Long before blogs, inconvenient documentaries and climate scientists urging political leaders to place a price on carbon, astronomer and science populist Carl Sagan was sounding the alarm about global warming.
In the early 60s, Sagan did some back of the envelope calculations that showed that our neighbour Venus was subject to a runaway greenhouse effect. It led to a lifelong interest in the greenhouse effect on Earth. In 1990, Saturday Night Live spoofed his Earthly obsession in the "Carl Sagan Global Warming Christmas Special" (here's the transcript, the video may not cooperate).
Notice the confusion between ozone depletion and global warming. Oh, we've come so far.
Thanks to Jaymie Matthews of UBC for mentioning this in a recent talk.
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ReplyDeleteIt is a complicated chemical stew of change up there ... the history of science is almost as interesting as the science. That's a good point.
ReplyDeleteIs a global phenomenon that is difficult to follow maybe this is the cause of confusion between ozone depletion and global warming.
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