Thirty-one years ago, on this day, September 24th, 1993 Pittsburgh hosts a touring museum exhibition about climate change and what needs to be done (spoiler: we didn’t do it).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that when global warming became a thing in 1988/89 cultural institutions like museums started thinking, “well, what can we do? How do we respond?” These things take time to put together, schedules booked. So it was 1991/92 by the time a lot of these big displays were in place. And then of course, they have to tour to different parts of their country. And so hello, it’s late 1993 by the time he gets to Pittsburgh, by which time Rio is over a year old and Clinton has lost his BTU tax. So it all probably felt a little bit yesterday’s news.
What we learn There’s a time lag.
What happened next We shrugged our shoulders 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.
References
Revkin, A. 1994. Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast
Also on this day:
September 24, 1989 – Petra Kelly disses the Australian Prime Minister
September 24, 1991 – Australian denialist gives “Greenhouse Myths” seminar.