Introduction: Apprehending climate change
1: Climate and culture in Enlightenment thought
2: The great climate debate in colonial and early America
3: Privilieged positions: The expansion of observing systems
4: Climate discourse transformed
5: Joseph Fourier's theory of terrestrial temperatures
6: John Tyndall, Svante Arrhenius, and early research on carbon
dioxide and climate
7: T.C. Chamberlin and the geological agency of the atmosphere
8: The climate determinism of Ellsworth Huntington
9: Global Warming? The early twentieth century
10: Global cooling, global warming: Historical dimensions
Notes
Bibliography
Index
"A lucid, well-written, and skillfully presented work; the
bibliography is bountiful and sources of information are
well-documented. . . . [for] General readers; faculty."--Choice
"The debate over global warming is far from new; in fact, science
historian James Fleming has just published a scholarly treatise on
the historical debate over global warming entitled Historical
Perspectives on Climate Change. I would highly recommend this
interesting book for an accurate account of who did what first and
who proposed which hypotheses. These things have been muddled in
recent literature because very few researchers have taken the
time
to go back to the original resources."--Warren Washington in the
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
"I have read the book with great interest. It is a clear and
scholarly exposition of a topic which is not well understood. The
book places the current debates over global warming and other fears
about climate change in their historical context." --Marc
Rothenberg, Smithsonian Institution
"Fleming has studied the history of science and of weather, and in
his book, 'Historical Perspectives on Climate Change,' published in
September by Oxford University Press, he discusses the human
understanding and response to the Earth's changing climate. 'Our
understanding of climate dynamically changes as fast or faster than
the climate itself,' he said. The book looks at weather in America
beginning in 1720 and ending in 1988, the start of what he calls
the
'new era of global warming,' and discusses humans' reaction to the
climate around them. During the colonial period, for instance, the
Europeans who came to America viewed this as a cold continent.
They
believed that cutting trees and clearing swamps would warm it up.
Nineteenth-century climatologists claimed this view of the Earth's
climate was wrong, and the discovery that there had been Ice Ages
in the planet's past fueled a move toward a global view of
temperature and climate."--Ellsworth American
"While other recent books on climate change have focused on current
theory and potential impact, Fleming has studied and written on the
history of the concepts--how we got here and what we might learn
from the past. This well-documented book starts with reflections of
learned men on climate and culture during the age of enlightenment
and speculations on climate impact of American colonization. The
following chapters are on important scientists: Fourier,
Tyndall, Arrhenius, Chamberlin, and (a maverick) Huntington, who
provided a foundation for studies of climate change and effects of
carbon dioxide. The last two chapters bring the reader up to the
middle of
the twentieth century as global temperature trends (most up, some
down) sought explanation and carbon dioxide became implicated. A
wide variety of atmospheric scientists and those curious about
global climate change will find this of interest."--Bulletin of the
American Meteorological Society
"A lucid, well-written, and skillfully presented work; the
bibliography is bountiful and sources of information are
well-documented. . . . General readers; faculty."--Choice
"A series of interrelated essays on elite and popular understanding
of climate and climate change offers historical perspectives dating
from the period of Enlightenment to the late 20th
century."--Environmental Science & Technology
"This little book is delightful for several reasons, particularly
for those who wish to understand the current debate about climate
change and global warming--and who doesn't? Also, it evokes the
ghosts of so many characters of the past whose names are only
vaguely familiar but who influenced the thinking of their times,
such as Ferrel, Maury, Montesquieu, Langley, Humbolt, and
Arbuthnot. Finally, it is well written and clear and represents an
extremely
well-researched study by a competent historian"--William W. Kellogg
in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
"In a series of imaginative interrelated essays, [James Rodger
Fleming] describes and examines historical perspectives on climate
and climate change from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth
century. Fleming's aim is not merely to record authoritative
positions about climate and climate change, but also to trace their
origins and development, in order to shed light on contemporary
perspectives on climate. . . . Fleming's history of the genealogy
of ideas
about climate change shows decisively that intellectual shifts are
not . . . necessarily as clear-cut, revolutionary or
straightforward as many believe--are not the sole result of
internal cognitive
developments. Rather, they resonate with and respond to social and
cultural factors . . . [F]amiliarity with past ideas can be
instrumental in the construction of new knowledge, rather than an
obstacle to scientific discovery . . . I am convinced that
Fleming's book will serve this task in climate science rather
well."--Earth Sciences History
"[T]races the thinking on climate and climate change beginning with
the mid-eighteenth century . . . and ending in the mid-twentieth
century . . . European thinking on climate remained fairly stagnant
from the Greek Classical Age to the European Age of Discovery.
