General Electric did a series in 1957-1959 called "Excursions in
Science". Program nr. 646 was titled "Climate and Industrial Activity".
In it the effect of industrial activity on the climate was discussed.
Below a few quotes reported from a discussion with Gilbert Plass..
"The climate has slowly been warming up during the 20th century over almost the entire earths surface."
"The average rate of rise over the entire earths surface is 2 degrees per century."
A general explanation can be found in the theory of John Tyndall, Carbon Dioxide being responsible..
"Do man’s puny efforts make any significant change in the carbon
dioxide balance? Very significant, the burning of coal, oil and wood in
industrial processes and other human activity is releasing 6 billion
tons of carbon dioxide int the athmosphere each year. Dr. Plass says
that after balancing out the contribution from the organinc world, this
man made contribution is larger than any of the natural contributions.
If all this extra carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere, and no other
conditions change, man is actually causing the average temperatures to
rise 2 degrees per century."
Plass mainteined that industry caused a carbon dioxide increase of 10% in the twentieth centry, which matches the temperature rise perfectly.
Well, if we had listened to Gilbert Plass in 1957, or Regan had not suppressed the results of the Jason’s report in 1979 we would probably not see this trend now…
