This episode of Going Green explores the early understanding of climate change and the impact of human activity on the planet. The importance of sustainability and finding a balance between the environment, economy, and society is emphasized.

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Episode Extras - Photos, videos, sources and links to additional content I found during my research.

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Episode Credits:

Production by Gābl Media

Written by Dimitrius Lynch

Executive Produced by Dimitrius Lynch

Audio Engineering and Sound Design by Jeff Alvarez

Archival Audio courtesy of: Library of Congress, Anna Samsonov, MitUnsDieZukunft, Miller Center, SPACES "An Out of Context Problem"

California, the Golden State.

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The nickname the Golden State originated from California's gold rush in the mid -19th

century.

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People from all over the world flocked here in pursuit of gold.

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That population boom led to the rapid development of cities and industries.

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With ideal weather and conditions, California's economy quickly diversified beyond gold

mining.

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The fertile Central Valley, for example, became a major agricultural hub, producing

fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

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Additionally, industries such as lumber, fishing, and ranching expanded.

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In contrast to many eastern states, the vast lands of California allowed the state to

develop with much less density.

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The advent of the car coincided with this development, allowing residents to escape

congested industrial urban centers and live further away in densely populated areas.

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Post -World War II prosperity gave rise to the suburban communities and car culture that

California became known for.

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I was born and raised in Southern California and have been here ever since.

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In my short time, I've seen a remarkable evolution in my immediate environment.

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By the time I came around in the 80s, there was a vast network of highways that catered to

these ever expanding suburban developments and the cars that moved residents from one

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place to another.

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However, this sprawl came with significant environmental and social costs that I was just

not aware of as a child.

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In 1991, my dad bought his first home in one of those new developments.

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Moreno Valley was the city, about 60 miles east of Los Angeles.

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I primarily lived with my mom in Compton, California, a much more densely populated city

about 15 miles from downtown LA.

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But over the summer, my brother and I would spend a week of our summer vacation with my

dad in Moreno Valley.

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We'd splash in the pool, play video games, and watch movies all week.

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Upon returning home to Compton,

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I found that it would be a little difficult for me to breathe for a few days.

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There's an unfamiliar deep pain in my chest as I take each breath.

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Years later, I would come to understand that my lungs were reacting to being out of the

smog -filled area of Los Angeles for an extended period, then being reintroduced to it.

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You may have heard of the boiling frog allegory.

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If not, the premise is, if you suddenly place a frog in boiling water, it will jump out.

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If you place it in cool water and slowly bring the water to a boil, it won't perceive the

danger.

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In the fall of 2002, I found myself speeding down a two -lane desert highway.

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Smoke blocked out the California sun and flames lined both sides of the road, inching

closer and closer in my path.

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Little did I know, the difficulty to breathe and the raging fire were connected.

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A slow and steady change in my environment was happening.

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Moreover, there were people that accurately predicted these conditions years earlier.

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but made a conscious choice to not only decline to prevent it, but actively initiated a

coordinated scheme to keep the public from understanding the danger that we are in.

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Tornado outbreaks hitting states like Florida and Nebraska this spring.

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In Saudi Arabia, there are reports that more than a thousand people have died, pilgrims at

the annual Hajj festival killed by the stifling Natural disasters grow in frequency and

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magnitude.

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Tens of millions across the country are forced to grapple with what's becoming the new

normal.

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Intense weather around the country wreaking financial havoc.

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caught in the world's heat.

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All that heat is part of the reason scientists from Colorado State University are

forecasting an extremely active hurricane season.

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They're expecting 23 named storms, 11 of hurricanes.

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The global temperature rise underscores a chilling reality.

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Our planet is trying to tell us something.

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But we don't seem to be listening.

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In a recent survey by The Guardian, almost 80 % of the respondents, all from the

Authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, foresaw the world

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blowing past the agreed 1 .5 degrees Celsius limit for global heat increase above pre

-industrial levels.

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Not only do they believe we'll reach at least 2 .5 degrees, but on its current trajectory,

they predict we'll do so by the end of this century.

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Almost half of the respondents anticipate at least three degrees.

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Only 6 % thought the 1 .5 degree limit would be met.

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How did we get

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It's the early 1700s and the world population is estimated to be around 610 million.

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In the United Kingdom, there is a rich history of mining.

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Since the Bronze Age, non -ferrous minerals, particularly copper and tin, were mined.

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Coal and iron would soon be a significant factor in Europe's industrial revolution.

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But there was a problem.

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water constantly seeped into the mine shafts.