Early observations . . . led to the theory that climate was solely
a function of latitude . . . The theory was dealt an injurious blow
when the climate[s] of the American colonies at equivalent
latitudes were found to be much colder than their European
counterparts. . . . The final chapter brings the debate to the
present as it . . . switches from concerns over global cooling . .
. to global warming
. . . [W]ill appeal to readers at all levels of knowledge who seek
the historical roots of the current climate debate. Fleming's style
is clear with minimal technical jargon. The essays read smoothly.
No matter which side of the climate debate you favour, this book
will help you understand the past."--The Weather Doctor
"This remarkable book documents the history of ideas concerning
climate change since the 17th century. The 10 chapters are arranged
in historical sequence. The first two chapters describe the rise of
climatic determinism . . . Chapters 3 and 4 describe the
development of instruments for measuring temperature and pressure .
. . Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to history of the greenhouse
concept . . . Chapter 7 discusses T. C. Chamberlain's application
of ideas of
climate change to the geological record. Chapter 8 describes the
revival of climatic determinism by Ellsworth Huntington . . .
Chapters 9 and 10 are devoted to the changing ideas concerning
global
warming during this century . . . This book is a must for anyone
who teaches about climate change and the possibility of human
influence on climate. It provides a sobering historical
perspective. It deserves to be read and reread, especially before
discussing our changing ideas about climate change with students
and colleagues."--GSA Today
"Fleming is an historian at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He
has used a sabbatical year to sift the sediments of history for
nuggets of insight into how our ancestors allowed their
observations of weather and climate to affect their lives. He
covers the period from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth
century. . . . He observes the coupling of climate and culture . .
. through the writings of the French Academician Abbé Jean-Baptiste
DuBos and
Charles Louis de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu. . . . Fleming
continues through a score of contributors including Fourier, Svante
Arrhenius, Callendar, Suess and Revelle. . . . I enjoyed and
appreciated this
wide-ranging book that rings true in the main as history to one who
has been more than casually engaged in the topic for over four
decades. I found myself puzzling over his science on occasion, but
willing to accept puzzlement for the details of history he has
assembled here. A good job."--The Quarterly Review of Biology
"This is a book that should be read by everyone engaged in this
endeavor, from the student intent on mastering any of the
climatically-related disciplines involved, to senior researchers
who are concerned with the wider and social and cultural context of
their work." - John Tyrrel, Royal Meteorological Society
"Few historical studies are as timely as James Fleming's
comprehensive exploration of attempts to detect, explain, predict,
and warn of salient trends in atmospheric temperature. In examining
popular and elite perspectives on climate change, Fleming provides
a historical context for the global warming controversy and offers
insight on how scientific institutions and individual investigators
cope with uncertainty . . . [His] accessible prose and
well-documented
research make this delightfully engaging volume informative and
insightful. Tables provide concise summaries of the emergence and
diversity of atmospheric theories, and facsimiles of carefully
selected
maps, graphs, and cartoons illustrate the variety of visual
propaganda focused on climate change. Especially interesting to
historians of science is Fleming's comprehensive examination of the
varied succession of privileged viewpoints and the profound
influence of new data and innovative measurement techniques on
accepted wisdom."--Isis
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