Fifty six years ago, on this day, May 6th, 1969,
Dunbavin Butcher gave a speech to a Legacy luncheon in Melbourne – reported in the Age the following day (see below). Mentions c02 build-up!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by the mid-late 1960s it wasn’t just pointy-headed meteorologists and climatologists thinking about carbon dioxide build-up. It was also oceanographers, biologists etc. One reason for this was the 1966 book “Science and Survival” by Barry Commoner.
What I think we can learn from this. We knew. The problem is not knowledge, information, it is – as per Sven Lindqvist’s opening to Exterminate The Brutes – courage.
It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions. Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes
What happened next
Through the 1970s and 1980s the carbon dioxide issue was being tracked. And it finally “broke through” in 1988. Then the denial campaigns – astonishingly successful – kicked in. Essentially, the species decided to let itself die. But the act of letting itself die has also doomed countless other species. Berserk hairless murder apes – what can you do?
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 6, 1997 – The so-called “Cooler Heads” coalition created
May 6, 2004 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard meets business, to kill renewables