Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 3, 1968, the United Nations General Assembly voted yes to hosting a big, all-singing all-dancing Conference on the Human Environment in 1972.
The unanimous adoption of Resolution 2398 Problems of the human environment at the twenty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on December 3rd, 1968 marked the culmination of the first phase of the “Swedish initiative”
Thanks to work by a Swedish diplomat whose “own reading of media reports on climate change during autumn 1968 concluded that scientific opinion was shifting towards warming as the more likely outcome of human interference in atmospheric processes” things were different.
In contrast to Palmstierna’s memorandum and Åström’s statements at ECOSOC earlier that year—which presented the particle-induced cooling scenario first—the UNGA speech instead foregrounded and explained in far greater detail the potential for a rise in the Earth’s surface temperature caused by increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide, which is presented in the speech as a pollutant.1 No other forms of air pollution are mentioned in Åström’s December 1968 speech, including acid rain, which Palmstierna had in his memorandum gone into some detail in describing in terms of the scientific basis, and its environmental and economic effects.16 Paglia
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the previous year, Sweden had seen the release of two bombshell books about environmental degradation. Sweden had put the proposal by their diplomats that the UN have a look. And surprisingly quickly, given how the UN usually works this was accepted.
In July of 1968 a Swedish diplomat had even referenced temperature imbalance but with more emphasis on the problem of dust. This was three years after Lyndon Johnson had him and had mentioned carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
What I think we can learn from this
Uggh. We knew.
What happened next
The Stockholm conference happened in June 1972. Not much changed (though the UNEP was formed, smaller than its proponents wanted, of course…)
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..