Have the clear skies and fresh air induced by Covid-19 lockdowns helped reach a tipping point on action to alleviate the climate emergency? Now there seems to be momentum. A bunch of governments, including the US and China (the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases), have recently set ambitious targets (by previous standards) to reduce emissions.
It has taken a while to get to the point where the existential damage to the planet is being taken seriously. Scientists have been sounding the alarm since the 19th century. In the 1820s, French physicist Joseph Fourier concluded that, when returning to space, some of the energy that had reached the planet as sunlight must be trapped within the atmosphere, keeping the Earth warm in the way a glass greenhouse would...
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