Have you seen this 110 year-old newspaper clipping dated August 14, 1912?

First, we need a fact check. Is this 110 year-old article predicting a “considerable” rise in global temperature the real thing? Yes, it is.

A startling prediction from so long ago. Al Gore may have invented the internet, but someone in New Zealand beat him out on introducing global climate change (however, when AL said it some people listened).

I’m intrigued that the forecast allowed that this considerable rise was going to become a problem “in a few centuries”. Probably true at the time, but that’s only if you consider a steady state of consumption which we all know just hasn’t happened.

In fact, we burn over 4 times as much coal these days (8.5 billion tons/yr) than in 1912. But that’s only 52% of today’s world fossil fuel consumption. Carbon dioxide yield from petroleum is about 80% of what on average we get from coal. Using this crude estimate, consuming petroleum is roughly equivalent to burning an additional 6.3 billion tons of coal for a grand total of 14.8 billion tons. Burned up, that’s over 7 times the rate of coal consumption in 1912, and hence 7 times the CO2 production.

“A few centuries” now appears to be an over-estimate. And yeah, it’s getting a little warm here.