The Surprising History of Climate Change Coverage in College Textbooks

By Kiley Bense

If you were an American college student studying biology in the 1970s, your course textbook probably contained information about standard topics like photosynthesis, cellular division, genetics and food chains. But you might also have come across something less expected, tucked in the last few pages of your book: an explanation of the greenhouse effect and what it could mean for global temperatures in the future.