Thirty years ago, on this day, March 28th, 1995,
27 March 1995, to another Australian audience – “On the greenhouse effect, Sir John suggested that the onus of proof had shifted towards those who denied it”. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-253921166/view?sectionId=nla.obj-259513073&partId=nla.obj-253927437#
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the first IPCC report had come out, and the second was near completion. John Maddox, finally, 25 years after his first attacks on carbon dioxide concerns, was conceding that those worried had been right and he’d been wrong. Not that he put it in those words of course.
The older context was that in 1971 Maddox on a visit to Australia had rubbished worries about carbon dioxide….
What I think we can learn from this is it takes old white men a very long time to change their tune. It’s not clear to me that the former Met Office supremo, John Mason, for example, ever did.
What happened next
The second IPCC report came out saying that there was a discernible influence of human activity. And this word got monstered. The denialists knew enough not to go for Bert Bolin, so they went for Ben Santer instead.
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:
March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched
March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters