Ben Franklin, an astute observer of the weather, believed that the settling of North America had changed the weather: “cleared land absorbs more heat and melts snow quicker.” He also thought that volcanoes led to cool weather. In both of these observations, he has been proven to be correct.

In today’s New York Times, this article: Ben Franklin on Global Warming talks about the writings of our founding fathers on weather and climate.

*Quotation from Mark Twain