Month: January 2026

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On This Day

On this day  February 1,  

A busy day in climate history

Forty eight years ago, American audiences on PBS were treated to discussion about possible causes of climate change

February 1, 1978 – US TV show MacNeill Lehrer hosts discussion about climate change

Thirty six years ago the piss-weak daily business paper “The Fin” reprints a piece from the Financial Times about the crazy radical idea of, erm, putting a price on carbon dioxide.

February 1, 1990 – Australian Financial Review ponders carbon tax… (via FT)

Twenty one years ago scientists gather in Exeter to discuss “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change.”  Er, we didn’t, it’s here and it’s going to get so much worse. Oh well.

February 1, 2005 – “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change” conference begins – All Our Yesterdays

Rich people aren’t always stupid. On this day 19 years ago, an investor explains the consequences of a stupid American president.

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climate

Interview with documentary film maker, Russell Porter

Feb 1 2023 – Interview with Russell Porter, Australian documentary maker

Are there other climate-related events that happened on this day that you think deserve a shout out? If so, let me know.

As ever, invite me on your podcast, etc etc.

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United States of America

January 31, 1963 – Malthus and technology, via Roger Revelle

Sixty three years ago, on this day, January 31st, 1963

At a meeting of the Federal Council on Science and Technology in 1963, Revelle, then the science advisor to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and the chairman of the PSAC’s Committee on Natural Resources, observed “a shift from earlier ‘Malthus’ attitudes of apprehension over scarcity … to an optimism that science could help meet resources needs, but with a new concern on man’s contribution to pollution of his own environment.”195

 Revelle’s words are quoted in: Edward Wenk, Executive Secretary, Federal Council for Science and Technology, “Minutes and Record of Action,” 31 Jan 1963, I. I. Rabi Papers, LOC, Box 45, “Meetings, agenda and minutes, 1957-1972 (1),” 4.  Loetscher 2022

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was as that after World War Two, and especially from the 1950s with coming in military Keynesianism, there was an enormous explosion of economic innovation, activity growth, partly to do with pent up consumer demand from the war, growing populations, but also all the new technologies of production that had been invented during or refined during World War Two; radar, sonar, jet engines, computing, the list goes on and on. This has become known as the “Great Acceleration.”

The specific context 

So the early 60s is an interesting period, because people like Revelle are well aware of carbon dioxide build up and probably some other long-term issues, and they’re thinking about a switch over from scarcity thinking ie Malthus to cornucopia, but not a cornucopia without consequences.

What I think we can learn is that thoughtful people like Revelle were “on it”. 

What happened next. Climate change, oddly, continued  Revelle kept being relatively into climate issues

Then in his literally dying days in the early 1990s he was scammed by a failed scientist called Fred Singer, who put out a bullshit article under both their names. 

You also had Murray Bookchin tackling similar issues to Revelle here in his post scarcity anarchism essay. And, of course, Bookchin was aware of CO2 build up, as per his “Crisis in our Cities” book, published in April 1965. 

The other thing to think about is the tensions between impact science and production science.

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: 

January 31, 1979 – Alvin Weinberg’s “nukes to fix climate change” speech reported

January 31, 2002 – Antarctic ice shelf “Larsen B” begins to break up.

January 31, 1990 – Environmental Racism – then and now… Guest post by @SakshiAravind

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On This Day

On this Day: January 30th – Cooling world? (1961), flogging coal (1989) “no regrets” (1989)

January 30, 1961, in a story that would later be used by incoherent denialists, Walter Sullivan, New York Times science reporter, reported that the world was… cooling,

January 30, 1961 – New York Times reports world is cooling

On the morning of Monday 30 January 1989, the ABC 7.45am news reported the Prime Minister, Mr Bob Hawke, had begun an overseas trip to Korea, Thailand, India and Pakistan, with the primary aim of promoting Australian exports, particularly coal, iron ore and agricultural products.

