Sixty eight years ago, on this day, August 28th, 1959,
Fuel fumes trap heat
“Another factor, increasing the heat and the humidity is the development of what is called carbon dioxide pollution of the atmosphere.
Years of burning coal, oil and other fuels have added considerably to this pollution – it has increased by 15 p.c. in our atmosphere in the past 50 years – and its effect is to “trap” the heat from the sun’s rays and heat radiated from the ground.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 315ppm. 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 that from 1953 discussion about carbon dioxide build up had been happening in newspapers and scientific meetings. This had been triggered by Gilbert Plass in 1953. He had been building on the work of Tyndall, Arrhenius and Calendar (the work of Eunice Foote was unknown at this time).
The specific context was that there had been some very hot summers and a Met Office head of research, Veryard was intermittently being asked for his opinion about long-term trends. Veryard had already talked on the BBC about this issue and carbon dioxide build up.
What I think we can learn from this is that the Daily Mail was reporting on this stuff and not losing its mind, but it would eventually, of course, lose its mind.
What happened next. Veryard would go on to write more, and then it appears he moved over to the World Meteorological Organisation.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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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 28, 1971 – snarky opinion piece in New York Times. Stephen Schneider rebuts days later
August 28, 1977 – First Australian“Greenpeace” action, against whaling
August 28, 2003 – EPA says Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant