Next month is the thirtieth anniversary of the most entertaining and damning chapter in Al Gore’s career.

By the mid-nineteenth century, our knowledge of atmospheric chemistry was sufficiently advanced for a few sharp minds to ponder whether an increase in carbon dioxide might increase global temperature.  The speculation remained entirely theoretical until 1957 when an international collaboration of top geophysicists — including the Soviets — used buoys, weather balloons and so forth to collect data.