Forty-three years ago, on this day, May 31st 1981, the British public intellectual Barbara Ward died.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
Barbara Ward, well you can read her Wikipedia page here, had been banging on about development, albeit from a relatively high Tory patrician, paternalistic view and also environmental issues. She was an early popularizer of spaceship Earth. Crucially, so the climate story in 1972, she had co authored with Rene Dubois a book called Only One Earth, about Stockholm conference and environment and it has mentioned CO2 buildup on such and such pages.
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 31 1996 – Rocket Scientist Charlie Sheen uncovers warmist alien conspiracy!!
May 31, 2012, an Australian climate minister makes a song and dance