Forty six years ago, on this day, July 15, 1977, the New York Times ran a front page story that makes you just groan. Oh, and by the way, coal use is up in the last year..
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the National Academy of Science had been doing a two year investigation into weather and carbon dioxide and was about to release its report. And clearly a journalist at the Times had been given a tip off and was getting a kind of exclusive in first.
From the 50s some scientists had been saying “hey, carbon dioxide is going to be an issue,” and had slowly been able to build an epistemic community as Hart and Victor would have you call it.
What I think we can learn from this
We knew. It was, literally, front page news.
What happened next
In the mid-late 70s it all started to come together. It was then scuppered/slowed successfully between 1981 and 1985. And then with the scientific meeting in September 1985 at Villach, the push begins again.
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.