Historical Perspectives on Climate Change
This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of...
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This intriguing volume provides a thorough examination of the historical roots of global climate change as a field of inquiry, from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Based on primary and archival sources, the book is filled with interesting perspectives on what people have understood, experienced, and feared about the climate and its changes in the past. Chapters explore climate and culture in Enlightenment thought; climate debates in early America; the development of international networks of observation; the scientific transformation of climate discourse; and early contributions to understanding terrestrial temperature changes, infrared radiation, and the carbon dioxide theory of climate. But perhaps most important, this book shows what a study of the past has to offer the interdisciplinary investigation of current environmental problems.
Introduction: Apprehending Climate Change31Climate and Culture in Enlightenment Thought112The Great Climate Debate in Colonial and Early America213Privileged Positions: The Expansion of Observing Systems334Climate Discourse Transformed455Joseph Fourier's Theory of Terrestrial Temperatures556John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, and Early Research on Carbon Dioxide and Climate657T. C. Chamberlin and the Geological Agency of the Atmosphere838The Climatic Determinism of Ellsworth Huntington959Global Warming? The Early Twentieth Century10710Global Cooling, Global Warming: Historical Dimensions129Notes139Bibliography167Index190
