Climate change did not just pop up out of nowhere to become such a global phenomenon. It has been around for some time now. The history of climate change has continually been with us for as long as man can remember. But it started cropping up in the theories of scientists in the year 1896 when a Swedish scientist brought up the idea that the burning of fossil fuels was gradually adding to the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere and this will in turn lead to a raise in the average temperature of the Earth. However, other scientist found technical reasons to reject such claims by the Swedish scientist. They claimed that it was not possible for the activities of man to cause any notable havoc on such a big thing as the environment. Greenhouse effect was by then just a mere speculative part of the changes that were being experienced.
History of Climate Change
In the year 1930, it became evidently clear that certain places like the United States of America and the North Atlantic Region had really grown warm during the last 50 years. This was also thought of as just another fleeting moment in the Earth’s cycle. However, one scientist by name G.S. Callender kept on advocating that global warming was really about to hit the Earth. The continued publications of this scientist led to the government financially supporting a group of renowned scientist to conduct a careful study into the changing climates and all things that were related to global warming. After the conducting of the research, it was found out that the carbon dioxide gas was really building up in the atmosphere and after very strenuous calculations in the year 1960; they also realized that the trend of carbon dioxide really showed that it was increasing gradually with the passing of each year.
This continued through the years and in the year 1970; a lot of scientist had joined the bandwagon in preaching the word about the effects of greenhouse gases on the environment. This became worse when in the year 1988 very hot summer conditions were experienced. It led to the prediction that temperature conditions were likely to become very warm by the year 2000. Further studies brought about another problem and that had to do with other dangerous gases also building up in the atmosphere which could destroy the ozone layer.
Though such awareness was being created, those who were in line to lose huge sums of money due to their involvement in works that were seen to be the major causes of global warming did everything they could to discredit the researches that had been carried out by the renowned scientist. They even went on as far as lobbying with some people in high places and also creating fun of the work of the researchers. They said that there was nothing like global warming and that it was all just something being propagated by some unscrupulous individuals so as to gain attention and money. These activities of those people were not able to discourage the scientist who continued generating global awareness on the issue of climate change. They kept on with the publications and studies into what could be done about the situation and up to date they are still working diligently to find lasting solutions to the problem of global warming.
Global Cooling
During those years that the research was being carried out in relation to the global average temperature rising to dangerous points, others also came out with the idea that due to various activities of man, that have led to the building up of very harmful gases in the atmosphere, a time was coming that the whole surface of the Earth will be covered with snow. They believed that the gases were going to form a very thick layer in the atmosphere and that layer will prevent heat from the sun from penetrating through to touch the Earth in order to make it warm. This led to the coining of the term global cooling. Global cooling therefore refers to the cooling of the surface of the Earth and its atmosphere leading to the turning of most parts of the world into glaciers. This theory was however not given much attention by the majority of scientists. However, during the period between the 1940s to the 1970s, there were some downward trend in the temperature of the world and this led to the term becoming very popular.
It was believed that the combustion of fossil fuels increases the aerosols in the atmosphere and these aerosols had the ability to cool the temperature of the Earth through the reduction of sunlight that gets to the Earth. Global cooling was thought to rather affect the Earth but it has been realized that global warming is the most likeliest to happen.