January 30, 1989 – “Hawkie” flies off to flog coal

On this day, January 30, in 1989, James Baker, Secretary of State for the new George HW Bush administration gives a speech propounding so-called “no regrets” actions on climate change

January 30, 1989 – Je ne fais rein pour regretter… #climate jargon

Are there other climate-related events that happened on this day that you think deserve a shout out? If so, let me know.

As ever, invite me on your podcast, etc etc.

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1979 CO2 Newsletter CO2 Newsletter Barbat articles Deforestation

Will impacts remain for one generation or thirty?  ‘Tropical Deforestation’ issue seeks the answer

Below is the text of an article by William Barbat, in the second issue of his CO2 Newsletter, published in December 1979. I’ve added hyperlinks and references.

How fast can the ocean waters and other natural sinks take up the CO2 produced by man? This question has been the center of heated controversy which occupied a large share of the Dahlem (Berlin) Conference on ‘Global Chemical Cycles’ in 1976 and ERDA’s Miami Beach Workshop on the ‘Global Effects of Carbon Dioxide from Fossil Fuels Combustion’ in 1977.

One school of thought holds that man-created CO2 would be removed from the atmosphere at a rapid rate – possibly as high as 6% per year – once man’s outpourings of CO2 have ceased. If so, any legacy of a CO2-induced climate change would be short-lived except possibly for any destruction of icecaps that has taken place before a CO2~induced warming ended. Natural uptake of CO2 this fast would essentially relegate the CO2 problem to a reversible status similar in certain respects to smoke pollution and acid rain. Also, the contributions to the CO2 build-up due to fossil-fuel consumption by people in the United States (which comprise 5% of the world’s total population) in such a case figures to be 12% of the overall atmospheric build-up rather than 24%.

The leading advocate of this rapid-uptake hypothesis is biologist George Woodwell of Woods Hole. Woodwell’s position is based on his estimate that the cutting and burning of forests (essentially for farm-clearing in the tropics) is currently a major source of CO2 – possibly as much as 20 to 100 percent of that released by the burning of fossil fuels. Woodwell’s estimate of the deforestation rate is not based on hard data, but is projected from very limited statistical samplings, which statistics have also been interpreted by some others as showing a slight increase in forest biomass.

The opposing school of thought holds that uptake by the oceans is very slow and depends on the turnover rate of undersaturated deep ocean waters, which is of the order of 1000 years. If true, then as man’s cumulative output of CO2 exceeds certain threshold values to cause impacts such as a decrease in agricultural productivity, a decrease in marine habitat cause icecaps to become unstable, these impacts would become irreversible for many generations to come. Also the slow uptake carries the implication that the highly industrialized nations bear most of the responsibility for the CO2 buildup rather than sharing it almost equally with farmers in the tropics.

The slow uptake view is shared by the geophysicists, geochemists and ocean scientists who have made extensive studies of the world’s overall carbon budget. Notable among this group are Wallace S. Broecker, Taro Takahashi, and associates of Lamont Doherty Geological Observatory and Columbia University, C.D. Keeling and associates of Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Minze Stuiver of University of Washington, and H. Oeschger and U. Siegenthaler of Switzerland.

An article published in Science 26 October 1979 by Broecker and his associates notes that “several versions of recent atmosphere-ocean models appear to give reliable and mutually consistent estimates for carbon dioxide uptake by the oceans calling for a modest increase in the size of the terrestrial biosphere order to achieve a balance in the carbon budget.” These workers further provide hard data on the distribution of carbon isotopes between various carbon reservoirs which provide constraints on the size of the known carbon reservoirs. The authors also note that Woodwell rapid uptake hypothesis and deforestation estimate demands that between one third and one-half of all the tropical forest would have disappeared in the last two decades, which should be more readily apparent if true. (Projected at a constant rate per year rather than at the exponential rate of growth exhibited by the CO2 buildup, one notes that Woodwell’s hypothesized deforestation rate would result in complete elimination of’ tropical forest cover in two or three more decades.) In resolving the apparent carbon budget contradiction, Broeckerl’s group concluded that “regrowths of previously cut forests and enhancement of forest growth resulting from excess CO2 the atmosphere have probably roughly balanced the rate of forest destruction during the past few decades.”

