1954, and that these investigations already revealed that a serious climate problem would occur.

Among the scientists whose research was funded by the oil industry is Charles Keeling, who, as almost no one knows, was the first to propose the establishment, at the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii, of an observatory to determine the concentration of carbon dioxide. carbon in the atmosphere. Since its inception, the observatory has been generating what is called the Keeling curve, a curve that has always turned out to be upward, a reflection of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as the days go by. For some, the establishment of this observatory is one of the most important scientific milestones of the last century, due to the repercussions that the Keeling curve is having for the present and future climate on the planet.

Another of the scientists cited in the Guardian article is Samuel Epstein, who was familiar with the latest isotopic analysis technologies that could identify changes in the atmosphere. This scientist, director of research at Charles Keeling, wrote in November 1954: “The possible consequences of a change in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with respect to climate, rates of photosynthesis and equilibrium rates with carbonate “The oceans may ultimately prove to be of considerable importance to civilization.” I’m afraid he wasn’t wrong in the least.

In addition to this evidence, the Guardian article and other sources indicate that there is much more, which is revealing of the oil industry’s interest in knowing very early on the possible consequences of the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere. It is possible, and this is my own speculation, that this interest was due to the hope that research would indicate that the change in the Earth’s temperature, and other climatic parameters, was not going to be so dramatic. However, this was not what the investigations revealed and, according to some analysts, after learning that the CO2 emission resulting from the combustion of oil was going to have serious consequences in the future, the oil industry tried to deny it or downplay it.

This phenomenon is not new in the history of humanity, because the tobacco industry has apparently carried out a similar concealment by denying the increasing evidence linking tobacco consumption to various types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Unfortunately, it seems to be true that some people put their personal interests ahead of the health and lives of others. I’m afraid this statement doesn’t surprise you, does it?

However, I refuse to believe that there can be people with so much selfishness. He needed additional evidence on whether or not it was known, back in 1954, that the CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere was going to generate climate change. Lo and behold, by chance, I have found that evidence, or at least it seems that way to me.

It turns out that by researching various aspects of science through the media that fall into my hands, including the Internet and artificial intelligence, I learn that at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, scientists were not worried about global warming. the Earth but because of global cooling. That may surprise you, at least it did for me. Faced with the threat of a supposed but feared future global cooling, scientists sought measures to prevent it. Among these we find the bold proposal of the American engineer from the University of Illinois William Lamont Abbot. This was the person who made perhaps the first climate engineering proposal at a planetary level, since he proposed that humanity burn as much coal as possible to warm the planet thanks to the CO2 emitted. According to what Abbot thought, this would prevent the progressive cooling of the Earth and would result in important benefits for humanity, such as the increase in the planet’s arable surfaces, which would prevent hunger from advancing on the planet’s rapidly growing population.

As expected, many scientists did not agree with the proposal, and warned of the dangers of playing with the planet’s climate without knowing all the factors that could affect it. However, some renowned scientists, such as the Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius, Nobel Prize winner in 1903, were not averse to this proposal. Of course we must take into account that in Sweden it is very cold in winter even today, and perhaps Arrhenius, no matter how much of a Nobel Prize winner he was or could become, was too influenced by the climate of his country and would like to support a proposal that perhaps he favored his nation, warming it a little, to the detriment of others that were already sufficiently warm.

But let’s not get too carried away with these things. The above seems to indicate that at the end of the 19th century, the property of CO2 to absorb infrared radiation and not let the heat coming from the Sun escape into outer space. Indeed, that is the case. Documenting myself in even greater depth, I learn that the discoverer that CO2 and other gases with carbon in their composition, such as methane, absorb the heat radiation of the Sun is the Irish physicist John Tyndall. After his investigations in the laboratory with various gases, on June 10, 1859, the same year as the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species, John Tyndall gave a lecture at the British Royal Society in which he stated: “When The heat is absorbed by the planet, its quality changes in such a way that the rays emanating from the planet cannot return with the same freedom to space. Thus, the atmosphere admits the entry of solar heat; but it controls its output, and the result is a tendency to accumulate heat on the surface of the planet.”

How about? June 1859. Almost a hundred years before the oil industry began funding the climate research we talked about above, John Tyndall could have already predicted that accumulating CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming. In fact, his studies were what allowed William Lamont Abbot to carry out his proposal to burn coal to heat the atmosphere.

So you see, the knowledge that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere would lead to global warming is not a thing from the end of the last century, but from the middle of the 19th century. This can give an idea of ​​the power of denialism and manipulation well applied to general ignorance. That is why it is so important to make science reach as many people as possible. Tell everyone you can, if that’s okay.

References:

Works by Jorge Laborda.

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