Forty six years ago, on this day, November 15th, 1979, the FT reports
“West Germany is to set up a study which could have a serious impact on its future energy policies, which at present stress the central importance of coal. The investigation is into the effects of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere.”
Boyes, Roger, 1979. Germany Probes Fossil Fuel Effects. Financial Times, November 15, p. 2
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. 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 the Germans had been worrying about carbon dioxide for a little while by now (Hermann Flohn’s influence, possibly?).
The specific context was by the mid-1970s meetings were being held at IIASA and elsewhere about the problem. German scientists, and some politicians, were on the case. The first World Climate Conference, hosted by the WMO, had taken place in February 1979 in Geneva. In June 1979 Helmut Schmidt gave an interview to Time magazine where he explicitly mentioned carbon dioxide build-up. The G7 meeting (in Tokyo) had namechecked the issue.
What I think we can learn from this – plenty of people knew. But what are you going to do if you run on coal and nukes?
What happened next – the emissions kept climbing, of course. At the G7 in Bonn in 1985, the climate issue got namechecked again.
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.
