Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

 It hit me in about the fifth grade. The year was 1969. I became fascinated with science. I made model rocket ships, did science experiments in our kitchen - much to my mother’s dismay - and had science posters on my wall. I guess I was what you might call a science geek. My favorite field was astronomy. I dreamed of visiting other planets, and tried to imagine what that must be like. One day my grandmother gave me a large poster of the Solar System. It had pictures of all the planets, and a diagram of their orbits around the Sun. I was curious about Venus. My poster said it was very hot, with an average temperature over 800F˚. That made me curious so I did more research.

 

Venus, it turns out has a very dense atmosphere, 100 times that of Earth. And the atmosphere was mostly carbon gas, about 90% carbon dioxide. The carbon gas, I found out, produces a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, which doesn’t let the heat escape. That combined with being closer to the Sun makes Venus super hot, even at night. 

 

That got me to thinking. Cars produce carbon gas. I know because my parents warned me about how the fumes from a car contain dangerous carbon monoxide gas. They didn’t know that I knew but I’d heard them talking about someone who had committed suicide by carbon monoxide gas. He closed himself up in the garage and left the engine running until he fell asleep, then died.

 

Then it hit me. If carbon gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide produce a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere of Venus, and if cars produce carbon gas, and there are millions of cars, are we creating a greenhouse effect on Earth? And, that’s just cars. There are tractors, locomotives, generators and power plants. Do they all produce carbon gases? Concerned, I did what any kid would naturally do, I asked my father. 

 

My father was not a scientist; he was an insurance salesman, but he did go to college. He’d know. He seemed to know everything. When I told him what I learned and asked him if cars were producing a greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, he just smiled and kind of chuckled the way he sometimes did. I knew that chuckle. It meant that he was impressed with my inquisitiveness but found my naïveté somewhat humorous. I’ll never forget his response. “No,” he replied, “I’m sure they have all that figured out by now.” They? But, who’s “they”, I wondered, the car companies? The scientists? The government?

 

I couldn’t help but think that I’d made a really important connection. I guess I was kind of hoping that I’d discovered something that no one else had thought of before. I mean what if the scientists who design cars didn’t talk to the scientists who study Venus? Then I had to laugh at myself. These are grown-ups we’re talking about. Grown-ups with doctorates and everything. Of course they knew as much as a fifth grader. My dad was right. I’m sure they had all this stuff figured out by now. After all, it was almost 1970.

 

Like most people, I never even heard of the term “global warming” until the 80’s. But, it turns out that it’s not exactly rocket science. The basic idea had been known for a century. The idea was first proposed by Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) back in 1896, but it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the idea was brought to the attention of the scientific community by Stanford Professor Stephen Schneider and others. And it was not until the late 1980’s that there was a consensus among atmospheric scientists that the Earth was in fact getting warmer, most likely due to a dramatic increase in carbon gases. 

 

Years later, I found myself stuck in traffic. It was 1989. I remember being in my car, on the freeway in L.A., in rush hour with thousands of other cars, when I heard the news story on the radio, “Scientists report that carbon gases produced by burning fossil fuels may be causing a greenhouse effect, creating global warming.” I immediately remembered that discussion I had with my dad 20 years earlier. “Hey” I yelled at the radio, “That was my idea!” I just had to chuckle, the way my dad did at me, at the inquisitiveness and naïveté of the human race. 

 

Well at least they finally discovered it. Now they can do something about it, I thought. Maybe they can make electric cars, or find some other type of fuel. Or maybe they can create some gadget that filters out the carbon. But, who’s “they”, I wondered, the car companies? The scientists? The government?

 

Now it’s been more than 30 years since I first heard that report. And some people are still debating the theory of global warming. Every time I hear some conservative Republican calling global warming a hoax, I can’t help but think: Are you smarter than a fifth grader? No, I guess not.