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The deeper you dug, the bigger the problem.

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As miners excavated and blasted their way into the earth, water surged into the shafts,

creating significant blockages, reducing productivity, and stalling work.

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Bucket after bucket, up and down, ladder after ladder, water removal was labor intensive

on top of the mining itself.

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This primitive method of water extraction was grossly inefficient for these massive

projects.

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They needed a way to automate water removal.

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Theories and models around the potential power of steam and its application to make tasks

more efficient already existed.

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But in 1712, it was British engineer Thomas Newcomen who developed the first reliable

steam engine, a groundbreaking innovation.

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While the machine was primarily for the mining industry, the technology was the key to

unlocking industrial progression.

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The invention of rotary motion not only solved the immediate issue of water removal,

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but it could also be used to drive machinery in numbers in numerous industries.

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The use of coal to raise the steam meant that the demand for coal would dramatically

increase, setting the wheels of the industrial revolution in motion.

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I'm Demetris Lynch and this is Going Green.

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The atmosphere is pretty complex.

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It's not just oxygen, but it's lots of different chemicals.

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The trouble is that if the balance gets too out of whack and we have too much carbon or

methane in the atmosphere, the sunlight comes into the earth and gets trapped.

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Science was of no country and of no sex.

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The sphere of women embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the

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where you fall in the climate discourse.

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This series is a fascinating story unlike anything you've heard before.

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This podcast will provide remarkable context into the story of our environment, but it's

more than that.

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It's a story about incredible individuals and movements and the resistance that rises in

response.

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From the transformative contribution of Thomas Newcomen's steam engine to the Industrial

Revolution to Rachel Carson's groundbreaking

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of the environmental risk of DDT and Silent Spring.

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Each episode highlights extraordinary moments and figures.

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Now, to these people, apparently the balance of nature was something that was repealed as

soon as man came on the scene.

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Well, you might just as well assume that you could repeal the law of gravity.

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I'll describe the evolution of architectural styles from modernism to postmodernism.

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considering their social and environmental context.

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We'll examine geopolitical conflicts connection to environmental and energy crises.

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such as Jimmy Carter's energy policies and Ronald Reagan's deregulation era.

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The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly.

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It's a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it's likely to

get progressively worse through the rest of this century.

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The series will also highlight efforts to harmonize with the natural world, evident in

initiatives like the U .S.

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Green Building Council and LEED certification, and so much

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Through extensive research and careful historical analysis, this wide -ranging series will

place humanity's relationship with the environment into context, explaining the influences

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of money, power, and technological advancements along the way, and shedding light on how

we arrived where we are today.

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But it all starts with the controversial question on whether humans can even influence the

climate.

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And I'll get into that after the

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Episode 1, more necessary than clothing is to man.

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Carbon, a non -metallic chemical element, has become a topic of concern in recent years.

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It occurs widely in nature, including in living things.

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Its presence as carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is of particular importance.

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Carbon dioxide can enter the atmosphere in several ways.

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Now take a deep breath in and breathe

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You just exhaled carbon dioxide.

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Like every other living thing on this planet, we are part of Earth's carbon cycle.

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Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen.

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Animals, including us humans, breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

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This is a unique and balanced relationship between animals and plant life on Earth.

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When plants and animals die, over time, their remains convert into hydrocarbon.

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an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon, or what we call fossils.

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These fossils can be extracted in the form of fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas.

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The process of burning fossil fuels is another way to introduce carbon dioxide into the

atmosphere.

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Today, we know that carbon dioxide is what's referred to as a greenhouse gas, which acts

as a blanket around Earth, trapping in heat from the sun.

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If it weren't for this effect, our planet would lose heat too quickly, freezing our

oceans.

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However, this heat is only good up to a point.

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If too much heat is trapped, the Earth can overheat.

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So balance is critical.

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Now, if you consider the Industrial Revolution, which introduced various manufacturing

processes that burned fossil fuels, along with rapid population growth, it stands to

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reason that there has been a significant increase of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere

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It would take nearly a century of research and data for the vast majority of the

scientific community to agree that human activity could alter the climate of our entire

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That journey towards understanding whether humans influence climate begins in the 19th

century when scientists began to consider our climate more deeply.

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In 1824, Jean Baptiste Joseph Ferrier, French mathematician and physicist wrote,

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The temperature of the earth can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere

because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air than in

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repassing into the air when converted into non -luminous heat.

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In other words, he posited that the earth would be much colder than it is if the incoming

radiation from the sun were the only warming effect on our

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From a mathematical perspective, he examined variations in temperature between day and

night and between summer and winter and concluded that the planet was much warmer than a

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simple analysis might suggest.

