Two hundred and sixty three years ago, on this day, December 22, 1759,
Samuel Johnson published an essay that you should read – “What have ye done” in the Idler – and see my blog post too.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 280ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
What have ye done, starts by talking of the high hopes of the Royal Society. Well, about them –
The nobility and intelligentsia, however, occasionally became critical and even constructive. John Eveelyn, a noted busybody and do-gooder and one of the founding members of the Royal Society, wrote a pamphlet in 1661, which was ordered to be published by Charles II, “Furnigofiuim, or the Inconvenience [page break] of Air and Smoke of London Dissipated; together with Some Remedies Humbly Proposed.”
In 1686, Justel presented before the Philosophical Society “An account of an Engine that Consumes Smoke.” The suggestions made were lively and imaginative rather than practicable, but it is worthy pointing out that Justel’s smoke-consuming monster embodies a concept that has recently been emphasized by Professor Fritz Zwicky of Cal Tech.
(Carr, 1965: 34-5)
The context was that Samuel Johnson was having to knock out these sorts of essays with stunning regularity. I’ve not read a lot of Johnson but I think I have read all the essays in a collection that confirm this man was a stone-cold genius. Probably quite unpleasant, but stone cold genius.
What I think we can learn from this
well if you take what Johnson says to heart and manage your expectations of changing the world downwards, maybe if we had all done that we wouldn’t be in this mess.
[Biographical note – I don’t know where I first encountered mention of it but I think it was in when I was living in Bristol in 1996 or 7 because I remember borrowing a copy from the Bristol City Council library; I think it was in store and here we are.]
What happened next
Johnson appeared disguised as the late Robbie Coltrane in an episode of Blackadder the Third and it was freaking hilarious.
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.
References
Carr, D. (1965) The Breath of Life. New York WW. Norton & Company