On this day fifty years ago, a catchily-titled academic article was published…
The context – since the 1950s people had been keeping tabs on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The dogma that extra carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere would be absorbed by the oceans had been exploded by Revelle and Seuss (not the same Seuss as yesterday’s post!)
What we learn – we knew plenty enough to be taking action
What happened next. Oh, you know the rest, if you’ve been reading this site for any length of time. The emissions kept climbing, the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases kept climbing. The temperatures kept climbing. The social movements performed a bunch of three year spasms every decade or so…