Fifty seven years ago, on this day, October 28th, 1968
“Both the United States and the Soviet Union have privately expressed a strong interest in the project.
Foell, E. 1968. Sweden to Ask U.N. for World Pollution Talks: Parley in 1972 Urged . Los Angeles Times; October 28, pg. 28.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 323ppm. 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 Sweden had had its “environmental turn” in late 1967, and some Swedish diplomats had begun to push for the UN to hold a conference on the environment.
The specific context was that after lots of fancy footwork, and ultimate buy-in from the US and USSR (though they would later boycott it), the conference was about to get the go ahead.
What I think we can learn from this – Sweden punched above its weight for a while there.
What happened next – the conference took place in June 1972. Very few world leaders attended and the only really substantive thing to come out of it, afaik, was the creation of the United Nations Environment Program. UNEP and WMO co-sponsored, along with ICSU, various scientific meetings about the atmosphere and pollution, including the pivotal one in Villach, Austria in October 1985.
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: