Seventy years ago, on this day, May 18, 1953, the American weekly magazine Newsweek ran a snippet about the ‘carbon dioxide is building up and we should watch out’ statement of Gilbert Plass at the American Geophysical Union (see May 5)
Newsweek; New York Vol. 41, Iss. 20, (May 18, 1953): 75 https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1953-05-18_41_20/page/74/mode/2up?view=theater
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that two weeks previously, Gilbert Plass had made some very eye-catching statements at the American Geophysical Union that had been picked up and broadcast. This is the first report by Newsweek that I can find and it was followed shortly after, by something from Time.
What I think we can learn from this
This is the moment in which the carbon dioxide theory of climate change really starts to enter into popular discourse. The context was that people were sure the world was getting hotter. It was a question of why.
What happened next
Plass did his scientific work and in 1955/56 released papers about the carbon dioxide theory of climate. There was a further paper in Scientific American in 1959. There’s a direct line between Plass and Guy Callendar with whom Plass corresponded.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.