Fifty two years ago, on this day, December 14th, 1973, an article in the Canberra Times about the American writer Howard Wilcox warning of ice caps melting etc
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 330ppm. 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 warnings about polar melting had a long history. Various causes for the melting (natural and man-made) were being put forward.
The specific context was that Wilcox thought it was going to be the problem of “waste heat” rather than carbon dioxide build-up that caused the problem (he was not alone in thinking this, btw).
What I think we can learn from this – the phenomena can be disputed, the cause disputed. Lotsa disputes (because reality is confusing. “Science” remains though, a pretty good way of figuring out what is going on… Beats chicken entrails and wild guesses, anyway).
What happened next Wilcox wrote a book. It’s not very good.
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:
December 14, 1988 – Greenhouse Glasnost gets going…
December 14, 1992 – UK “releases “National programme on carbon dioxide emissions”
December 14, 1995 – Monbiot nails it with “it’s happening” article – All Our Yesterdays