Forty five years ago, on this day, October 8, 1978, the Times ran an article, on page 15, about the ice caps melting, based on a Nature article.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that US scientists had produced lots of data and reports that really pointed to a warming world because of carbon dioxide. The World Meteorological Organisation and UNEP were doing the same. The First World Climate Conference was coming up in a few months …
What I think we can learn from this – the Times used to be a real newspaper.
What happened next
We did not act on climate change. And the Antarctic did indeed start to properly melt, as had been hypothesized in 1973. And the West Antarctic ice sheet is exquisitely vulnerable because it is sitting on mountain peaks rather than bedrock.
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.