On this day 34 years ago, Otzi was discovered…
Ötzi, also called The Iceman, is the natural mummy of a man who lived between 3350 and 3105 BC. Ötzi’s remains were discovered on 19 September 1991, in the Ötztal Alps (hence the nickname “Ötzi”, German: [œtsi]) at the Austria–Italy border. He is Europe’s oldest known natural human mummy, offering an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic (Copper Age) Europeans.
Because of the presence of an arrowhead embedded in his left shoulder and various other wounds, researchers believe that Ötzi was killed by another person. The nature of his life and the circumstances of his death are the subject of much investigation and speculation. His remains and personal belongings are on exhibit at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 355ppm. 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 was that we have been putting rather large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for a couple of hundred years.
The specific context was that by the 1980s it was obvious that the Swiss/Italian/Austrian Alps were beginning to melt…
What I think we can learn from this – carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (who knew?).
What happened next
We kept putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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 19 1969 – ABC Radio warns listeners about carbon dioxide – All Our Yesterdays
September 19, 1997 – John Howard condemns the South Pacific to hell. Again.
September 19, 1998 – Public Health Association calls for “life-saving green taxes”