As the first puffs of fossil-fueled exhaust began rising through the atmosphere, Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish physicist, and a chemist was busy estimating the net impact on global temperature from a tripling of CO2. He didn’t have access to general circulation models or even an electronic calculator, but he still came up with a plausible estimate of a rise in global temperature of 8–9ยบ C.
It’s not clear if anyone took him seriously then or even showed any concern. But since that time, climate scientists with increasingly more sophisticated tools have been estimating not only climate change impacts on global temperature but also regional impacts on extreme weather, wildlife, natural habitats, and even the economy.
Despite the long history of scientific studies and concerning results, governments, urban planners, and others have been taking note of climate change only in the last two to three decades. And industries, including the insurance industry, have largely been showing greater concern only in the last several years.
A likely few reasons for the delayed industrial response include a lack of confidence in the studies, the gradual nature of climate change, and no real evidence of extreme weather that could be attributed to climate change.
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