Impact of Burning Coal Described in 1912 Newspaper Article

An article in Business Insider this week marked the 106th anniversary since a newspaper in New Zealand published a four-sentence article titled “Coal Consumption Affecting Climate”.

The article stated that the carbon dioxide released “tends to make the air a more effective blanket” and that “the effect may be considerable in a few centuries.”

Since some people and organizations (in the United States, at least) have decided to believe the science around climate change is a recently made-up thing it was a little jarring to see it summed up so clearly so long ago. Some might wonder if this was really published 106 years ago. According to Snopes, it was.