[meteorite-list] Newspaper Article, 01-06-1883 The Atmosphere

From: Rob Wesel <Nakhladog_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:07:01 2004
Message-ID: <006201c27347$c64d9280$4e9fe70c_at_GOLIATH>

Well, a bit of a Doomsday Prophecy there but a great read and some
surprisingly correct assumptions. Perhaps the earliest speculation on global
warming, acid rain, population growth, overconsumption, and the dangers of
cigarette smoke. I do believe some of what is said here has great likelihood
and some of it has already come to pass. Glad we made it past 1913!

--
Rob Wesel
------------------
We are the music makers...and we are the dreamers of the dreams.
Willy Wonka, 1971
----- Original Message -----
From: MARK BOSTICK
To: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Sunday, October 13, 2002 7:10 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Newspaper Article, 01-06-1883 The Atmosphere
New York Times
New York, NY
Saturday January 6, 1883
Page: 4
THE ATMOSPHERE
It has been supposed that we had a right to congratulate ourselves and feel
comparatively safe on learning that the comet which was to smash us has
postponed that operation for nearly 200,000 years. The safety of the earth
from assault and battery by a comet is, however, of little consequence,
provided mankind is to perish before that disaster takes place. That we are
so to perish has been clearly shown by a writer in Nature, who has
demonstrated that we shall all be poisoned and suffocated in the year 1900.
Every one must perceive that the growth of civilization and the increase of
the number of civilized human beings is intimately connected with smoke. The
first point of difference between the beast and the man is that the latter
can build a fire. He does build many fires, and the more civilized he
becomes the more fires he builds. Now, the process of combustion develops a
variety of noxious gases, among which may be particularly mentioned carbonic
dioxide, a gas that is produced in large quantities by the combustion of
coal. Just in proportion as man becomes civilized he burns coal, and we
might define a civilized man as a coal-burning animal, while the savage man
is only a wood-burning animal. The increase every year in the number of tons
of coal that are burned on land and sea is something enormous. Every new
manufacturing enterprice, every new commercial enterprise, and every new
house that is built involves an increased consumption of coal. MALTHUS used
to say that while mankind increased in geometrical ratio, the food on which
he lives increases only in an arithmetical, and hence will in time be
insufficient for him. Were MALTHUS alive now he would take great pleasure in
asserting that the combustion of coal increases twice rapidly as the human
race, and that there is every reason to believe that the rate of combustion
will before very long be still greater than it now is. When we reflect that
all the gases given off by burning coal enter and contaminate the
atmosphere, and that the latter is a constant quanitity while the former is
steadily increasing, we gain an idea of the danger which threatens us.
It must also be remembered that as the population of the globe increases the
amount of carbonic acid gas given off by the lungs of human beings is
increasing. The population of the civilized world has at least doubled
within historic times, while the population of savage regions has probably
not decreased. The time must come, provided man lives long enough, when the
atmosphere will everywhere be as unwholesome as the air of a crowded
American railroad car in Winter. We shall poison the air so that we cannot
breathe it, and the tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta will be enacted
all over the world.
Another source of the pollution of the atmosphere is the cigarette. A few
years ago it was not smoked except by a few men of the Latin races; now it
is smoked all over the world, and in constantly and enormously increasing
quantities. The cigarette gives forth an immense volume of smoke in
comparison with its size, and the deleterious gases existing in this smoke
are scattered through the atmosphere to the destruction of animal and
vegetable health.
Any one familiar with the statistics as to the amount of coal and tobacco
annually burned and the quantity of carbonic acid gas annually set free by
the lungs of human beings can readily calculate the exact quantity of
deleterious gases that pass into the atmosphere. Of this entire quantity a
certain proportion is washed out of the air by rains. This is, however, a
fixed quantity, while the quanitity of gases that pass into the atmosphere
is a growing quantity. The annual rain-fall is very nearly invariable, and,
of course, can only do a certain amount of work in cleaning the atmosphere,
and the time will come when this cleansing effect will be so slight in
comparison with the noxious elements present in the atmosphere that it will
hardly be worth noticing. The writer who has partially discussed this
subject in the columns of Nature has fixed upon 1900 as the date with the
earth's atmosphere will become entirely irrespirable This is probably a
misprint, for unless the consumption of cigarettes increases with
unlooked-for rapidity the atmosphere ought to continue to be respirable
until 1910, or even 1913.
At the latter date all mankind will have perished, and nothing except the
hardier plants will be living on the surface of the earth. This will enable
us to view with some little equanimity another consequence of the pollution
of the atmosphere which the writer of Nature forgot to mention. Immense
quantities of hydrogen are daily set loose by the combustion of coal and
other substances, and the rains have no effect in cleaning the atmosphere of
this particular gas. Now, hydrogen gas has a wonderful capacity for
absorbing and radiating heat. Hence, when the atmosphere becomes loaded with
hydrogen our climate will be greatly affected. The arctic regions will
become far colder than they ever have been, and the torrid regions will
become so hot as to be almost uninhabitable. A little further increase in
the quanitity of hydrogen in the atmosphere will render it explosove, And
the first meteorite which enters the atmosphere will cause an explosion that
will leave the earth scorched, blackened, and airless.
It is thus seen that after all it is of very little consequence whether the
comet hits us in the 1900 or misses us again. We shall be choked with
noxious gases and afterward blown up with hydrogen long before that date.
Such is the pleasant prospect which science offers us, and who is there that
will not love and reverence science more than ever for her wonderful
prophetic powers?

Received on Mon 14 Oct 2002 02:06:01 AM PDT