CH 1 RUSKIN'S DISCOVERY OF  CLIMATE CHANGE FROM 1869 ONWARDS 

                                         MUNCH THE SCREAM


Ruskin’s lectures entitled The Stormcloud of the 19th Century, delivered in 1884, on climate change, have attracted some attention in the last few years, with the warming of the climate much in the news. Ruskin was called mad at the time he delivered these lectures.
Times have changed
He does not seem as mad as all that now, since climate warming became a public issue in 1988, according to Lovelock. Yet one is somewhat disappointed when one reads the text. What Ruskin describes and discusses implies a cooling of the climate rather than a warming, which is what is causing so much concern at present, The first of these texts dates from 1871. In july of that year , Ruskin wrote in Fors 8, § 1, (27.134), "…It is the first of July, and I sit down to write by the dismallest light that ever yet I wrote by; namely, the light of this midsummer morning, in mid-England (Matlock, Derbyshire), in the year 1871. For the sky is covered with grey cloud;—not rain-cloud, but a dry black veil, which no ray of sunshine can jpierce; partly diffused in must, feeble mist, enough to make distant objects unintelligible, yet without any substance, or wreathing, or colour of its own.2 And everywhere the leaves of the trees are shaking fitfully, as they do before a thunderstorm; only not violently, but enough to show the passing to and fro of a strange, bitter, blighting wind. Dismal enough, had it been the first morning of its kind that summer had sent. But during all this spring, in London, and at Oxford, through meagre March, through changelessly sullen April, through despondent May, and darkened June, morning after morning has come grey-shrouded thus. And it is a new thing to me, and a very dreadful one. I am fifty years old, and more; and since I was five, have gleaned the best hours of my life in the sun of spring and summer mornings; and I never saw such as these, till now. And the scientific men are busy as ants, examining the sun, and the moon, and the seven stars, and can tell me all about them, I believe, by this time; and how they move, and what they are made of. And I do not care, for my part, two copper spangles how they move, nor what they are made of. I can’t move them any other way than they go, nor make them of anything else, better than they are made. But I would care much and give much, if I could be told where this bitter wind comes from, and what it is made of. For, perhaps, with forethought, and fine laboratory science, one might make it of something else.’ " (Refer to this passage later on : man must get involved to modify level of CO2) He goes on to suggest that this new cloud may be made of the "poisonous smoke… from the at least two hundred furnace chimneys in a square of two miles on every side" of him. In the course of the first lecture he goes on to give the main carateristics of the new cloud, which he calls plague cloud. Its main carateristics is that it blanches the sun, "Blanched Sun,--blighted grass,--blinded man.- …Month by month the darkness gains upon the day, and the Ashes of the Antipodes glare through the night." Quote text on Glaciers ?

But Ruskin also wrote elswhere texts that implied climate warming, for instance in the Preface to the Queen of the Air, 1869

This first day of May, 1869, I am writing where my work was begun thirty-five years ago, within sight of the snows of the higher Alps.2 In that half of the permitted life of man, I have seen strange evil brought upon every scene that I best loved, or tried to make beloved by others.3 The light which once flushed those pale summits with its rose at dawn, and purple at sunset, is now umbered and faint; the air which once inlaid the clefts of all their golden crags with azure is now defiled with languid coils of smoke, belched from worse than volcanic fires; their very glacier waves are ebbing, and their snows fading,4 as if Hell had breathed on them; the waters that once sank at their feet into crystalline rest are now dimmed and foul, from deep to deep, and shore to shore. These are no careless words—they are accurately—horribly—true. I know what the Swiss lakes were; no pool of Alpine fountain at its source was clearer. This morning, on the Lake of Geneva, at half a mile from the beach, I could scarcely see my oar-blade a fathom deep.

lThe light, the air, the waters, all defiled! How of the earth itself?

