Seventy years ago, on this day, September 24th, 1956, the Baltimore Sun ran a p.24 article on “Carbon Dioxide Weather.”
It began “A growing group of American physicists is wondering whether the world’s warming up spell since 1900 may not become permanent, due to man’s own activities.”
It’s mostly based on Gilbert Plass, but also this
“Dr Joseph Kaplan, also formerly at the Hopkins and now at UCLA points out that the rate [of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere] is increasingly steeply with world industrialisation; he thinks the net addition may be as much as 175,000,000,000 tons in twenty years.”
FWIW, the amount of carbon dioxide being tipped into the air in 1976 was…18bn tonnes…
Global CO2 emissions by year 1940-2025| Statista
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 312ppm. 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 there had been some awareness of the world warming up, and also the various theories that might explain it. However, there was no real certainty, and there still wasn’t in ‘56. But what you had since 1953 was Gilbert Plass and others talking about carbon dioxide build-up as a likely reason.
The specific context was that the year before Fleming’s newspaper article John Hutton, the general electric engineer, had given a talk, which had been picked up by many American newspapers, Gilbert Plass was publishing and also Roger Revelle was using the possibility of carbon dioxide build up as a way of getting money out of the International Geophysical Year Fund funders, i.e. the US taxpayer. This was the Baltimore Sun, so Fleming had access to Plass, who was at Johns Hopkins – or had been – and the Baltimore Sun had covered Plass’s 1953 talks, so it would have been in the morgue.
What I think we can learn from this is that from the mid 1950s articles about carbon dioxide build up were appearing in newspapers, this was not a state secret.
What happened next Fleming wrote some more articles. The IGY happened. Carbon dioxide build-up was talked about in the 1950s. People knew.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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:
September 24, 1970 – driving around London….
September 24, 1989 – Petra Kelly disses the Australian Prime Minister
September 24, 1991 – Australian denialist gives “Greenhouse Myths” seminar.
September 24, 1993 – A museum exhibition travels to Pittsburgh
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 312ppm. 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 there had been some awareness of the world warming up, and also the various theories that might explain it. However, there was no real certainty, and there still wasn’t in ‘56. But what you had since 1953 was Gilbert Plass and others talking about carbon dioxide build-up as a likely reason.
The specific context was that the year before Fleming’s newspaper article John Hutton, the general electric engineer, had given a talk, which had been picked up by many American newspapers, Gilbert Plass was publishing and also Roger Revelle was using the possibility of carbon dioxide build up as a way of getting money out of the International Geophysical Year Fund funders, i.e. the US taxpayer. This was the Baltimore Sun, so Fleming had access to Plass, who was at Johns Hopkins – or had been – and the Baltimore Sun had covered Plass’s 1953 talks, so it would have been in the morgue.
What I think we can learn from this is that from the mid 1950s articles about carbon dioxide build up were appearing in newspapers, this was not a state secret.
What happened next Fleming wrote some more articles. The IGY happened. Carbon dioxide build-up was talked about in the 1950s. People knew.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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:
September 24, 1970 – driving around London….
September 24, 1989 – Petra Kelly disses the Australian Prime Minister
September 24, 1991 – Australian denialist gives “Greenhouse Myths” seminar.
September 24, 1993 – A museum exhibition travels to Pittsburgh