Fifty six years ago, on this day, August 10th, 1970,
Refers to the appeal made at the Lindau meeting of Nobel Laureates for help with restoration and maintenance of a healthy environment. Invites Bragg to join the international forum as a co-founder; comments on this. Would welcome evidence of Bragg’s interest even if Bragg cannot give his active co-operation.
Date: 10 Aug. 1970
Held by: Royal Institution of Great Britain, not available at The National Archives
International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Reference: W.L. BRAGG/32F/1
Title: International Scientific Academy for the Protection of Life, for Environment & Biopolitics (H.A.Schwiegart) to [Lawrence Bragg]
Description: Luxembourg
2/3 page, duplicated
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 325ppm. 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 was there had been a brief, a brief flurry of concern in the late 40s about the ecological consequences of population growth and modern and industrialization, but this had been tamped down, more broadly as part of the whole McCarthyist wave. The groups that would have critiqued industrialism were too busy fighting off attempts to destroy them and deport them, and so forth.
The specific context was that it was only when the New Left had been going for a few years that you really got ecological critiques from people like Murray Bookchin (the liberal version of this, was Rachel Carson). Then, from 1968-69 onwards, a more broad critique of the consequences of industrialization and population growth became tolerably well-known and tolerated within mainstream circles, some of it quite worrying in its implications. Anyway, two years before the Limits to Growth here we see a whole bunch of scientists saying, “look, this is really serious.”
What I think we can learn from this is that history “remembers” specific documents and “disregards the rest,” to quote Paul Simon.
The job of a historian is to try to give context to people, events, and so forth, you can overdo that as well.
Also, this letter would be a useful thing to point out to the critics of limits of growth, and so forth, when they try to talk about that book, that report, in isolation from all the other concerns, as if it was only that book making the case.
What happened next. These sorts of warnings and reports, which had already happened in 1969 just kept coming, kept being ignored, kept coming, kept being ignored. The emissions climbed, the atmospheric concentrations climbed, the list of extinct species climbed, and of course many species were never discovered in time to be on the list before they were wiped out by the consequences of human activity.
As Kurt Vonnegut said, “so it goes.”
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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:
August 10, 1974 – Stockholm conference on climate modelling ends
August 10, 1978 – Ford Pinto deaths spark class action lawsuit
August 10, 1980 – “Energy, Climate and the Future” seminar in Melbourne
August 10, 2000 – States’ greenhouse gas failure