Effects of Global Warming
starting in the 1960s, scientists recognized long-range problems, concentrating at first on sea-level rise and a threat to food supplies. New items were gradually added to the list, ranging from the degradation of ecosystems to threats to human health. Experts in fields from forestry to economics, even national security experts, pitched in to assess the range of possible consequences. It was impossible to make solid predictions given the complexity of the global system, the differences from one region to another, and the ways human society itself might try to adapt to the changes. But by the start of the 21st century, it was clear that climate change would bring serious harm to many regions — some more than others. Indeed many kinds of damage were already beginning to appear. (This essay does not try to cover the entire history of impact studies, but sketches some examples. Current scientific understanding of impacts is summarized at the end). Through the first half of the 20th century, when global warming from the greenhouse effect was only a speculation, the handful of scientists who thought about it supposed any warming would be for the good. Svante Arrhenius, who published the first calculations, claimed that nations like his native Sweden "may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates."(1) Most people assumed that a "balance of nature" made catastrophic consequences impossible, and if any change did result from the "progress" of human industry, it would be all to the good. In any case nobody worried about the impacts of a climate change that scientists expected would only affect their remote descendents, several centuries in the future, if it happened at all. | - LINKS - for more on this see
<=Public opinion | A few scientists took a closer look in the late 1950s when they realized that the level of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere might be rising, suggesting that the average global temperature might climb a few degrees Celsius
<=Public opinion | A few scientists took a closer look in the late 1950s when they realized that the level of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) in the atmosphere might be rising, suggesting that the average global temperature might climb a few degrees Celsius