Forty six years ago, on this day, July 19th, 1979,
“The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide may be accelerated by President Carter’s new-found enthusiasm for synthetic fuel. But the atmospheric ‘crisis’ may come too slowly to bother the politicians, argues Michael Glantz.”
Glantz, M. A political view of CO2. Nature 280, 189–190 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/280189a0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 337ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that through the 1970s scientists got more interested in – and alarmed about – the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In February 1979 the First World Climate Conference had happened in Geneva.
The specific context was that in response to the second oil shock, plans for the US to make shale oil were on the front burner. People like Glantz were part of the move to say “whoa, before you get moving on this, have you thought about the carbon dioxide implications?”
What I think we can learn from this is that by the late 1970s, a moderately well-informed person would have known that there was a better-than-trivial chance of serious trouble ahead.
What happened next is that the better-than-trivial chance happened. Oh well.
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:
July 19, 1968 – “man has already rendered the temperature equilibrium of the globe more unstable.”