Thirty nine years ago, on this day, January 24, 1984, Canadians got to understand what was coming, via a CBC documentary, including Stephen Seidel, one of the authors of a recent US EPA report “Can we delay a greenhouse warming?”
As per the Climate State website –
Topics discussed include, the scientific consensus, weather patterns, sea level rise, adaptation, climate actions, or the greenhouse effect. This 1984 documentary outlines our understanding of global climate change at the time.
There’s weather, and then there’s climate. Weather patterns come and go, but forecasting has become much more accurate through improved meteorological techniques. Climate change is harder to predict. But, as the CBC’s Peter Kent shows in this 1984 documentary, it’s happening.
Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere have been steadily rising, and by the year 2100 the average global temperature may rise by five degrees Celsius due to the greenhouse effect.
http://climatestate.com/2019/07/30/the-1984-climate-change-documentary/
“Good evening. Tonight on The Journal a full edition devoted to the greenhouse effect, which will eventually cause the greatest global climatic change since prehistoric times. The full effect won’t be felt for a century or more, but younger members of our audience may well live to experience the first changes. Our grandchildren almost certainly will.
We fully expect a certain amount of scepticism among viewers in this unusually cold winter to the proposition that warmer weather is ahead for Canada and the rest of the world. However, as you’ll see, the scientific community is virtually unanimous in the prediction of a warming trend, and that the irreversible warming will create major disruptions of what we’ve come to consider as normal weather patterns. The only disagreement seems to be in the timing and magnitude of the disruptions caused by the greenhouse effect.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 344.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419
The context was that in late 1983 two big reports on climate (an EPA one saying ‘srsly, trouble ahead’ and an NAS one saying ‘meh’) had been released. Climate was now a suitable topic for documentaries and panel discussions, at least to break up the monotony of “are we all going to fry in a nuclear war?” And the two kinda dovetailed, what with the concerns about a nuclear winter…
What I think we can learn from this
Again, we have known. The people who were children then are adults now, and I don’t see a whole lot of transformational change, so expecting today’s kids to organise transformational change when they are “grown up” is, um, optimistic.
What happened next
Broadcasters kept broadcasting. Four years later, in Toronto, the world did finally wake up…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.