Fifty seven years ago, on this day, January 24th, 1967,
Such a forecast was certainly disquieting. Upon reviewing the document, Graham Sutton, inaugural chairman of Britain’s recently established Natural Environment Research Council, stressed that “by no means” should the report be “dismissed as ‘science fiction,’” though he conceded that “one cannot yet tell if the decline in temperature is part of an old old story of natural fluctuations or is something triggered off or enhanced by pollution.”13
13. Graham Sutton, letter to Victor Rothschild, 24 Jan. 1967, box 76, part 3, Archive Collection of Professor James Lovelock.
Leah Aronowsky, 2021
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Graham Sutton, former Met Office boss, was head of the newly established Natural Environment Research Council and probably wanted to have a relative lid on such seemingly outlandish claims. And you see the sorts of claims of responsible men to damp and things down but fairplay to Sutton he didn’t do that.
By now, the BBC had already broadcast Challenge, in January of 1967…
But then what did Sutton do? What did NERC do? It’s a good question.
What we can learn. There were conversations going on among scientific elites about this.
What happened next the following year, July 1968. Lord Kennett made what’s so far the earliest mention of the greenhouse effect by an elected politician (or at least a minister in an elected government!). Then in 1970, in August, it blew up publicly. And here we are.
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
Aronowsky, L. (2021). Gas guzzling Gaia, or: a prehistory of climate change denialism. Critical Inquiry, 47(2), 306-327
Also on this day:
January 24, 1984 – Canadian TV documentary and discussion about #climate