Fifty six years ago, on this day, March 31st, 1968, the ecologist LaMont Cole pondered the Big Question…
Cole, L. 1968. Can the world be saved? New York TImes, March 31.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that people were beginning to freak out about not just the bomb, but also the Population Bomb, local air pollution, national air pollution a sense of fragility and weakness.
This might be tied to the in this instance of the Tet Offensive and the question of whether rich white people could continue to dominate.
LaMont Cole at this point was worried about the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere potentially dropping and causing us all to choke to death; that was revealed to be not something to worry about a couple of years later.
What we learned is that you know, people were reading this stuff and it was sensitising them. When things like the Santa Barbara oil spill came along, in late January of 1969, folks could join the dots and go, “oops.”
What happened next, the Santa Barbara oil spill. People joining the dots and going “oops.”
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:
March 31, 1998 – another report about #climate and business in the UK
March 31, 1998 – two business-friendly climate events in UK and Australia