The Shrine

I was actually a little surprised to discover this article, I haven't read the whole thing yet, but it discusses the density of atmopsphere, and its ability to absorb heat as a premise for the conclusion of the potential raising of atmospheric temperature if carbon levels increase.

It wasn't until the late 1980's that most people became aware of climate change. The earlier focuses in environmentalism were in ecology, oxygen production of the rain forest, and pollutants destroying natural environments. Then we had major heatwaves in 1988 which worsened in 1989, and people wondered what was going on... These were staved off in the early 90's by some volcanic eruptions in Alaska, which caused unseasonably longer winters in certain regions. All the same, global warming/climate change was on the map.

But scientists were aware of the potential a long time before that. Here is the article by Swedish Nobel Prize winning chemist Svante Arrhenius:

http://rsclive3.rsc.org/images/Arrheniu ... 173546.pdf

We have affected the climate for a very, very long time. We are part of it; as fully part of the Earth as the water we drink and the trees we cut down - and deforestation and desertification, cutting all the trees down for shelter and vanity, and drinking the wells dry without respecting the rivers and oceans, are the two biggest drivers of climate change other than our greenhouse gases and urban heat islands.

There are also things that affect it that are not us; it's hard to think of what humanity could have done to cause the Little Ice Age of the Tudor period; and if the sun flares greatly we will warm no matter what we do.

At its base, environmentalism means taking care of the space you live in and understanding its relationship to the area around it. It is a fundamental human survival skill and forgetting it is the cause of the death of empires - the Mayans and certain Southeast Asian ancient cultures in particular. These cultures grew vast for hundreds of years; then vanished after evidence of systematic droughts or floods.

And it can happen to us more easily than people think. This was New York in 2011, after all: