Fifty six years ago, on this day, September 11th, 1969, Californian Congressman George Brown introduced an “omnibus” environment bill.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 324ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it was 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 was that through the second half of the 1960s various Congressmen (mostly but by no means entirely Democrats) had introduced various bills about pollution (air, water etc). Most of this had been performative.
The specific context was that by mid-1969 the “environment”/ecology was competing with the assault on Vietnam for people’s attention (anti-war activists were understandably suspicious, obvs).
What I think we can learn from this is that politicians have antennae, and will try to amplify the things they want amplified. (Not ALL of them are corporate meat-puppets, at least, not all of the time).
What happened next – the times were propitious, and President Nixon signed the NEPA into law in January 1970. Various bodies were formed, reports written and released, speeches given. Guess what – the emissions kept climbing.
To be fair to George Brown, he was behind the successful push for a National Climate Act, that President Carter signed in 1978.
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 11, 1961 – New York Times reports “Air Found Gaining in Carbon Dioxide”
September 11, 1973 – CIA coup topples Chilean democracy
September 11, 1989 – Bill McKibben’s “The End of Nature” published – All Our Yesterdays
September 11, 2006 – Australian climate concern hits tipping point (maybe) – All Our Yesterdays