Forty-five years ago, on this day, May 17, 1979 an important book on Environmental Pollution, written by Martin Holdgate, came out (with a section on carbon dioxide build-up),
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336.8ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Martin Holdgate had been working on pollution issues for 10 years by this stage and had a lot of useful data. This book had been finalised a couple of years before. The broader context of course, is that Margaret Thatcher had just taken office. And this unfortunately meant that the work on climate change that had been building under the Callaghan government was largely frozen out and ignored. So it goes.
What we can learn is what you have already learned from the site, which is that smart people knew. We knew. People who read newspapers knew. We knew we knew we knew.
The problem was not lack of information. The problem was plausible pathways to power and influence.
What happened next. Holdgate and others kept writing, kept working. And the emissions kept climbing.
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:
May 17, 1968 – “Some prophets of darkness warn of polar icecaps melting…”
May 17, 1972 – New York Times reports carbon dioxide build-up worries…