Fifty six years ago, on this day, September 1st, 1968, people talked eco, at a pivotal meeting.
The Bisophere Conference was held under the auspices of UNESCO in Paris from 1 September to 13 September 1968.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 420ishppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that people had been banging on about the biosphere for a while. You can take it back to Vladimir Vernadsky (see also Dinshaw 2013). And this had especially picked up pace with things like the International Biological Programme in the mid-60s and the US interest in it.
What we learn is that seemingly new ideas, new-ish ideas can have a very long history and that certain individuals like G. Evelyn Hutchinson (among many others) had to work crucial in translating these and saving these and popularising them.
What happened next? UNESCO’s Biosphere conference was a bit of a kickstart for concerns about what was happening and what was being done to “the natural world.” Concerns were well underway before, but this kind of crystallised them. And from it, the report in May of ‘69, about issues including carbon dioxide buildup that U Thant, then Secretary General of the United Nations, made was significant.
And twenty-five years later…
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:
September 1, 1972 – “Man-Made Carbon Dioxide and the “Greenhouse Effect” published in Nature
September 1, 1983- #climate change is all in the game, you feel me?
September 1, 1998 – Sydney Futures Exchange foresees a bright future. Ooops.