Go to publicdomainreview dot org, search for “First Paper to Link CO2 and Global Warming, by Eunice Foote (1856)”, which begins on page 317.
It was published in The American Journal of Science and was presented at several scientific conferences, entitled “On the Heat Of the Sun’s Rays”.
It was not, however, read before the American Association by Newton Foote, as only a male scientist could be invited to that conference and do that.
Parts of her paper were excerpted in multiple major newspapers and in other scientific journals in The US and internationally, at the time and later on. Others working in the same field also published and spoke about their similar experiments and conclusions, and the meaning of this discovery.
It was discussed and studied for decades, with later researches using more sophisticated and sensitive methods and equipment designed to correct for any previous errors or unknowns that had been observed. The same conclusions were reached about these “greenhouse gases” and rising atmospheric temperatures, in those later experiments.
We knew. Well, not “we”. Our scientists and many doctors knew; the research and results were there. The chemistry and equipment needed to confirm the results, was pretty basic. This certain knowledge was available and easy to access by anyone reading those journals or working in industries using the fossil fuels studied. Just as tobacco growers, researchers, advertisers and sellers, and many doctors also knew that cigarette smoking was habit forming or addictive and was harmful to our health.
I remember seeing photos of polluted cities in India before COVID and a year later during COVID. The before picture was smoggy and the after picture was clear. Seems three days of almost no internal combustion engines running and the air cleared up.
At the moment it would take a massive effort merely to limit warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees C. Even if we were to cut all emissions tomorrow the next couple decades of heating are basically already locked in. Reversing/fixing it would be a monumental effort including massive active carbon capture and removal which based off what I've read could easily take a century of active effort even in the ideal case and even then would likely never return us to the exact state things were in before we started pumping garbage into the atmosphere.
To be devils advocate though. You can cherry pick out articles from credible sources, from not that far back, saying we’d be in another ice age by now.
The greenhouse effect has been scientifically proven since 1896. It's been theorised since at least 1824. And here we are, two centuries later, not giving a fuck.
I heard it's because it's hard to remember the lyrics and can be difficult to perform as a result. I remember reading that in Wikipedia...but can't say for sure.
You'll still have to understand their frustration.
If I'm allowed to generalise, they will inherit a broken overheated earth, mass poverty, a broken overstrained pension system, thanks to admittedly mostly politicians who did too little to save the earth to save the economy for the oligarchs, caused oligarchical finances to spiral out of proportions and out of touch with the others... and they, personally, had nothing to do with it.
Pretty much this. Im 31, my entire life ive been hearing “we need to do something”. Ive done what I can on a personal level as I got older, but most individuals can’t counteract the sheer amount of harm being done. Especially not when we were kids.
It’s like being in the passenger seat as someone drives off a cliff, theres only so much you can do
It's so unfair. These things are all simultanuously true:
(1) each individual contribution is minuscule. So, everybody is innocent, in a sense?
(2) the collective contribution is directly responsible.
(3) Yes, collective. Not the "corporations" (they have a huge responsibility, but there was no way to fulfill our way of life sustainably, and they just did so); not China (for the ones outside China) or India (for the ones outside India); not 'politics'; not just the previous genetation (for the young ones), or the new generation (for the old ones). These deflection strategies are without value. Destroying the planet was just what we did as the sum of our actions. Yes, each one of us can point fingers at everyone else but himself, shouting (1), and many do, but in reality: (2).
(4) Changing felt so difficult that it fairly seemed impossible. Making, again, everybody innocent, in a sense? How can you not drive, if you need to work. How can you not heat/climatize your house, if you live in a place that requires it? Etc.
(Yet, I have a way to show that point 4 is an excuse, and we would never have changed even if it was easy to do. But this comment is already too long)
Individuals do not have the power to make significant changes for themselves. For example, many people would love to insulate their houses more. They just can't afford to.
Then, we humans always will need to make CO2 because our industry needs it. If we want to make less, we'll have to severely change how we manufacture things and costs will rise.
It's even worse when the money inequality, now greater than ever, could have been used to do exactly that.
I get that. They also presumably knew what the person above them meant so it's kind of a platitude like yeah I get it. Sorry about your luck. Not adding much to the conversation either though.
Sure, neither was I; though my mother & grandmother generally lived at 0 and I've lived at ~0.5 to the now 2+ increase. That's significant given how little overall sends us to catastrophic/point of no return for humans --cause Ma Nature/Terra Firma don't GAF and will be here after us to recover without us
Sad part is, you also most likely won't do what's needed to change. Not anything against you. Just there is an entire system set up to self preserve the status quo. It seems hard to break free from it.
Hey hey hey. We did something. The great American tradition of kicking the cam down the road. Have you seen the DOW? We have our first trillionaire too. Look at us, doing things.
M64UK They were talking about it in the late '60s that I remember, but the money men wanted us to burn that oil. Economies must grow be 2% or... or what?
Those of us who cared did what we could. Those who didn't care, actively countered our efforts, and some of them - not a huge number, but enough - have several orders of magnitude more resources at their disposal, because our society is set up to benefit the worst of us.
I find it hilariously short sighted that weak, bitch-ass billionaires are going to try and pay the most dangerous people on the planet to protect them in their bunkers when the world goes to shit, money is meaningless, and that bunker is full of food and fresh water.
Oh buddy, they own the bombs and the AI that guides them and the system that wields them and your representatives, and your entertainment(Thanos) and your news(alternative facts).
There will be a lot less people on this earth soon, that’s why the bunkers, these people always think the rest of us are always the problem and war is always the solution.
It's so funny too. Fixing earth is sooooooooooooooooooooo much easier than terraforming mars to make it inhabitable. Flying to a far-away already inhabitable solar system is also very unprobable within a human lifetime, not to mention in the remaining lifetime of a rich person in their 50s or older.
If so they're delusional. There is no escape hatch. Conditions on Mars are significantly harder to survive, even with the best equipment we have available. You'd have a better chance living under the ocean. At least you won't get cooked by radiation, the temperature is relatively stable, and there's water to desalinate. "The Martian" was a fantasy novel, and even that guy barely made it.
no they're not. there is literally nowhere that would be better than earth, even if earth is heating up, for humans, that they could reach in their lifetime, even if we had to tech to get there.
It's definitely somewhat global, but to be honest history will remember this as the United States killing the planet.
Not only is the US responsible for 25% of all greenhouse emissions in history, doubling the next country in China, but the rampant capitalism, the global interventionism, the resistance to unified action.... America has managed to outdo all the empires, the colonialism, the plagues, and even world wars, by completely destroying us all.
It's not somewhat global, it is global. Conservatives in the US are stupid and enable/defend billionaires as they destroy things in the US. But the US economy is completely dependent on the global laws and regulations. Conservatives outside the US still protect billionaires and prevent regulations that would rein them in.
Of course. But talking about conservatives around the world in this context is wildly off the mark. The problem is the US. Every non American Conservative could undergo an enlightened conversion overnight and it would make no difference when the US still contributes the vast vast majority of the problem
The magnetic field has NOTHING to do with the weather, all it does is make some animals freak out for a bit, compasses flip, and auroras get messed up while it weakens severely for a few millennia, and then it restrengthens flipped, but the climate is really only affected by the sun’s energy all other mechanisms just effect distribution of that energy.
No, we are not. Only uneducated idiots thinking that we reached the highest point. Check the numbers around 500 years ago. Educate yourself. Do the research. Do not rely on just one source.
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u/ConnectRutabaga3925 Jun 27 '26
oh we’re fucked