55 Years Ago: Mariner 2 First to Venus: “In 1962, Mariner 2 completed the first successful close-up observations of another planet when it flew by Venus… Since it orbited closer to the Sun, most scientists assumed Venus was the warmer of the two, and some believed its climate was similar to Earth’s tropics. A young scientist named Carl Sagan, however, proposed that the known high concentration of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere created a runaway greenhouse effect, leading to extremely high temperatures at the surface.”
For fuck’s sake, Carl Sagan warned of global warming in Cosmos in 1980! And, he never stopped ringing the alarm.
The first scientific paper written about this was published in the 1800s. End of, but still written in the 19th century.
55 Years Ago: Mariner 2 First to Venus: “In 1962, Mariner 2 completed the first successful close-up observations of another planet when it flew by Venus… Since it orbited closer to the Sun, most scientists assumed Venus was the warmer of the two, and some believed its climate was similar to Earth’s tropics. A young scientist named Carl Sagan, however, proposed that the known high concentration of carbon dioxide in Venus’ atmosphere created a runaway greenhouse effect, leading to extremely high temperatures at the surface.”
Read “Losing Earth” by Nathaniel Rich. We came close to acting in the late 70s. But we didn’t.