Fifty nine years ago, on this day, June 25th, 1967,
Broadcasting of the first live global satellite television program: Our World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_World_(1967_TV_program)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 322ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that television had been invented in 1927 and there had been a certain amount of TV before World War Two, but then it had been stopped for the duration of the war. And after the war for 10 years, there was only the BBC, but then Independent Television started in the mid late 50s, and at the same time, in 1957 the BBC ran a live-from-the-studio presentation called The Restless Sphere. This was a triumph for the science unit under Aubrey Singer, and here we see Singer’s next big leap, a satellite broadcast just before colour television got going.
What I think we can learn is this: the idiot’s lantern has a global reach.
What happened next: A lot more television! On 1988 there was an Australian satellite link up for “Greenhouse 88”.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
June 25, 1990 – Ecologically Sustainable Development paper released
June 25, 1996 – Wall Street Journal pretends to be a newspaper
June 25, 2002, 2003 and 2008 – CCS’s first hype cycle builds
June 25, 2003 – the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum is created