He pursued thus theme in Fors 34

Fors, Letter 34, La Douce Dame, of oct 1873, §11, (LE27.635)

More than the life of Switzerland,—its very snows,—eternal, as one foolishly called them,—are passing away,2 as if in omen of evil. One-third, at least, in the depth of all the ice of the Alps has been lost in the last twenty years; and the change of climate thus indicated is without any parallel in authentic history. In its bearings on the water supply and atmospheric conditions of central Europe, it is the most important phenomenon, by far, of all that offer themselves to the study of living men of science:

(Add : Tyndall gives no explanation of the change that he also notices )

There is a contradiction here, between the texts implying a cooling of the climate and those implying a warming of the climate

 There seems to be contradiction here, between the texts implying a cooling of the climate and those implying a warming of the climate Yet the scientific research that culminated in the 1950’s and the 1960’s was to show that both tendencies occurred, at times simultaneously, the one or the other predominating at different times. It wasdemon The global climate has been in fact been warming since the middle of the 20th century, and it is expected to continue doing so Quote from Gore Warmest years in past decade Melting glaciers world wide Arctic Antarctic Yet if one goes over the scientific study that has been made of climate evolution over the last century one discovers that Ruskin not so mistaken as it may seem far wrong. An excellent place to starts is Stanley Weart’s The Discovery of Global Warming. Most of the facts reported here are taken from that work. One discovers that Climate cooling has played a very important in recent climate evolution , at one time becoming predominant in the 1940’s and 1950’s worldwide……. In the thirties metrorologists were able to demonstrate that the popular feelinf that threr had been a warming since the end of the 19th century was correct felt there was a warming …? Callendar Advanced as an explanation the greenhouse theory that had been elboaretd during the 19the cenruy bu …..theory of the hreenhouse effect But there were many objections to the theory Moreover neithjre calle,dar or anypone else was worried about the rpsopect they saw it has only grduamy increasing iver several centuries and bringing benefits But he was Then in 1961….the meteorologist J Murray Mitchell gives a conference announcing a cooling, p. 68 Could not explain why ‘None of the available theories of climate change seemed to be able to explain the cooling, and Mitchell could only conclude that it was "a curious enigma’ He agreed that there had been a warming up to 1940 Could not explain the reason at It was discovered gradually that it came from several forms of aerosols It was brought about by different forms of the phenomena which caused Ruskin to fear that there was a climate cooling : aerosols from industrial smoke. For there are different types of aerosols. From jet lag From forest bush fires lit by farmes to clear land in Bresil India and … In the 70’s the global temperature started rise again and continues to this day The last Ipec report conclude that we can no longer hope that the cooling trend will oeutrlaise the warming trend The scientific research which Ruskin had called for in 1871 determined the cause : it was largy due to human ativity and the burning of f=odssiel fuels So Ruskin was right NOthing to do with nuclear Two attitudes to this situation Today two schools of thought Developpemnt durable (for some a contraeiction oin terms ) Decoisssiance : a livivbla decroisasnce not a violent one Ruskin first version of Décroissance Even if stilised will Will continuefor another thousand years Other scenarios possible methane is released, becomes like venus (See Reeves CD) IN RESERVE (Al Gore calling it the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced or faces at present ? ) REPLACE According to Kenneth Clark, writing in 1964, RESERVE REPLACE OR REJET In The Revenge of Gaia, 2007, Lovelock writes that ‘global warming was lightly discussed by several authors in the mid twentieth century…..but the subject did not go public until about 1988.’ Yet sometime before, in 1873, Ruskin called for urgent research on what appeared to be the warming on the climate in Switzerland He wrote, in Fors, Letter 34, La Douce Dame, of oct 1873, §11, (LE27.635) More than the life of Switzerland,—its very snows,—eternal, as one foolishly called them,—are passing away,2 as if in omen of evil. One-third, at least, in the depth of all the ice of the Alps has been lost in the last twenty years; and the change of climate thus indicated is without any parallel in authentic history. In its bearings on the water supply and atmospheric conditions of central Europe, it is the most important phenomenon, by far, of all that offer themselves to the study of living men of science: This fell on deaf ears One of the reasons for this may be that others of Ruskin’s statements, made earlier or at the same time, were in contradiction with this text, which seemed to imply rather a cooling of the climate. earlier texts ….? text and an earlier text, the preface to Queen of the Air, where .... These statements were collected together in his famous Stormcloud lectures of 1884. and they seemed to imply rather a cooling of the climate.