The Long and Warming Road
Who coined "the greenhouse effect"? Which year was the hottest on record? A timeline of climate change milestones, from 1800 to now.
1800: At the dawn of the industrial revolution, planet's CO2 concentration is around 280 ppm—38% lower than today.
1896: Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius publishes first study tying CO2 emissions to fossil fuels.
1937: University of Wisconsin geographer Glenn Trewartha helps coin the term "greenhouse effect."
1938: English engineer G.S. Callendar asserts that CO2 increases are warming the planet, suggests this will make cold areas more habitable.
1958: Scientists begin to track CO2 levels and soon observe increases. First official studies show level at 315 ppm.
May 30, 2004: Climate change dystopia The Day After Tomorrow released; will bring in more than $544 million.
December 7, 2004: Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which features climate change as environmentalist hoax, published; Bush reported to have "avidly read" book.
February 16, 2005: Kyoto Protocol goes into effect for 130 countries.
May 2005: Mother Jones reveals ExxonMobil spent more than $8 million from '00 to '03 funding climate change deniers.
December 8, 2006: Inhofe's Senate committee releases 68-page "A Skeptic's Guide to Debunking Global Warming Alarmism."
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Climate Countdown
Our best chance to fix global warming begins on December 7. Tick. Tick. Tick.
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Copenhagen: Too Hot to Handle
Best-case scenario for a Copenhagen deal? Twice the warming the planet can take.
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Clean Coal's Burial Ground
How much carbon will you have under your backyard?
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A Quick Guide to Carbon Lobbyists...All 2,810 of Them
Global warming has been good to K Street. Very good.
1960: Soviet Union publishes essay titled "Man Versus Climate" that advocates deliberate planet heating to unthaw Arctic and boost farm output.
April 22, 1970: First Earth Day. US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) created 5 months later.
1975: National Academy of Sciences report warns of "serious worldwide cooling" in the next 100 years, sparking fears of new ice age.
July 1981: A young US represent-ative from Tennessee, Albert Gore Jr., organizes climate change hearing on Capitol Hill. Media attendance sparse.
January 2007: New House Speaker Nancy Pelosi creates climate change committee.
2007: IPCC releases fourth report, concluding again that global warming is caused by humans.
May 7, 2007: Three decades ahead of projections, scientists report record lows in Arctic summer ice.
October 12, 2007: IPCC and Al Gore awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
December 15, 2007: Papua New Guinea's delegate tells US reps at Bali climate negotiations to step up or "get out of the way."
1985: Scientists at Villach conference in Austria reach consensus that global warming is happening and international treaties needed to curb emissions.
1988: UN-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is established to assess state of knowledge on climate change.
February 1, 2008: ExxonMobil reports $40.6 billion profit—the largest for any US company ever.
February 2008: An iceberg bigger than Manhattan breaks off the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
1989: National Association of Manufacturers along with oil and auto companies form Global Climate Coalition to fight carbon restrictions.
1992: At Rio Earth Summit, US blocks calls for serious action; President George H.W. Bush declares, "The American way of life is not negotiable."
1995: UN-led international climate negotiations begin.
December 11, 1997: First global climate treaty, Kyoto Protocol, adopted.
November 12, 1998: President Bill Clinton signs the Kyoto Protocol, a symbolic gesture; Senate has already rejected it 95-to-0.
March 2001: President George W. Bush withdraws US from Kyoto treaty.
2001: Hottest year on record.
July 28, 2003: US Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) says on Senate floor that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Summer 2003: Heat wave hits Europe; 35,000 die.
April 2008: Hansen warns that a CO2 concentration over 350 ppm isn't compatible with "a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted."
2008: Ties 2001 as hottest year on record.
February 1, 2009: NOAA finds that effects of climate change will be "largely irreversible" for more than 1,000 years after emissions stop.
June 26, 2009: American Clean Energy and Security Act, a.k.a. Waxman-Markey bill, passes House.
2009: Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will pens several syndicated pieces saying planet is actually cooling; readers, scientists go ballistic; Post reporters so embarrassed, they debunk claims in paper's news pages.
April 2009: Global CO2 concentration reaches 387 ppm, projected to reach 866 ppm by century's end if unchecked.
December 7-18, 2009: Nations to meet in Copenhagen to negotiate successor treaty to Kyoto Protocol.
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Very good overall, but...
Thanks, Andy. Keep up the good work. However, just one minor note for sure: I would think that 'unthaw' was the opposite of 'thaw', yes? It would certainly read more smoothly, and, I think, accurately, if you used 'thaw' for that wonderful Soviet idea.
On 'thaw' and 'unthaw'...
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tagged as:
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Thanks for the comment. It's comforting to see someone who cares about language! As for "unthaw," I think, in a true, prescriptive sense, you're right--"thaw" would be the best word here in the context of the Soviet sentence above.
That said, I tend to skew more toward the descriptive camp in the language wars, and "unthaw" is probably used enough to merit its use as a synonym of thaw -- just a dethaw is too -- though the "un" and "de" are needless letters. And Dictionary.com, too, defines the word as "to become or cause to become soft or liquid."
I'll be more careful in the future though. Thanks, Andy K.
When was greenhouse effect discovered
When was the greenhouse effect discovered as opposed to the coining of the term? I've heard it was discovered in the 19th century, but I don't know just when.
Regarding the report of global cooling, there was a metastudy showing most studies publishing in the 1960's and 70's were concerned with warming, not cooling. http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2008-02-20-global-...
I think it also worth noting the possibility of cooling stemmed from particulate pollution blocking the sun, and emissions of particulates were increasing. Most of our efforts to combat air pollution at that time were against particulates. In other words, cooling failed to happen not because the science was wrong, but because the problem was addressed.
http://www.ravensblog.net
Sometimes I dig the Conservative Approach to writing history...
...omit thy enemies.
I love that you manage to highlight US Senator Inhofe's denialism but completely leave out both Step It Up 2007 and the October 24th International Day of Climate Action coordinated by 350.org -- the two largest days of climate activism in US history.
Talk about giving a platform to the wrong people.
Sadly, the issue containing this piece...
came out before 350.org's October 24 International Day of Climate Action. And while we included the Copenhagen negotiations on the timeline as a future event, it was far from clear that 350.org's day would be, as it turned out, the largest day of climate-related activism in history. (I will add, though, that Bill McKibben, a contributing writer here, has covered 350.org's amazing actions on many, many occasions, so we've got it covered there.)
As for Step It Up 2007, it was indeed an important day, and it was a difficult decision to exclude it. But for the sake of historical perspective, I decided not to include it.
Plus, I think anyone with any knowledge would disagree what the assertion that I took a conservative approach to history in writing this timeline. I'd say it's pretty darn fair. Most of all, thanks for your comment, and for reading!
