The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart, Harvard University Press, $24.95/£16.95/€23.10, ISBN 0674011570 Reviewed by Fred Pearce
THE discovery of global warming was, like most things in science, a bit of a muddle. The Victorians knew about the greenhouse effect, but only in the 1970s did it slowly begin to dawn on scientists that it might matter. And only in the mid-1980s did they begin to warn of an imminent threat. As late as 1988, Greenpeace kept away from the issue because it felt the science was too uncertain. By then, it is now clear, global warming…
