Bite Notes: Joseph Fourier was the first person to propose that the Earth's atmosphere might act as an insulator of some kind. Consequently, he is is widely recognized as the discoverer of what is now known as 'the greenhouse effect'. Some 30 years later (1864), John Tyndall used scientific experimentation to prove that Fourier was right.

Almost 300 years earlier (1532), Nicolaus Copernicus had first proposed that the Earth and other planets travelled round the sun (heliocentrism). This went against the Catholic church's view of the time and Copernicus' theory was not published until he was on his deathbed.

In 1610, Galileo championed and developed Copernicus' theory and suffered persecution for what was considered a heretical view.

Comment: Many sceptics like to see their views as paralleling those of Copernicus and Gallileo, ranged against the consensus of the day. However, unfortunately (for sceptics) it was Fourier and Tyndall who were the Copernicus and Gallileo of global warming. Over the last 180 years  'the greenhouse effect' has been confirmed by numerous lines of scientific evidence which confirm the theory.

Today it's the scientific consensus that Earth's atmosphere regulates temperatures on the planet—just as it's now the scientific consensus that the planets of the solar system orbit the sun. Members of the general public and the few climate scientists (around 1%*) who are sceptical of global warming are the equivalent of the people who fought Copernicus' view and persecuted Gallileo for the rest of his life.  

[*Research shows that 97% of climate scientists agree that human activities are causing climate change, 2% are 'don't knows' — which leaves only 1% of climate scientists as sceptics.]

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