[0] >the effect may be considerable in a few centuries [1] >and whether there any important ways in which it [CO2] is being removed from the atmosphere [2] Ev

[0] >the effect may be considerable in a few centuries [1] >and whether there any important ways in which it [CO2] is being removed from the atmosphere [2] Even more interesting, the doomsday predictions are more than a hundred years old as well: >THERE was a letter in NATURE some time since, calling attention to the pollution of the atmosphere by the burning of coal; and it was calculated that in the year 1900, all animal life would cease, from the amount of carbonic dioxide Hindsight is 20/20. Yes, now, after decades of study and billions of dollars in measurement and modeling infrastructure, this particular theory appears to be panning out. But to pretend that we knew with any certainty 100 or even 60 years ago that this was a likely outcome drastically oversimplifies the complex and chaotic global climate system. It is effectively revisionist history and even more importantly the warming necessary to confirm such theories did not really take off until the last few decades, ignoring that 60 years ago we did not have the spatial coverage to measure it with sufficient density and precision to verify a phenomenon on the scale of global climate change. And on top of all that, we are measuring a chaotic, periodic, oscillating system, and it is impractical to draw any conclusions about differences in future trends about without at an absolute minimum decades of quality sampling. So, again, people who claim that the petroleum industry knew about climate change and irresponsibly and continued to put the future of the planet in peril in the name of profits are dramatically underestimating the scope and scale of the theory and the degree of infrastructure and analysis necessary to prove it with any certainty.