On the 11th of April 1987. Two things happen worthy of note.
One, the World Resources Institute released its report “A Matter of Degrees: The Potential for Limiting the Greenhouse Effect”
Second. Primo Levi died either by suicide or accident
So let’s deal with those in turn. The World Resources Institute had been set up in 1982 by Gus Speth, ater his time in the Carter Administration, and the Council on Environmental Quality. WRI had been producing reports and hosting conferences and briefings and so forth. And this report coming in the aftermath of Villach 1985 and before another meeting in Villach and then Bellagio, was intended to throw more for once of a better expression, firewood on the fire, to increase the likelihood of international negotiations. In that, it was a success, and the failure of the negotiations is hardly the fault of people like Irving Mintzer (author of the WRI report).
Primo Levi was an Italian chemist, and thinker and writer who had survived the concentration camp, Auschwitz and he had famously written “If Not Now, When”, et cetera. Hs body was found at the bottom of the stairwell in his apartment building in Milan. And it’s unclear whether he killed himself or toppled over by accident.
Three months earlier he had written a poem Almanac, which includes the lines
“The glaciers will continue to grate, smoothing what’s under them” and
“Earth too will fear the immutable Laws of the universe. Not us. We, rebellious progeny With great brainpower, little sense, Will destroy, defile…”
It ends
“Very soon we’ll extend the desert Into the Amazon forests, Into the living heart of our cities, Into our very hearts.”
See this rather excellent blog post by Bridget Mckenzie, @bridgetmck