A closer look
In the late 1800s, a brilliant Swedish scientist named Svante Arrhenius made a startling prediction. Using just pen, paper, and some math, he calculated that doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could heat the planet by several degrees. He thought it might take thousands of years for industry to make a dent. Instead, it took about 150. His crude estimates were astonishingly close to today’s climate models. The lesson is twofold: first, even with basic tools, human curiosity can see far ahead; second, climate change isn’t a new worry—it’s a century-old forecast playing out before our eyes. Remembering this history reveals that our challenge is not lack of knowledge, but lack of speed in acting on it.
