As a gentleman farmer in Virginia, Jefferson has long been fascinated by the weather; In fact, in July 1776, 1, just as he finished the work of the Declaration of Independence, he began to write a temperature diary. Jefferson would read two books every day for the next 50 years. Jefferson also used various methods to calculate various averages, such as monthly average temperature and annual average temperature.
In Virginia Notes published in 1787, Jefferson began to discuss the climate of his hometown and the whole United States. At the end of a short chapter, he talked about wind, rain and temperature, and he put forward a series of tentative conclusions: "Our climate ... is changing very wisely. In the memory of middle-aged people, fever and cold are much milder. It snows less frequently and less deeply ... The old man told me that the earth used to be covered with snow for about three months every year. The river hardly freezes in winter, but now it is almost gone. Jefferson pointed out that the "unfortunate fluctuation of alternating hot and cold" in spring is "very fatal" to fruits.
Jefferson affirmed the traditional wisdom of this day. For more than two thousand years, people have been lamenting that deforestation has caused the temperature to rise. Many outstanding writers, from the great ancient naturalists Theo Flastos and Pliny Sr. to the heavyweights of the Enlightenment, such as Count Buffon and Hume, have mentioned the warming trend in Europe.
Samuel Williams is the author of 1794' s masterpiece Natural and Folk History of Vermont. He studied the temperature readings of his hometown and six other places in North America (including South Carolina, Maryland and Quebec) in18th century. Williams quoted these empirical data, claiming that the leveling of trees and the clearing of land made the earth warmer and drier. "[Climate] change ... is not slow enough to become a problem," he said. "It is so rapid and continuous, which is the theme of Meng's observation and experience. It has been observed everywhere in the United States, but the most important thing is that in a new country, it has suddenly changed from a huge uncultivated wilderness state to a state with many settlements, which is wise and obvious for his hometown and the whole United States. (new york Granger Collection) Jefferson mentioned in his book that he pointed out that the "unfortunate fluctuation between hot and cold" in spring was "very fatal" to fruits, and in the north latitude, he experienced a substantial change in a speech. Webster is concerned with numbers and his opponent's lack of hard data about global warming. (Granger Collection, new york)
This view has been published for a long time, and it was not widely accepted until Webster. Today, Webster is the most famous author of the American English Dictionary (1828), but his "great work" is actually his Global Warming. Neither did Williams, who died a few years after Webster's article was published. Webster's position is considered impeccable. 1850, the famous German naturalist alexander von humboldt declared, "Although there is no measurement support, these statements are often pushed forward, and many forests on both sides of the Allegheny River are destroyed, making the climate more stable, which is generally incredible now.
It was not until the second half of the 20th century that scientists began to understand the impact of greenhouse gases on the environment. The second global warming debate raised a series of scientific issues different from those at the end of 18. This science clearly supports the view that human activities (including cutting down and burning forests) will lead to rising temperatures. But Webster's paper and their careful analysis of the data can stand the test of time. Ken thompson, a modern environmental scientist at the University of California, Davis, praised Webster's argument as "powerful and knowledgeable" and called his contribution to climatology "a powerful journey"
Joshua Kendall's Forgotten Founding Fathers: noah webster's Obsession and Creation of American Culture (Putnam, 20 1 1). "