Dear Tom,
“Global warming” must be a recent phrase because I don’t recall hearing it in the 1970s. When did it get started?
— Jeremy Johnson
Dear Jeremy,
Global warming as a distinct phrase has been around for 34 years; it first appeared in 1975 — and it has a Chicago connection.
Dr. Wallace Broecker, an authority on abrupt global climate change and a researcher at Columbia University in New York, is a native of Oak Park. We asked Broecker if he originated the term and his humble response was, “I guess I did, but it was inadvertent.” In 1975, worldwide temperatures had been falling for 20 years and the concern was that a new ice age was imminent. Broecker dismissed that concern and, in 1975, published a paper titled, “Climate Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” The phrase caught on.
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