Fifty years ago, on this day, November 15th, 1976,
15 Nov 1976 – 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 /
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 331ppm. 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 concern had been building about carbon dioxide emissions through the 60s and into the 70s, and there had been fairly pivotal few meetings about man’s impact on the climate, especially in Sweden in 1971 and then the GARP meeting in 1974. American oceanographer Wally Broecker had had an article published in Science magazine in 1975 and people were getting their heads around the idea.
This conference really brought together a whole bunch of people, mostly European, but not entirely, to study the question.
What I think we can learn from this is that it’s 50 years since we really got our heads around this issue. “We”, being the scientists, politicians, well, you could strongly argue that they still haven’t, and they never will, because it just doesn’t fit their cosmology, and because a lot of them are just thick venal assholes.
What happened next . More conferences, 1977 is the big year where it really kicks off, but unfortunately, all the conferences in the world didn’t lead to emissions reductions, which was what we needed all along.
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:
November 15, 1979 – the FT reports on German concerns about fossil fuel effects.
November 15, 1983 – “Energy Futures and Carbon Dioxide” report…