Fifty six years ago, on this day, July 25th, 1972, Australian journalist Peter Hastings ponders ‘how big is the sink?’
25 July 1972 How Big is the Sink Sydney Morning Herald article abt world resources
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 326ppm. 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 was questions of how much you could exploit fragile eco-systems before they bit your ass were hardly new in Australia.
The specific context was from the late 1960s those questions had been global ones. 1972 had seen the release of Blueprint for Survival and the Limits to Growth, as well as the Stockholm conference. Questions of environmental ‘sustainability’ were still live (though would fade markedly).
What I think we can learn from this – Carbon dioxide was in the mix!!
What happened next – the issue faded by 1973 (fatigue and then the Oil embargo/Price increases).
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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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.
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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:
July 25, 1977 – New York Times front page story “scientists foresee serious climate changes”
July 25, 1989 – “Mineral Fuel Alternatives and the Greenhouse Effect”
July 25, 1996 – Australian PM John Howard as fossil-fuel puppet
July 25, 1997 – US says, in effect, “screw our promises, screw the planet”
July 25, 2001 – Australian Environment Minister says the quiet part out loud about Kyoto
July 25, 2008 – More economic “modelling” against an emissions trading scheme