Fifty seven years ago, on this day, May 18th, 1967, NA Leslie, giving the Presidential Address at Institute of Petroleum, quotes from Barry Commoner’s Science and Survival, and mentions CO2 build- up as a possible problem
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Barry Commoner’s book had come out the previous September. The BBC had shown Challenge in January of 1967 and the oil and gas industries’ own environmental body Concawe had been going since ‘63. And Torrey Canyon had just happened too…
[It would be fascinating to know if Concawe had written anything I don’t know where their records might be but I need to talk about them as a body as well.]
What we learn is that the oil and gas industries were aware of the issue at the time, not at the stage of necessarily wanting to do anything about it.
What happened next is that over the next couple of years the possible problem of carbon dioxide build up became much more broadly known in the UK and US (and to a lesser extent in Australia).
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.
Also on this day:
May 18, 1953 – Newsweek covers climate change. Yes, 1953.
May 18, 1976 – US congress begins hearings on #climate
May 18, 2006- Denialist nutjobs do denialist nutjobbery. Again.