1912 article about coal and climate

[underpants]

News Coverage of Coal’s Link to Global Warming, in 1912


https://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/coals-link-to-global-warming-explained-in-1912/

Various updates | Scientific analysis pointing to a human role in warming the climate through burning fossil fuels goes back to 1896, with Svante Arrhenius’s remarkable paper, “On the Influence of Carbonic Acid [Carbon Dioxide] in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground.”

Starting in the late 1930s, Guy Stewart Callendar, a British engineer and amateur meteorologist, stirred the field by calculating that rising carbon dioxide levels were already warming the climate. Check out his 1938 paper on the subject: “The Artificial Production of Carbon Dioxide and Its Influence on Temperature.”

By 1956, The New York Times was writing on combustion-driven global warming.

But when did news coverage begin?

The earliest (and most concise!) article I’ve seen was published on Aug. 14, 1912, in a couple of New Zealand newspapers, the Rodney and Otamatea Times and Waitemata and Kaipara Gazette:

[PdxSean]

1. Science and math.

Call me slow, but how can 2 billions tons of matter turn into 7 billion tons of matter? Does something released in burning coal combine with something in the air to increase the weight?

[marylandblue]

2. Oxygen combines with carbon to make carbon dioxide

[PdxSean]

3. Danke'!

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Specifically, 12 tons of carbon combine with 32 tons of O2 to form 44 tons of CO2.

All easily calculated from atomic weights. See your nearest Periodic Table.

[former9thward]

4. That's fine but it pales with natural sources of carbon dioxide.

Natural sources give off about 800 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. Human sources give off about 40 billion tons each year.

https://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/carbon-dioxide-emissions

[marylandblue]

5. Natural sources were in equilibrium with natural sinks

Humans upset the equilibrium and we are seeing the result.

[former9thward]

9. So the 800 billion tons was perfect.

And the added 5% to that threw everything off. So is the solution to eliminate humans?

[marylandblue]

12. Yes the 800 billion tons was perfect

But it was because over the long term, most of the world's CO2 ends up in the oceans. Right now we are adding CO2 to the atmosphere faster than the oceans can absorb it. The solution is to reduce CO2 emissions to the amount that the oceans can absorb. This is technically achievable, it's politics that stands in the way. The amount of land needed for solar to power all of the world's energy needs in 2030 is shown by the red outlined squares on this map

[roamer65]

13. ..and we've destroyed many of the sinks.

Deforestation, basically.

[TexasProgresive]

6. marylandblue has the right of it.

The natural sources of CO2 are part of a natural cycle. Animals exhale CO2 Green plants during daylight inhale CO2 and convert it into food and structure. When the plant dies or is eaten the carbon is released. It is the cycle of life. Some carbon that has been sequestered for eons in permafrost it being released as a result of climate change. All that carbon that is in fossil fuels was once part of the natural cycle, but I don't think we could live if all that CO2 were back in the atmosphere. Besides contributing to warming it would bind up a whole lot of oxygen.

[Takket]

7. Fake News

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Snopes notes this is true and has the Popular Mechanics article from 1912 this one was based on.

http://www.snopes.com/1912-article-global-warming/

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Thanks ! nt