While the controversy over deforestation and ocean uptake is not yet settled to everyone’s satisfaction, majority scientific opinion seems to strongly favor the slow-uptake school of thought. With slow uptake by oceans, there is no safe allowable rate of CO2 output which could prevent temperature thresholds from being reached. Rather every single contribution of CO2 is likely to have a long-lasting effect. Acceptance of the slow uptake theory shifts the social concern from slowing the rate of CO2 production to limiting the total amount of CO2 produced from the combustion of fossil fuels.

Citation: Barbat, W. 1979. Will impacts remain for one generation or thirty?  ‘Tropical Deforestation’ issue seeks the answer. CO2 Newsletter, Vol 1. No. 2 p. 3

Annotations:

This is vintage Barbat – the ability to synthesise a large amount of information, summarise ongoing scientific debates in clear and judicious language. It looks easy, but then playing tennis like Roger Federer looks easy.

The Broecker article is  Fate of Fossil Fuel Carbon Dioxide and the Global Carbon Budget | Science

W S Broecker, T Takahashi, H J Simpson, T H Peng. 1979. Fate of fossil fuel carbon dioxide and the global carbon budget Oct 26;206(4417):409-18. doi: 10.1126/science.206.4417.409.

The Dahlem Conference was this – Global chemical cycles and their alterations by man : report of the Dahlem Workshop on Global Chemical Cycles and their Alterations by Man, Berlin 1976, November 15-19

Categories
United States of America

January 29, 1968 – LBJ talking about supersonic flight. 

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, January 29th, 1968,

Far from deploring the possible damage to people and property, the  President of the United States, on January 29, 1968, proposed the spending of $351 million for the development of a supersonic liner in fiscal 1969; this represented $223 million in new appropriation. l8 318 feet long, is designed to carry 300 passengers at 1800 miles per hour. It was estimated by Senator Clifford P. Case of New Jersey that the U. S. 19 supersonic transport fleet may eventually number from 200 to 1200 planes.

Concerned physicists have supplied us with information about the generation of a boom that is unavoidable for any object which travels in the air at a speed exceeding that of sound. The sonic boom produced by a supersonic transport plane accompanies the plane throughout its supersonic flight path; thus, a single flight across the U. S. would affect 10 to 40 million people. 

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19690009717/downloads/19690009717.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that in June 1963 JFK said yes to SST. 

June 5, 1963  – JFK says yes to SST – All Our Yesterdays

The specific context was Lyndon Johnson was on his way out. It was an election year, and there had been a growing “Dump Johnson” movement in the Democrats. There was also the small matter of the war in Vietnam, which wasn’t going so well…

What I think we can learn from this is that there was huge opposition to supersonic travel (sonic booms etc etc) and concerns about ozone depletion and climatic impacts were a part of all that.

What happened next Johnson had to declare he wouldn’t contest the 1968 election. In 1970 Congress basically killed supersonic transport, de facto if not de jure. This led, amusingly, to the creation of the Heritage Foundation…

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: 

January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift

January 29, 2004 – John Daly, Australian skeptic, dies

January 29, 2006 – Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

Categories
CO2 Newsletter CO2 Newsletter commentary

“An air of hopefulness and conviction that now feels enviable” – Dr Abi Perrin on the C02 Newsletter Vol . 1, no.2

From 1979 to 1982 American geologist William N. Barbat published 18 issues of the CO2 Newsletter. His family have kindly supplied copies and given permission for these to be digitised and shared. Every three weeks or so, an issue will be uploaded. To accompany each issue there will be a brief commentary. For the second issue, Dr Abi Perrin (see interview here) has written with her customary clarity, insight and honesty.

