Sixty years ago, on this day, November 1st, 1965, Fortune magazine flags climate change in an article called “We can afford clean air” by Edmund K. Faltemeyer.
“The tremendous rise in worldwide use of fossil fuels, some authorities say, is putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere faster than plants and ocean can absorb it.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 320ppm. 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 “isn’t the weather odd?” which has been a favourite newspaper and magazine article since, well, newspapers and magazines became a thing. But from the early 1950s, there was a subset that tried to take a longer perspective than just the weather. Thanks to Gilbert Plass (and others – see for example John G. Hutton of General Electric) – carbon dioxide build-up was identified as a possible problem.
The specific context was that 1965 had seen various carbon dioxide stories already: President Lyndon Johnson in February, the publication of Donald E Carr’s “The Breathe of Life” in May, alongside Lewis Herber (aka Murray Bookchin) Cities in Crisis. Then – and Faltemeyer almost certainly did not know about this – in August Carl Borgmann had given a commencement address at University of Tennessee.
What I think we can learn from this – business types were made aware of carbon dioxide build-up earlier than they might have wanted everyone to know.
What happened next – Faltermeyer returned to the carbon dioxide theme in his 1968 book “Redoing America.”
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:
November 1, 1959 – M1 motorway section opened
November 1, 1974 – UK civil servants writing to each other on “Climatology”
November 1, 1975 – Stephen Schneider tries to clear up the “Carbon Dioxide Climate Confusion.”
November 1988 – Australian Mining Journal says C02 is a Good Thing
November 1, 1989 – Senior Australian politician talks on “Industry and Environment”
November 1, 1989 – “Greenhouse Action Australia” launches…
November 1, 2004 – Brilliant “Balance as Bias” article published