It is easy to assume that climate change is a recent problem. You might think, as almost everyone does, that only in the last 40 or 50 years has human activity begun to harm the planet's health, and that before that nobody worried about it. However, in a heated debate between Thomas Jefferson, considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, and Noah Webster, an American editor, journalist and writer, they discussed the apparent changes that intensive agriculture and other activities produced in the climate. More than two centuries later, we are still arguing about the same problems.
A Modern Problem?
There are problems that seem typically modern, like gaming addiction or concern about the quality of the food we eat. The attention that the so-called climate change draws, for instance, might seem to a careless observer to be a recent phenomenon that has concerned humanity only in the last few decades. However, that is not the case.
The Debate of 1799
In 1799, more than two centuries before newspaper front pages began to deal almost daily with the causes and effects of climate change in general and global warming in particular, an intense debate took place in the United States between two well-known personalities: Thomas Jefferson, who at the time was none other than vice president of that country – later he would reach the presidency – and a highly recognized political journalist, an expert in scientific matters, named Noah Webster. Over time, Webster would be recognized as one of those responsible for the American educational system. They discussed problems related to global warming, since – for Jefferson – worrying increases in temperatures had been recorded in some regions of the country.
The vice president had a good scientific education and was a fan of climatology. Since July 1, 1776, he had recorded in a notebook the temperature and main climatic parameters of Virginia. He had set himself the goal of recording the temperature at least twice every day for fifty years, and many recognized him as an expert in the subject, even going so far as to write books related to this topic. In 1799 a series of meetings were held with the aim of drafting the text of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and naturally Jefferson was one of the speakers.
During his speech, Jefferson mentioned a topic that worried him: the consequences that human actions had on the climate, and how the temperature had changed during recent years. He stated that snowfalls were increasingly less durable and copious than before, and how some rivers that years ago froze every winter now only did so occasionally.
"A change is taking place in the climate, noticeably," explained the vice president. "The winters are much milder. The snows are less frequent and less abundant. Often, they do not remain below the mountains for more than a day or two, and very rarely a week. The old people tell me that the land used to be covered with snow for about three months a year and the rivers, which rarely did not freeze during the winter, now almost never do. This change has produced a fluctuation between heat and cold, in the spring of this year, which is fatal to the fruits," he added.
A change is taking place in the climate, noticeably. The winters are much milder. The snows are less frequent and less abundant. Often, they do not remain below the mountains for more than a day or two, and very rarely a week.
Webster, who was also present and was famous for his skepticism, decisively confronted Jefferson, accusing him of using data lacking scientific rigor and minimizing the problem. "The clearing of forests to convert them into cultivated fields has given rise to some microclimatic changes, windier and some variation in climatic conditions in winter. But even if the snow does not remain on the ground, it does not necessarily mean that the country as a whole receives less snow each winter. We have, in the cultivated fields, deep snow today, and none tomorrow, but the same amount of snow that falls in the forest remains there until spring," said Webster.
In some way, the writer's arguments resemble those that many employ today, more than two hundred years later, to try to keep afloat some practices that, although economically very attractive, are enormously destructive for the planet. But, despite his opposing stance to Jefferson, he acknowledged that regional changes were taking place in the recorded temperatures, which in the long run would modify the local climate.
History tells that Webster's arguments were more powerful, managing to convince those present that it was best to dismiss what Jefferson had presented. Far from being discouraged, the man who two years later would preside over the United States continued to meticulously record climate changes even during his old age, although he never faced Webster publicly again.
