Sixty years ago, on this day, October 17, 1946,
Yale ecologist G. Evelyn Hutchinson delivers a paper on “Circular Causal Systems in Ecology” at a New York Academy of Sciences meeting.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 310.5ppm. 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 in 1938 British steam engineer Guy Callendar had presented his paper at the Royal Meteorological Society in London, and received a fairly lukewarm response.
The specific context was his proposition – that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising thanks to humans burning coal, and this was already causing an identifiable warming – gained the attention of biologists and ecologists as well as meteorologists (the carbon cycle is kinda important, so changes in the amount of carbon – in air or water – matter).
What I think we can learn from this – we need to look for awareness of carbon dioxide build-up NOT JUST among the meteorologists, but also among the ecologists, biologists, oceanographers etc.
What happened next – Hutchinson was a big-wig in the Conservation Foundation (not yet created) and it was on his suggestion that the Conservation Foundation held its meeting in March 1963
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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.
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:
October 17, 1963 – Weather Modification report released
October 17, 1973 – the coup at the Australian Conservation Foundation
October 17, 1987 – CHOGM meeting at which Margaret Thatcher has climate “brought home to her”