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Claude Pouillet, another French physicist, also believed that the atmosphere held onto

more of the Earth's heat than sunlight provides, writing, the atmospheric stratum

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exercises a great absorption upon the terrestrial than the solar rays.

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but it was in the 1850s where a definitive breakthrough in understanding emerged.

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In 1856, American scientist, inventor, and women's right campaigner, Eunice Foote ran a

crude experiment using an air pump, two glass cylinders, and four mercury and glass

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thermometers.

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She removed air from one cylinder and compressed it in the other cylinder.

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When both cylinders reached equal ambient temperature, they were placed in the sunlight.

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thin in the shade for comparison, and measured the temperature variances.

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Performing this experiment on air, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen, she found that the tube

filled with carbon dioxide became hotter than the others when exposed to sunlight.

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She wrote, the receiver containing this gas became itself much heated, very sensibly more

so than the other.

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And on being removed from the sun, it was many times as long and cooling.

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The experiment provided early evidence of the absorption of heat by carbon dioxide and

moist air.

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Foote published her findings in a paper called Circumstances Affecting the Heat of the

Sun's Rays.

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She also submitted her paper for the 10th Annual American Association for the Advancement

of Science, or AAAS.

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It was held on August 23rd, 1856 in Albany, New York.

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The few women who became members of AAAS

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Seldom presented their work at the conference, and Eunice didn't appear to be an

exception.

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Her paper was instead presented by Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution.

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Henry introduced Foote's paper by stating, science was of no country and of no sex.

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The sphere of women embraces not only the beautiful and the useful, but the truth, end

quote.

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However,

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In a New York Daily Tribune article about the presentation, he discounted her findings

saying, Although the experiments were interesting and valuable, there were many

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difficulties encompassing any attempt to interpret their significance.

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End quote.

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Foote's complete paper was published in the 1856 edition of the American Journal of

Science and Arts, the first known physics publication in a scientific journal by an

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American woman.

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Ultimately, it was not included in the AAAS annual publication, the formal document that

represents the cutting edge developments in science, technology, and policy discussed at

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the annual meeting.

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Foote's discovery was largely unrecognized until recently.

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Irish physicist John Tindall, on the other hand, had long taken place in the history

books.

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As far as he knew, no one had detected the absorption of heat by gases.

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In 1859, he set up a new apparatus at the Royal Institution in London to try and do so.

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On May 18th, 1859, he wrote in his journal, quote, the subject is completely in my hands,

end quote.

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Tyndall established that carbon dioxide and water vapor were among the gases that absorbed

heat and that they radiated heat, which was the physical basis of the greenhouse

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Tindall's experiment went a step further by differentiating between heat from the whole

solar spectrum.

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Using long wave infrared radiation, he measured, understood, and explained the greenhouse

effect in terms of the absorption and radiation of heat by gases, including carbon dioxide

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and water vapor in the atmosphere.

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He concludes, quote, this aqueous vapor is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life

of England than clothing is to man.

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End quote.

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Elsewhere, outside of labs and test sites, the first industrial revolution was in full

swing.

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Particularly in North America and Europe, rural agricultural communities were rapidly

transforming into industrialized urban cities.

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Mills and factories arose to nurture budding industries.

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Handcrafted goods now being produced en masse by machines.

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Iron making and distilleries all generated new opportunities and drew an influx of people

into these emerging city centers.

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The rising industries were all powered by steam, which needed more and more coal to

accommodate the demand.

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Remember, the process of burning fossil fuels such as coal introduces additional carbon

dioxide into the atmosphere.

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In Sweden, chemist Svante Arrhenius had developed an interest in fields

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as diverse as meteorology, climatology, and cosmology.

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One of the topics that especially caught his attention was the cause of the freezing that

the planet experienced in the Ice Age.

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Following Tindall's discovery, Orinius wanted to find out if the determining factor for

these climactic events could be carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.

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In 1895, Orinius began a tedious process of running complex calculations by hand.

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identifying that a 50 % reduction in atmospheric CO2 levels would result in a temperature

drop of four to five degrees Celsius.

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He outlined his findings in the 1896 April issue of the London, Edinburgh and Dublin

Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science.

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Expanding on his calculations on CO2 reduction, he states, quote, it proves that the most

important

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all the processes by means of which carbonic acid or carbon dioxide has been removed from

the atmosphere in all times.

