Ninety six years ago, on this day, December 30th, 1931,
On Wednesday December 30 1931, Dr Robert Innes an astronomer and meteorologist gave a speech at a meeting of the British Astronomical Association, pointing to carbon dioxide released when coal and petrol were burned as a cause of current and future warming.
Anon, 1931. No More Cold Winters. News Chronicle, December 31, p.1
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 308ppm. 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 Arrhenius’s theory of carbon dioxide build-up had been dismissed by some. Others still thought it had merit (reader, it did).
The specific context was that Innes was a fascinating, self-taught figure. He also seemed to have thought that carbon dioxide from comets was a cause of the warming.
What I think we can learn from this – carbon dioxide was being mentioned a reasonable amount. It’s not clear Guy Callendar knew about/paid attention to Innes…
What happened next – Innes died a couple of years after this, before Callendar’s pivotal (in retrospect only) presentation to the Royal Meteorological Society in early 1938.
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:
December 30, 1957 – a letter from Gilbert Plass to Guy Callendar
December 30, 1976 – President Jimmy Carter is lobbied about #climate change