22 • Expressly acknowledged that burning fossil fuels provided the best explanation for the rise in atmospheric CO2. • Identified as the Basic Problem that, through fossil fuel combustion, humankind was, in a short period of time, reinserting a significant portion of the carbon that had been removed from the global environment over the course of “half a billion years”. • Cautioned that increases in CO2 would likely result in higher global temperatures; and Concluded that “[s]ignificant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000 and these could bring about climatic changes.” • Warned that these increased temperatures could result in melting ice caps, rising sea levels, warming oceans, changes in the distribution of fish stocks, and environmental damage on a global scale. • The authors highlighted the irony that air pollution efforts were focused almost exclusively on local pollutants, while ignoring abundant pollutants that “may be the source of serious worldwide environmental changes”. (Fig. 4) • And emphasized the need for research to apply atmospheric CO2 data to air pollution technology and work toward systems in which CO2 emissions could be brought under control. (Fig. 5) Fig. 4. Fig. 5 By no later than 1968, therefore, API and its industry members were being warned by their own scientific consultants that the links between fossil fuel combustion and rising atmospheric CO2 were credible; that temperature rise was almost certain to result; and that the most pressing research need was into technologies to address and control the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.