On this day forty one years ago, American scientist John Perry reviewed four books about climate change for Nature.
Man-Made Carbon Dioxide and Climatic Change: A Review of the Scientific Problems. By P.S. Liss and A.J. Crane. Geo Books, Regency House, 34 Duke Street, Norwich NR3 3AP, UK: 1983. Pp.127. Hbk £8.50, $17;pbk £3.95, $7.80.
Carbon Dioxide — Emissions and Effects (Report No. ICTIS/TR18). By Irene M. Smith. IEA Coal Research, 14–15 Lower Grosvenor Place, London SW1W 0EX: 1982. Pp.132. £10 (IEA countries), £20 (elsewhere).
Climate and Energy Systems: A Review of their Interactions By Jill Jäger. Wiley: 1983. Pp.231. £19.95, $39.95.
Our Threatened Climate: Ways of Averting the CO2 Problem through Rational Energy Use By Wilfrid Bach. Reidel: 1983. Pp.368. $29, Dfl. 95, £24.25.
Perry, J. Much ado about CO2. Nature 311, 681–682 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/311681a0
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 345ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. 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 by the early 1980s the evidence was basically in, as far as the scientists were concerned.
Carbon dioxide trapped heat.
Carbon dioxide was building up in the atmosphere.
More heat would be trapped.
You can make it more complex if you like…
The specific context was that the climate issue wasn’t going away, just because Reagan and Thatcher were ignoring it…
What I think we can learn from this – we knew plenty.
What happened next –
See Lord Ashby in House of Lords a few days later (am blogging it)
Also on this day
October 18, 1973 – “how on earth do you stop using fossil fuels?”
October 18, 1974 – Weinberg’s “Global Effects of Man’s Production of Energy” published
October 18, 1983 – All US news networks run “greenhouse effect” stories
October 18, 1983- US news networks tell the truth about #climate. Yes, 1983.