On this day, 28 May 1956, Time magazine ran an article with the following text:
“Since the start of the industrial revolution, mankind has been burning fossil fuel (coal, oil, etc.) and adding its carbon to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. In 50 years or so this process, says Director Roger Revelle of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, may have a violent effect on the earth’s climate… “Dr. Revelle has not reached the stage of warning against this catastrophe, but he and other geophysicists intend to keep watching and recording. During the International Geophysical Year (1957-58), teams of scientists will take inventory of the earth’s CO2 and observe how it shifts between air and sea. They will try to find out whether the CO2 blanket has been growing thicker, and what the effect has been. When all their data have been studied, they may be able to predict whether man’s factory chimneys and auto exhausts will eventually cause salt water to flow in the streets of New York and London.” –
“One Big Greenhouse,” Time magazine, May 28, 1956.
Why this matters
It’s nice context for the “puzzle” Roger Revelle asked Charles Keeling to look at.
What happened next?
Revelle hired Keeling (check out Joshua Wienberg’s “The next 100 years” for more about this.
The Keeling Curve was born.
“We” ignored it.
The end.