The Futurist

Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, hypothesized that clearing forest cover could contribute to planetary warming by exposing bare earth to sunlight. In an 1847 speech, politician George Perkins Marsh—a Whig Party member, no less—was one of the first in the United States to call attention to humans’ impact on the environment. “It is certain,” he said, “that climate itself has in many instances been gradually changed and ameliorated or deteriorated by human action.” In 1881, American journalist Charles Dana Wilber coined the phrase “rain follows the plow,” plainly articulating the theory, widely accepted among scientists and settlers alike, that taming the Western United States and converting arid regions to farmland could increase rainfall. In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius became the first person to link fossil fuel combustion with global warming. His predictions…