About the time Young Bob Dylan was stepping for the first time into Greenwich Village, and Rachel Carson was working up “Silent Spring”, Isaac Asimov published an opus of explanatory science writing.
“The Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science” was on my parent’s shelf, and was formative for me as an inquisitive kid. I don’t remember reading it cover to cover, but I was constantly dipping in, and deeply impressed by the explanation of the “greenhouse effect”.
In 1988, Asimov explained that the most important scientific event of the year, was a broad recognition of climate change. He gave a good working explanation of the key mechanisms.
In one graph in the Guide, Asimov was clear sighted, warning about slowly rising seas “not far from threatening to flood the New York sub-way system.”
UPDATE: Someone reminded me of this one, from 1977 – discussing “Greenhouse Effect”.
LOL ~ I have a copy of Understanding Physics right here
I usually attribute it to watching St Helens blow but I learned how to read reading Asimov and L’Amour and had read Silent Spring by 1970. There’s a good chance I read this then
There’s a copy of Wagontrains in Space around here somewhere …
Asimov earned a PhD in Biochemistry from Columbia University in 1948, then taught for ten years at Boston University until his personal publishing workload became too great. I write this because he was an actual scientist although many people today only know him as a sci-fi author.
Here is a 1977 recording of Asimov speaking about “The Greenhouse Effect” on the weekly CBC radio program called “Quirks + Quarks”. He is being interviewed by geneticist David Suzuki:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz1g55H6XgA
I have long been haunted by the prescient if you will similarities twixt our present plight and the closing of one of the robot books, with the opening of the valves that so polluted the planet as to drive man to the stars. The context though as I recall it was so irradiated the planet yet … there are haunting similarities
Not to suggest there are Robots out there so concerned with humanity’s future to destroy a planet to save it. Ranks right in there with angels and aliens in my book: if they’re all that powerful they could do something more constructive, that they don’t is indicative they’re not out there
I don’t think you need to be Hari to see where we are …
Hackneyed, maybe, but it would be criminal if no one mentioned Frank Capra’s 1958 masterpiece “Unchained Goddess” here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCHVTQ2fLM0
And always, at the end, cries of “Show it backwards!”