How the Idea of Global Warming Began // #TBT 1

Welcome!

Every thursday, we'll be posting a #TBT (throwback Thursday) topic or event that has effected the environment in history. We won't be going through extreme detail with these posts, as we are not scientists nor experts. We'll just try to simplify it all the best we can and keep you entertained.

For our first #TBT, we'll be discussing one of the most important topics on the ennvironment, Global Warming. You may all know what global warming is, but who first coined this idea and how did everyone start learning about it? How did it become the larget concern for the environment?

In the late 1800s, Svnte Arrhenius (1859-1927), a Swedish scientist, claimed that the high amount of pollution from fossil fuel combustion was going to affect the atmosphere and eventually cause global warming. He measured the surface tempurature of the atmosphere and evenutally came to the definition of the greenhouse effect.

After Arrhenius came a few more scientists who kept track of the earth's atmospheric tempurature. The concern of global warming and greenhouse gases were forgotten for years and humans were believed they were not to blame for global warming. It was believed that global warming is caused by only natural disasters and occurances.

Not much happened after that, so let's skip ahead to the 1980s (yes... about a century later). In 1987, the Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) was published, creating a re-surge of the interest in global warming. This is also around the time the "ozone hole" was discovered. Who remembers being terrified about this mysterious hole? (I was way too young to fully understand it at the time, so I know I was terrified and thought that maybe Chicken Little was right.) The ozone is effected by horrendous chemicals, the most common being chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), formerly found in aerosols like hairspray. These chemicals, combined with others, harm the ozone later in the atmosphere, causing UV rays to be less absorbed by the ozone and therefore causes a raised atmospheric temperature. After this discovery, multiple chemicals were banned and global warming was finally considered as a political issue. Multiple conferences focused on the environment, greenhouse gasses, and new policies were held all around the globe. 

The Kyoto protocol, which first started getting organized in 1997, was placed into action in 2005. The Kyoto Protocol is an "international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), which commits its parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets," acording the the UNFCC. In 2006, Al Gore gave his famous speech on global warming... but we won't get into that in this post. There's going to be an entire blog post dedicated to talking about this guy soon! So stay tuned ;)

That pretty much wraps up how global warming became a huge issue and topic disussion in the environmental community. Please leave any comments below and let's discuss! Is there anything we missed? Anything you want to know more about? Let us know!

Sources: 
http://newsroom.unfccc.int/
http://graduateinstitute.ch/files/live/sites/iheid/files/sites/admininst/shared/doc-professors/luterbacher%20chapter%202%20102.pdf