Dr Abi Perrin

The second installment of William Barbat’s CO2 newsletter continues his mission to “aid enlightenment on the CO2 problem, to promote constructive and timely solutions, to reduce disagreement and to encourage cooperation”. It expands on the warnings distilled in the first issue and continues to cut through the noise of scientific discussions ongoing at the time, summarising them succinctly and effectively. 

Barbat brings the role of ecosystems such as forests and oceans into focus, turning attention to the attractive idea that natural carbon sinks could “relegate the CO2 problem to a reversible status”. Detailing how a growing consensus amongst scientists was unfortunately not so optimistic, he surmises that “there is no safe allowable rate of CO2 output which could prevent temperature thresholds from being reached. Rather every single contribution of CO2 is likely to have a long-lasting effect.” 

With an air of hopefulness and conviction that now feels enviable, Barbat seems confident that the dawn of the 1980s would be an inflection point, stating that his newsletter intends to be “informative of an impending revolutionary change to leaders in government and industry.”  He celebrates the presentation of a report (an “impartial examination of the validity of CO2 forecasts”) to President Carter’s science adviser as a moment of progress: the next step towards the consideration of global warming in US energy policy. 

Amidst optimism, he is not blind to some of the hurdles on the route to action and change. “The revolutionary energy policies which are now being considered by the scientific community to bring the CO2 buildup to an early halt would require much more cooperation between government and business than appears to exist”, he acknowledges. In his discussions of carbon sinks and their capacity (or lack thereof) to reverse the “CO2 problem” he seems to realise how alluring the more convenient or comforting ‘interpretations’ of the science can be, in a way that feels prescient of many of the popular narratives that have delayed necessary accountability and action to this day. 

Looking back from 2026, a time where a rapid worldwide transition to renewable power is considered feasible and highly cost-effective, Barbat’s skepticism about the future of wind and solar is one thing that ages his writing. But perhaps the biggest is this: “Fortunately, the CO2 problem has not become an adversary issue. This issue is being treated rationally in the scientific community, in the news media, and in politics.”  He identifies apathy as a problem – that’s still with us, but 46 years later we also have to contend with widespread, mounting adversariality and irrationality. In recent months we’ve seen not just denial but effective censorship of basic climate science in the US, while in UK newspapers the volume of editorials attacking climate action overtook those supporting it.  Meanwhile global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise defiantly, we continue to trash the lands and oceans that buffer us from even-more-deadly impacts, and announcements that we have passed specific points-of-no-return receive little attention. 

There were many passages and statements in this newsletter that are frustrating and depressing by virtue of their relevance and repetition ever since. Lurking in one of the ‘Excerpts from recent reports’ was this one: “The problem facing us today is this: When should the studying stop and political action begin?” To see this kind of sentiment expressed a decade before I was born, 30 years before I cheerfully embarked on a career in scientific research, felt especially jarring. A very similar question motivated my exit from academia: was I describing a dying world at the expense of acting to protect it?

Reading these CO2 newsletters caused me to ask myself another uncomfortable question, about the communication work I’m involved with now: am I replicating the approach Barbat and others took for decades, but expecting different results? Concerted action on climate and nature must be empowered and underpinned by knowledge, but even with deadly impacts on our doorstep we cannot put our faith in awareness alone leading to proportionate, rational responses. 

See also a commentary on the first issue by Professor Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Universities of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala (Sweden).

I have a list of people I am inviting to provide commentaries (you may be on it – nominate yourselves or other people!) I would send a pdf of the relevant issue and you read it then write (or draw? make a video? a song?) 600-900 words in response, to be published just after the issue goes up.

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Science Scientists United Kingdom United States of America

January 28, 1990 –  Stephen Schneider and the dirty crystal ball.

Thirty six years ago, on this day, January 28th, 1990.

