Thirty six years ago, on this day, March 10th, 1988,
Congressional Staff Retreat on Climate Change, held at Airlie, Virginia, 10-11 March 1988 page 305 Abrahamson, D. (ed) 1989. The Challenge of Global Warming. Washington DC: Natural Resources Defense Council
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been an intense period of rising concern about the climate issue through the 80s and especially since late 1985, and the pivotal Villach meeting hosted by UNEP, WMO and ICSU. And it was time to try and get a whole bunch of congressional staffers who cared about the issue, if not onto the same page, at least into the same chapter. And of course, this was in the days before mobile phones, let alone smartphones. So you could do a retreat and get some attention. So. clever move if you’re trying to sensitise a policy subsystem. It “worked”.
What I think we can learn from this is that policy entrepreneurs try to lay the groundwork for themselves. That takes money and credibility. Of course, you can’t do it really well as radical groups – it’s what liberal groups are supposed to be doing. And to be fair, they do do it to some extent, if only at a national level more than a local level.
What happened next: Well, the timing was excellent because three months later in the middle of the very long, hot American Summer, and indeed drought, NASA scientist James Hansen gave his testimony to some senators (June 23, 1988). The Toronto conference happened, and gave us the Toronto Target. And suddenly, even Republican presidential hopeful George HW Bush was having to acknowledge the existence of the greenhouse effect, which, he said, he was going to combat with the White House Effect. (See also Grant Swinger).
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.
Also on this day: