Different Worlds
November 30, 2009
– Comments (22)
David in Qatar and I definitely live in different worlds.
from the website of Spencer Weart, 'The Discovery of Global Warming'.
It is an epic story: the struggle of thousands of men and women over the course of a century for very high stakes. For some, the work required actual physical courage, a risk to life and limb in icy wastes or on the high seas. The rest needed more subtle forms of courage. They gambled decades of arduous effort on the chance of a useful discovery, and staked their reputations on what they claimed to have found. Even as they stretched their minds to the limit on intellectual problems that often proved insoluble, their attention was diverted into grueling administrative struggles to win minimal support for the great work. A few took the battle into the public arena, often getting more blame than praise; most labored to the end of their lives in obscurity. In the end they did win their goal, which was simply knowledge.
The scientists who labored to understand the Earth's climate discovered that many factors influence it. Everything from volcanoes to factories shape our winds and rains. The scientific research itself was shaped by many influences, from popular misconceptions to government funding, all happening at once. A traditional history would try to squeeze the story into a linear text, one event following another like beads on a string. Inevitably some parts are left out. Yet for this sort of subject we need total history, including all the players — mathematicians and biologists, lab technicians and government bureaucrats, industrialists and politicians, newspaper reporters and the ordinary citizen. This Web site is an experiment in a new way to tell a historical story. Think of the site as an object like a sculpture or a building. You walk around, looking from this angle and that. In your head you are putting together a rounded representation, even if you don't take the time to inspect every cranny. That is the way we usually learn about anything complex.
He also provides a timeline of events directly and some indirectly related to the study of Climate Change.
Hardcore global warming deniers might find that the plot to discuss, disprove, and account for climate information began in 1824 with the discovery that the earth with be much colder without an atmosphere.
Skeptics and the concerned might find this a useful history to help understand the evolution of our understanding of the climate.
Believers might find this to be confirmation of what they understand to be correct.
David in Qatar will see it as part of the Gov't plot to control our lives, kill our Grannies, and take our property.
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