Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 20th, 1969,
By contrast, the first reference to “global warming” doesn’t appear in Google’s archives until the end of the next decade. This Dec. 20, 1969 story by United Press International headlined “Scientists Caution on Changes In Climate as Result of Pollution” is the first in Google News’s archives to unambiguously use the phrase “global warming” to describe the phenomena. https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Bright-Green/2009/0908/why-are-they-calling-it-climate-change-now
On December 21, 1969, the New York Times ran a UPI wire story, “Scientists Caution on Changes In Climate as Result of Pollution,” which reported that scientists discussed the possible threat of manmade global warming at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, with calls for greater monitoring of the climate:
J.O. Fletcher, a physical scientist for the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., said that “man had only a few decades to solve the problem of global warming caused by pollution.” Global warming could cause further melting of the polar ice caps and affect the earth’s climate.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the American Association for the Advancement of Science had held a seminar in 1968. And the American Meteorological Society held one in October 1969. The RAND Corporation had done a piece on fossil fuels, and that was being reported at this meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which readers will remember, is the same place that Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass made his bombshell announcement in 1953. It was one of the first times (and probably the first) that “global warming” was referred to in the press.
What we learn is that there is a finite number of venues for influential commentary on the science of all this. The AGU was one AAAS was another.
What happened next? As the 60s turned into the 70s it became less surprising to find carbon dioxide build-up mentioned as a potential environmental problem. Already in the same neck of the woods in San Francisco 9 months earlier there had been “teach-ins” about the issues – about ecology, People’s Park and all the rest of it. Fundamentally, we knew.
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:
December 20, 1983 – Documentary on “the Climate Crisis” shown
December 20, 2007 – UK opposition leader David Cameron gives clean coal speech in Beijing…