Being Green - 28 July 2017

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We all know the name Albert Einstein, not to be confused with the musicologist Alfred Einstein, and we know the famous e=mc 2 thing, even if we’re a bit hazy about what it means.
But I certainly didn’t find the name Milankovitch rolling off my tongue – yet he should be commemorated as a very great scientist. Milutin Milankovitch was born in Serbia the same year as Einstein, and died just a year or two after the celebrated physicist. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geologist, climatologist and engineer – truly one of the great polymaths of the century.
But his name is familiar to climatologists in the term Milankovitch Cycles. And it’s worth remembering that term.
The news headlines seem obsessed with ‘global warming’ ‘climate change’ - one-and-a-half degree temperature increase – ‘fossil fuels versus sustainable renewables’. We’ve covered the territory here on Being Green haven’t we just?
And it’s very important, not to be diminished. Public understanding has gone a long way to helping policymakers, industrialists, engineers, designers, make informed choices to avoid the worst pitfalls of unwise development.
28 Jul 2017 English South Africa Health & Fitness

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