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Namely, the chemical weathering of siliceous minerals is of the same order of magnitude as

a process of contrary effect, which is caused by the industrial development of our time

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and which must be conceived of as being of a temporary nature." End quote.

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Again, this is 1896.

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Arrhenius established the premise that the amount of carbon dioxide present in the

atmosphere not only affects the environment, but is caused by industrial

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By 1927, carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reached 1 billion tons per

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In a previous episode of Spaces titled An Out of Context Problem, I spoke with Eric Corey

Freed, architect, principal, and director of sustainability at Cannon Design.

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He explained the makeup of our atmosphere and the importance of maintaining a balance.

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The atmosphere is pretty complex.

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It's not just oxygen, but it's lots of different chemicals.

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The trouble is that if the balance gets too out of whack and we have too much carbon or

methane in the atmosphere, the sunlight comes into the earth and gets trapped.

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lot of sunlight and heat is supposed to bounce back in space where it belongs, but instead

it gets trapped and the earth starts to cook a little bit.

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And that's why global temperatures have increased everywhere.

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And that's why the polar ice caps have been melting and will continue to melt.

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The earth is warmer than it needs to be.

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And really all of nature is just trying

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find some sort of balance, some sort of equilibrium.

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And by us trapping these gases in the air and trapping this heat on the planet, we're

throwing that balance out of balance.

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He also simplified the science behind our climate and how global temperature change leads

to extreme weather events.

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Essentially, the entire planet is a giant turbine of energy, right?

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The sun heats the earth, the hot air rises, and then cold air rushes in to take its place.

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It's a giant engine.

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have things like the Gulf coast, it's all on the East coast, right?

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That goes from Florida all the way up to New England.

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And that's what generates weather.

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It's why Florida is warm and New York and New England are cooler, right?

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Those are engines, conveyor belts that go around the entire planet.

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And that's what generates weather.

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So imagine now if you have, you look at the earth as a whole system and now you're heating

that up, right?

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And then heating it up, you're melting the polar ice caps.

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So you're flooding the ocean at the tops and the bottoms with fresh water instead of sea

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That's interfering with those conveyor belts.

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It's interfering with that weather pattern.

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And now you're getting warm water and cold water in places you don't want.

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Well, that's where hurricanes come from, where you're getting hot air rising and cold air

rushing in.

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That's where tornadoes come from, where you're getting awful drought in areas that used to

be lush.

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And now they're drying out and becoming deserts.

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Well, that's where wildfires come from.

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So all of this heat is making a more unpredictable world.

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And that includes stronger storms in winter, stronger storms in summer.

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You know, we still have seasons, but you're going to get colder, cold, hotter, hot, more

extremes.

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And human beings, believe it or not, we like it in a pretty narrow range.

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We generally like it like 65 to 75.

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That's basically where we like to be.

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And these extremes are getting pushed to the side.

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So you're you're seeing record snowfalls in winter and record, you know, record heat waves

in summer.

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And it's just going to continue.

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Climate change is defined as the long term alteration in Earth's

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and weather patterns.

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Sustainability is simply an action to find ecological balance, understanding that human

well -being depends directly or indirectly on the natural environment.

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It requires long -term perspective, often foregoing shorter -term benefits and

conveniences.

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Experts often describe sustainability as having three pillars, environmental, economic,

and social.

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The environment provides the air we breathe, the water we

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and the food we eat.

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It is the fundamental basis of how our communities live and access the renewable and non

-renewable resources on which civilization depends.

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Our well -being, our economy, and our security all stem from a high -quality environment.

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That system is quite fragile, and we'll see cracks and early warning signs into how

ignoring this basic understanding is untenable next time on Going Green.

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about two o 'clock in the morning.

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The rancher was there with his shotgun.

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Then, hold it, boys.

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My mother said, stand back, boys.

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Jim would kill a kid, but he wouldn't dare shoot a woman.

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Thanks for listening.

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Going Green is a Spaces podcast story brought to you by Lines.

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If you learned something from this episode or think it would resonate with the print,

please share it and rate and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

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It really helps others find the show.

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If you have a question, want to submit a correction, or just share whatever is on your

mind, I'd love to hear from you.

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You can do that at lines .studio slash podcast.

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That's L -Y.

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nes .studio .com and listen in to my wrap up episode to hear my response.

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If you're looking for similar content, Spaces is a proud member of GableMedia, a digital

media platform where you can find even more content like this.

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Visit gablemedia .com, that's G -A -B -L media .com, and before I go, if you want to see

additional photos, videos, clips, and other content that I found during my research,

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you can visit lions .studio slash podcasts.

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Talk