Global warming has a history far longer than the awareness of main stream thinking. A recent poll, conducted by the Dominion Institute, found that Canadians listed global warming as the biggest threat they will face in 2020. Global warming has been debated for nearly a generation but the roots of the debate go back more than 100 years.

In 1876, a Swedish chemist by the name of Svante Arrhenius advanced the theory that carbon emissions from coal would enhance the earth’s greenhouse effect, which he referred to as the ‘hot house theory.’ Arrhenius warned that emissions of carbon from fossil fuel burning would potentially have significant impact on global temperature. Arrhenius won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1903, but unfortunately his work regarding carbonic acid in the atmosphere was largely ignored. A remarkable insight of Arrhenius’ was his focus upon the Arctic as the site for the most rapid increase in temperature, as indeed has been confirmed by the observations of today.

In the 1950’s, carbon emissions were again investigated by oceanographers and biologists who concluded that deforestation would increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that the oceans were not going to be able to act as the global carbon sink as had been previously assumed. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, various theories were explored, hypothesizing about the impact of carbon dioxide. The first accurate predictions about increases in global temperature emerged. They were not far off from what Arrhenius had predicted at the turn of the century. The 1980’s were dominated by a ‘wait and see’ approach to greenhouse gases. Finally, in 1990, 49 Nobel Prize-winning scientists and 700 members of the National Academy of Scientists in the USA agreed that greenhouse gases built up from human emissions would have a significant impact on the global climate.

Time will tell if 49 voices are louder than one, or if Nobel Prize winners will again be ignored for another 100 years.

Dave Vasey is an Environmental Technologist who graduated from Durham College in 2001. Currently Dave is studying at the Faculty of Earth, Environment and Resources at the University of Manitoba.