Jan 12, 1983 – RIP Carroll Wilson, “master organizer in world of science” (and early climate connector)
On this day, in 1983, a man died who you’ve almost certainly never heard of, but is one of the many who tried – ultimately unsuccessfully – to raise the alarm over 50 years ago.
“Wilson then turned to larger issues, pioneering a new format for studying and publicizing major scientific problems in world development. In 1970, for the first study, he assembled a multi-disciplinary group that produced, in one month, Man’s Impact on the Global Environment. The study was an important catalyst of debate within the U.S. on the greenhouse effect and other major environmental consequences of technology, including the SST. The following year Wilson brought together 35 atmospheric scientists from 15 countries in Stockholm to produce Inadvertent Climate Modification: Report of the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate.”
(Text here. Hyerlinks added by me)
Here’s a four page article on him, which has him as crucial midwife to the Limits to Growth report –
“The chain of events which led to the book began when Carroll Wilson introduced Jay Forrester, S.M. ’45, head of the System Dynamics Group at M.I.T., to the Club of Rome – an independent, international forum for the “great issues.” Forrester saw that the problems of growing complexity considered by the Club of Rome lent themselves to computer modeling. He produced two models and one of his collaborators produced a third on which some of Forrester’s colleagues based The Limits to Growth.”
And here is a jpg of an obituary which calls him “a master organizer in the world of science”.
Why it matters – we should pause to remember the efforts of the Revelles, the Bolins, the Wilsons and others. It wasn’t for lack of warning from scientists that we stuffed this one up. And hoping that another scientist will turn up, with just the right graph, and just the right tone of voice, is at best stupid. At worst it is a wilful refusal to be a citizen.