On this day, 40 years ago, a conference on sea level rise took place in Washington, D.C
“In March 1983, many of this book’s findings were presented to a conference of over 150 scientists, engineers, and federal, state, and local policy makers. Although those attending agreed that sea level rise, if substantiated, would justify the attention of policy makers at all levels, some doubted whether anything less than a catastrophe could motivate people to undertake the necessary actions.”
Titus and Barth, 1983
http://papers.risingsea.net/downloads/Challenge_for_this_generation_Barth_and_Titus_chapter1.pdf
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 343.ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context
Scientists, by the late 1970s, were pretty sure what was coming. Questions about how much, how soon, but pretty sure.
What we can learn from this
That we are smart enough to create the machines that cause – as a by-product of their functioning- these problems. We are smart enough to detect them. We are not smart enough to do anything about our smartness.
What happened next
The seas rose
References:
http://papers.risingsea.net/downloads/Challenge_for_this_generation_Barth_and_Titus_chapter1.pdf