Another reviewer of the Gribbin book, William Goulding (The Sunday Times, 28 January, 1990), quotes the late climate scientist and climate science communicator Stephen Schneider as saying: “scientific predictions are like ‘trying to gaze into a dirty crystal ball. By taking time to clean the glass you can get a better picture; but at some point it is necessary to decide that the picture is good enough to alert policy makers and the general public to the hazards ahead. That point has certainly been reached with studies of the greenhouse effect and the prospect of rising sea levels in particular.’” Unfortunately, that point seems to be forever receding into the future… 

https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/makingsciencepublic/2018/08/11/groundhog-day-in-the-hothouse

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that scientists had been measuring the impact of human activities, whether it was on air pollution, water pollution, ozone depletion, you name it, and had been trying to figure out how to raise the alarm without being called alarmist, and pondering where, when and how to speak out. 

So you have the famous Shelly Rowland quote 

“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”

Stephen Schneider was among them. In 1971 famously, he had co-authored a paper that got taken up as a when’s the new ice age happening, kind of thing to the dismay of some of his colleagues. I think it’s fair to say that Schneider leaned in. In 1976 he published the Genesis Strategy, He’d been on Johnny Carson (TV show). See also his efforts around the First World Climate Conference (Science as a contact sport)

The specific context was that the IPCC’s first assessment report was due out. (The IPCC had had its first meeting in November 1988). Meanwhile negotiations were clearly at some point going to begin for an international climate treaty. So here is Schneider, who was a very smart man, very thoughtful, trying to figure out when you pull the big lever. 

You can also see him tackling the same issues about 10 years prior, in a 1979 Panorama video. I would love to know when this video was; I haven’t been able to track it down.

Stephen Schneider in 1979

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists get flattened by industry and their paid attack dogs (and also by useful idiots).

What happened next

Schneider kept on trucking – his death was a huge huge loss

See also this from July 14 1988 Los Angeles Times –

Ozone Warning : He Sounded Alarm, Paid Heavy Price – Los Angeles Times

The interest was gratifying but more than a little ironic. “They won’t admit it but this means some kind of ban has been lifted,” Rowland said.

For as Rowland and others recount it, ever since 1974, when he and UCI postdoctoral fellow Mario Molina first theorized that the Earth’s protective ozone layer was being damaged by synthetic chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), Rowland has paid a price for his ideas.

In part, that’s because Rowland didn’t just make his discovery, write up the results and quietly return to his lab.

Instead, shocked by the implications of his research, he took an unusual public stance–doggedly telling reporters, Congress, half a dozen state legislatures, and just about anyone who seemed interested that ozone loss could lead to skin cancer and catastrophic climatic change. And, again and again for more than a decade, he urged that CFCs be banned.

In doing so, Rowland took on a $28-billion-a-year industry whose products, ranging from home insulating materials to solvents for electronic equipment, have become an essential part of modern life.

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: 

January 28, 1969 – Santa Barbara Oil spill

January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick

January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK

Categories
CO2 Newsletter

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe” – C02 Newsletter, Vol. 1, no. 2 editorial

The eighteen issues of the CO2 Newsletter, published between 1979 and 1982 by American geologist William Barbat are heart-breakers. Here, laid out in plain language, buttressed by the latest research, were almost all of our dilemmas. Alongside publishing the 18 issues through the course of the year, and inviting various people to write commentaries, I’ll be putting up the editorials, selections from the “excerpts of recent reports” and at least one of the deeply-researched articles Barbat wrote per issue (often there were two).

First up, the editorial from Vol 1. no. 2, December 1979.

“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe” – H.G. Wells

Editorial

The CO2 Newsletter’s editorial goals are to aid enlightenment on the CO2 problem, to promote constructive and timely solutions, to reduce disagreement and to encourage cooperation.

