Fifty six years ago, on this day, January 8th, 1968,
According to a Newsweek report (8 January 1968), Professor L. C. Cole of Cornell University (in a paper delivered at the 134th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) asks whether man is not destroying the earth’s natural supply of oxygen. He points out (1) that the increasing combustion of fossil fuels has greatly accelerated the formation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and (2) that, in the United States alone, some one million acres of suburbanised forest and grassland each year lose their ability to regenerate the oxygen supply through photosynthesis.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was concern among a few scientists that levels of oxygen would drop and that we would all ultimately suffocate. That was rendered null a year or two after this, but there was generalised concern about oxygen levels, carbon dioxide levels, you name it. As the consequences of modernity, as we laughingly call it, were becoming apparent. Cynically, you could also say that people were so fed up with the Vietnam War, but there were costs attached to speaking out against that, that they found something else to be worried about….
What we can learn is that there have been scientists warning of trouble ahead. But those scientists may have sometimes understandably picked something to be concerned about that wasn’t actually there. That doesn’t mean that all warnings are bad warnings.
What happened next, as above, the oxygen depletion thing was put to bed in 1970 or so. Lamont Cole died in I think, 1979.
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
Cole, L. 1968. Can the World Be Saved? BioScience, Vol. 18, No. 7 pp. 679-684 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1294188 .https://doi.org/10.2307/1294188
Also on this day:
Jan 8, 1958 – “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ
January 8, 2003 – Energy firms plan to “bury carbon emissions”…
January 8, 2013 – Australian Prime Minister connects bush fires and #climate change