On this day June 2nd 1977, 48 years ago, Australian Scientist Graeme Pearman gathered fellow scientists to tell them what had been going on.
2-3 June 1977 The Australian National Committee of the UN Study Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) held a workshop on this subject at the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Physics, Aspendale on June 2 and 3. The objectives of the workshop were:
A: To communicate to the interested Australian scientific community — i) The results of the recent SCOPE meeting in Ratzeburg and the ERDA meeting in Miami on the C02 – climate problem. (Pearman, 1977 Clean Air)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 333ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was the scientific consensus that carbon dioxide build-up was going to be a Real Problem, and probably Quite Soon was just forming – a series of international meetings had taken place, and Pearman was at a couple of them.
You have to remember, this was way before email and easy communications. You couldn’t just circulate pdfs…
The specific context was that Australian scientists had been measuring C02 amounts for a few years – first on planes, and about now, at Cape Grim in Tasmania.
What I think we can learn is this:
As human beings – we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago
As “active citizens” – we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago
Academics might want to ponder… we knew enough to be worried, half a century ago.
What happened next: xx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
The 1974 post about Australia and climate at RMets
References
(as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
June 2, 1986 – US Senators get going on climate
June 2, 2002 – Low carbon spaces, eh… SDC RIP – All Our Yesterdays