Fifty five years ago, on this day, June 23rd, 1970
“Air pollution could tend to raise the Earth’s temperature and may make carbon dioxide, the most invisible product of combustion and respiration, the most important pollutant of them all.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 324ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that the awareness that environmental problems were global rather than local had been growing for a decade or so (Rachel Carson etc) and had powered up in 1968 and 1969.
The specific context was that the Australian Senate had held hearings (and produced a report, released in September 1969) about Air Pollution. One was on the way on water pollution too. Books were being published, documentaries shown…
What I think we can learn is this: in this period, carbon dioxide was being mentioned as a potential problem…
What happened next: It would be 1988 before politicians were forced to pretend to be aware of/care about the issue. And forty years after that, there are still plenty who can’t be bothered to even pretend…
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
June 23, 1969 – Cuyahoga river catches fire. Again –
June 23, 1980 – G7 in Venice aims to sink Venice…
June 23, 1988 – it’s time to stop waffling and say the greenhouse effect is here
June 23, 1989 – Richo gonna save the world…
June 23, 1991 – Japanese propose pledge and review