Fifty two years ago, on this day, July 15th, 1972, Soviet Weekly runs a piece based on comments by Mikhail Budyko, “How Man affects the weather.”
“In the past few decades the carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere has risen by 1-15 per cent, and it is still rising.
“Most of it comes from the burning of 1,000 million tonnes of coal a year.
“C02 in the atmosphere lets through most short-wave radiation, but considerably reduces long-wave radiation which dissipates heat into space.
“So by the end of the century there could be an all-round rise in the temperature of the atmosphere at the earth’s surface of up to 1 degree.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Soviet Union had been producing this colour newspaper Soviet Weekly, saying how wonderful things were in the Soviet Union for a while. I don’t know who it convinced – it probably merely kept some junior MI5 staff happy when clipping, archiving. And here they were talking about the weather and surprisingly given the Stockholm environment conference had just happened. And they hadn’t attended, because East Germany wasn’t going to be allowed separate status.
What we learn is that if you were communist or commie-curious, in the early 70s in the UK, then carbon dioxide build-up would have been mentioned to you by Soviet Weekly and probably the Morning Star and Daily Worker and so forth. Everybody knew.
What happened next Soviet Weekly continued telling everyone that one life is wonderful in the Soviet Union until 1991, when the Soviet Union was no more.
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
For more about Budyko, and the probably “hook” for the Soviet Weekly article (besides the then-just-finished UNCHE), see here
Also on this day:
July 15, 1968 – first(?) UK government attention to the possibility of climate
July 15, 1977 – “Heavy Use of Coal May Bring Adverse Shift in Climate”
July 15, 2005 – The “Stern Review” into #climate is announced…