Sixty nine years ago, on this day, August 9th, 1955, Gilbert Plass submits a paper… You can read it here.
(Manuscript received August 9 1955
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Plass had been talking, researching, writing about CO2 buildup for a while. He made public statements in May of 1953 [see my Conversation article], at the American Geophysical Union that went viral. And here he was submitting an article to Tellus, a Swedish academic journal. (Tellus was the watering hole for atmospheric physics those people at that time.)
What we learn is that smart people could see what was happening.
What happened next. Plass wrote that paper. He wrote another paper, I think, in 1959. And he also had an article in Scientific American in 1959. That, btw, was advertised in the Observer.
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:
August 9, 2001 – OECD calls on Australia to introduce a carbon tax. Told to… go away…