Sixty years ago, on this day, September 8, 1966, the Guardian reports on the latest meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science….
The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Thu, 8 Sept 1966 ·
Page 2
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 321ppm. 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 that from the early 1950s the theory of carbon dioxide build-up had gained traction (its modern revival had begun in 1938, thanks to Guy Callendar)
The specific context was that by 1966 noises were being made in the USA about the problem, especially via the President’s Science Advisory Committee.
This was not the first time the issue had been raised at a British Association for the Advancement of Science conference. Peter Ritchie-Calder had already spoken about carbon dioxide build-up as a problem – in 1963.
What I think we can learn from this- people in the UK were aware of the problem by the mid 1960s, which is a bit earlier than I’d really realised when I started this project.
What happened next – John Houghton worked on a variety of things (his biography is very good) and finally, in 1982-3 became head of the Met Office, taking over from John Mason.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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:
September 8, 1972 – Green activist vanishes off face of Earth…
September 8, 1990 – Australian #climate denialist spouting his nonsense…
September 8, 2000 – “Minchin’s Quiet Win”
September 8, 2014 – Lobster boat blockaders have charges dropped.