“One of the greatest scientists in the world is Arrhenius of Sweden. He is a chemist and physicist, and has studied this matter. He shows that this proportion of carbon dioxide in the air will make the climate warmer, by acting like the glass roof of a green house. With the carbon dioxide increased from two and one-half to three times, the temperature of the whole world will be raised 8 to 9 degrees centigrade—and Greenland will have a good climate for farming. All the good soil of Canada will be in as temperate a climate as that now enjoyed by Missouri.
Corn will be grown in the Peace River Valley. Oranges will be an orchard fruit in Arkansas and Virginia. The suburban residents of Chicago may literally sit under their own fig trees and scuppernong grape arbors. Cotton will be a stable crop in Iowa. Bananas will fringe the shores of the Gulf. Siberia will become the greatest farming country in the world. The great Antarctic continent—one of the greatest on earth in extent—will be the Western Canada, the Scandinavia, the Siberia of that day, and will have millions of people. Alaska will be as warm as Maine now is. And the heat of all the tropics will be made hotter for thousands of years.”
January 28, 1913
