It's a sad reality that I'm so often unaware of important leaders in various fields until they die and I read the tributes. Such is the case with Dr. Wallace Broecker who wrote a prescient scientific paper in 1975, the title of which asked the question “Climatic Change: Are We on the Brink of a Pronounced Global Warming?” This was one of the early warnings of the planetary crisis we find ourselves in today as we spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Those who claim that our concern about climate change is a recent phenomenon -- or hysteria -- might take note that this was more than 40 years ago.
Apparently Dr. Broecker had a knack for phrasemaking. He was fond of saying, “The climate system is an angry beast and we are poking it with sticks,” which is brilliant. He meant that the climate is unpredictable, sensitive to small changes and susceptible to major shifts with startling speed. He also coined the term “the global conveyor” for the important ocean currents that circulate warm water around the globe; that phrase, too, remains in use today.
Broeker grew up in an evangelical Christian home, so he attended Wheaton College, a large Christian liberal arts school in Illinois. He planned to be an actuary but fell in love with science, which eventually led him to study elsewhere and eventually to the field which made him famous. He was in his late 80's at the time of death and had been active in scientific endeavours almost to the end. I wonder if he continued to be a person of faith through the years.
We can be grateful for his pioneering work and do our best to stop poking the bear and find solutions to climate change.
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