The many persons who continue to send articles are to be thanked for their contribution toward enlightenment. Ideas for constructive solutions are just now being formed as the CO2 issue emerges from scientific laboratories to reach the political and industrial worlds. While scientist disagreement is declining with the acquisition of new data, much disagreement exists in the political world over what national energy policy should be and what should be the role of industrial establishments in carrying it out. The revolutionary energy policies which are now being considered by the scientific community to bring the CO2 buildup to an early halt would require much more cooperation between government and business than appears to exist. Unwarranted hostility and intolerance directed towards energy companies for political gain make it difficult to address the CO2 problem effectively and early.

American businesses have not been wholly oblivious to the CO2 problem in the past. In a well-researched comprehensive report on the environmental aspects of energy production published nearly a decade ago (May 1970) in the Westinghouse Engineer James H. Wright noted that the CO2 buildup should be given consideration as a serious environmental concern.

Corporations which have diverted income from oil revenues to the production of nuclear fuels have come under political attack for attempting to monopolize energy production, when that is the least likely motive. The costly Barnwell nuclear-fuel reprocessing plant has not been allowed to operate after apparently receiving governmental approval while the investments were being made. Well-meaning detractors have been able to delay construction of nuclear plants, and rate commissions often have shifted the heavy financial burden of the delays solely to the utility owners

At this stage, recriminations would be counterproductive. We would be wise to learn from past mistakes and close ranks to prepare for the difficult task of halting the CO2 buildup.

Citation: Barbat, W. (1979) “Editorial” CO2 Newsletter, Vol. 1, No 2, p. 2

Further reading and viewing

Barnwell – the song by Gil Scott-Heron!

Gil Scott Heron – South Carolina (Barnwell)

Wright, J. 1970. Electric Power Generation and the Environment. Westinghouse Engineer. May, pp.66-80. Westinghouse-Engineer-1970-05.pdf

Categories
United States of America

January 27, 1888 – National Geographic Society incorporated

On this day, January 27, in 1888

“The National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel and exploration.[8] On January 13, 1888, 33 explorers and scientists gathered at the Cosmos Club, a private club then located on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., to organize “a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks later on January 27. Gardiner Greene Hubbard (co-founder of AT&T) became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell (also co-founder of AT&T), succeeded him in 1897.[9]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 294ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that through the 19th century, with advances in transport, communications, the ability to measure and detect the “Golden Age”, if you want to call it that, of colonialism and also industrial depredations. Outfits like the National Geographic Society sprang up to record what was out there so it could either be exploited or protected. The two are not mutually exclusive.  

What I think we can learn from this is that institutions have histories. They are formed by real human beings in response to challenges/conditions which may no longer pertain.

What happened next

It kept going and did some nice magazines.  Climate change has been “in the mix” in those magazines. Not enough, obviously, but eh, whaddyagonnado.?

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

January 27, 1967 – James Lovelock told to keep schtum about climate change by Shell science boss

January 27, 1989 – UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27, 1986 – Engineers try to stop NASA launching the (doomed) Challenger Space Shuttle

Categories
Activism United States of America

January 26, 2006 – Major Climate March by vulnerable minorities in the USA  

Twenty years ago on this day, January 26th, 2006, a climate protest march took place in Washington DC.

Nation’s snowmen march against global warming https://www.theonion.com/nations-snowmen-march-against-global-warming-1819568251

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that for decades – centuries – civil society has ignored the most. vulnerable groups. It is only when those vulnerable groups can come together, form coalitions and make a “critical mass” that they will be paid any attention.

The specific context was that by 2006 it was clear that climate change would not be dealt with unless the state and corporations were forced into it. This was a noble but doomed effort by a minority, very endangered group to make that happen. Perhaps they should have tried seizing the means of production.

What I think we can learn from this is that you have to take a stand, even if you’re doomed.

What happened next

Well, the movement just kind of melted away

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

January 26, 1970 – British PM offers US a “new special relationship” on pollution. (Conservative then tries to outflank him.)

January 26, 1972 – “Enhance Oil Recovery” with carbon dioxide kicks off.