On this day, 3 August 1970, the first report of the Council on Environmental Quality was delivered to Preside Nixon. It contained a chapter on inadvertent weather modification, carbon dioxide build-up and icecaps melting.
The CEQ had been set up as part of the legislative process that had gathered momentum under Johnson and come to fruition by late 1969.
By early 1970s, folks were going “you know, this really might become a problem.” By the mid-late 1970s the smarter ones dropped the “might”…
What happened next?
The CEQ didn’t return to the climate issue until Carter, best I can tell. And then Gus Speth, as its boss, got cracking with getting things moving, having been nudged by Gordon MacDonald and Rafe Pomerance of Friends of the Earth.
Gordon MacDonald had already been writing about this stuff (see his chapter in the Nigel Calder book). He would go on to be important in the fight against synfuels.
On this day, July 29 1974 a World Meteorological Organisation conference on climate modelling began, running until 10 August.
As Bert Bolin (one of THE key figures) wrote in the foreword-
At the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm in June 1972, it was emphasized that the earth’s climate is of basic importance to man and his well-being. Climatic variability and possible change are still essentially unpredictable although they are significant factors in the continued development of both industrialized and developing countries. Some of the most important problems that confront us were very well summarized in the SMIC report “Study of Man’s Impact on Climate”, (1) which was available at the UN conference and served as an important reference document. In recommendation 79d of the conference, it was recommended that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in co-operation with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) “continue to carry out the GARP (Global Atmospheric Research Programme) to better understand the general circulation of the atmosphere, the causes of climatic change and whether these causes are natural or the result of man’s activities”.
At its eighth session in London in March 1973, the JOC considered in detail the role of GARP for studies of climate and its fluctuations. It was proposed that the next step towards an active programme would be the organization of an International Study Conference on the Physical Basis of Climate and Climate Modelling….
The conference was held at Wijk outside Stockholm during the period 29 July to 10 August 1974 with a total attendance of about 70 scientists from different parts of the world. Their devoted work during two weeks has resulted in the present report.
These were the building blocks – between 1970 and 1975 – when climate scientists patiently assembled the evidence, debated, refined. By about 1976/7 it was pretty clear what was coming, just a question of when (how fast, in what order). They did try to warn the politicians. And some of the politicians kinda sorta listened a bit.
What happened next?
The scientists kept at it. (Impact) Science is very very cool.. Some joined the dots, understood the implications, quicker than others. By 1979 the smarter ones were getting quite nervous….
WMO started already in the 1970’s to concentrate more than before on climate problems. An Executive Committee panel on Climate Change was established in 1975, with Dr. Bill Gibbs from Australia as Chairman, and CCL, under the chairmanship of Helmut Landsberg, from 1973, re-oriented its effort towards environmental problems related to climate. About the same time, in 1974, the Global Atmospheric Research Program had a meeting in Stockholm in order to agree on which problems related to climate that should be of main interest to this program in the next few years. In fact the meeting discussed the fundamental question to change the classical approach to climate studies from the statistical one towards a more physically-oriented one. In fact in the Stockholm Conference on the Physics of Climate in 1974, the numerical forecasting modelers who had worked for about ten years or more on modeling the general circulation of the atmosphere were now interested in trying to apply similar mathematical approaches to the global circulation of the atmosphere and to other aspects of understanding of the future climate. It would then be possible to clarify what could be expected to happen on the globe, if the increase of the carbon dioxide from human emissions from burning fossil fuel would continue without change. The Global Atmospheric Research Program, when it had been accepted by the U.N. in 1962, included a proposal for a program divided into two parts: one on the experiment to improve the weather forecasting on the basis of increased observations around the globe. This experiment, proposed for about ten years by Bo Doos in WMO, had in 1974, reached a stage where it could be expected to take place within the next five years. For that reason, Dr. Bert Bolin, who was in charge of the Global Atmospheric Research Program, thought that it was timely to start with the second part of the GARP program, namely the climate part. This was the basic reason why the Conference in Stockholm in 1974 was called and the physical foundations of climate were established.
On this day, 23 July 1979, the “Ad Hoc Study Group on C02 and Climate” begins at Woods Hole, giving us the “Charney Report.”
Short version – a scientist (Gordon MacDonald) and a Friends of the Earth activist (Rafe Pomerance) had managed to get President Jimmy Carter’s science advisor (Frank Press) to get Carter to request a study on whether this “greenhouse effect” thing was gonna actually be the problem some were saying.
So folks met, under the leadership of one of the big original beasts of atmospheric science, Jule Charney.
The scientists summoned by Jule Charney to judge the fate of civilization arrived on July 23, 1979, with their wives, children and weekend bags at a three-story mansion in Woods Hole, on the southwestern spur of Cape Cod. They would review all the available science and decide whether the White House should take seriously Gordon MacDonald’s prediction of a climate apocalypse. The Jasons had predicted a warming of two or three degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century, but like Roger Revelle before them, they emphasized their reasons for uncertainty. Charney’s scientists were asked to quantify that uncertainty. They had to get it right: Their conclusion would be delivered to the president. But first they would hold a clambake.
They gathered with their families on a bluff overlooking Quissett Harbor and took turns tossing mesh produce bags stuffed with lobster, clams and corn into a bubbling caldron. While the children scrambled across the rolling lawn, the scientists mingled with a claque of visiting dignitaries, whose status lay somewhere between chaperone and client — men from the Departments of State, Energy, Defense and Agriculture; the E.P.A.; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They exchanged pleasantries and took in the sunset. It was a hot day, high 80s, but the harbor breeze was salty and cool. It didn’t look like the dawning of an apocalypse.
Why this matters.
“We” really knew enough by the late 70s. Everything since then has been footnotes.
What happened next?
Carter lost the 1980 election, handsomely. It would be another 8 years before the simulacrum of international action began.
On this day, July 19 in 1976, as drought grips the UK, US scientists are pondering.
“In any market, nervousness reflects uncertainty-and there are few things as uncertain as the weather. “We just can’t confidently predict long-range trends in climate,” says Murray Mitchell, a climatologist at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Washington. Mitchell and other specialists have advanced several theories to explain why droughts occur-and they range from speculation about sunspot cycles to a possible tilting of the earth’s axis. One notion holds that man himself is altering the climate with pollution. By burning fossil fuels, the theory runs, the industrialized world adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, creating a “greenhouse effect.” The carbon dioxide traps the sun’s heat, raising temperatures on the earth’s surface. “If we’re still rolling along on fossil fuels by the end of the century,” Mitchell warns, “then we’ve had it.”
Mayer, A. (1976) A World Praying for Rain. Newsweek, July 19, page 66.
Why this matters.
Again, by the late 1970s, we knew enough…
What happened next?
By the late 1970s, the scientific reports were piling up. Carter paid a little attention. Then along came Reagan. And Thatcher…
A sequel (the body count is always higher, the deaths more elaborate) to a 2009 scientific conference, it came as the fractious public debate about an emissions trading scheme (dubbed, brilliantly, “the great big tax on everything” by the wrecking ball disguised as an Opposition Leader that was Tony Abbott) was coming to a head.
The conference was briefly marred by some Lndon La Rouche nutjobs who brandished a noose and called Hans Joachim Schellnhuber a “Nazi.” Yeah, you keep being you, guys.
“ world-leading researchers gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, concluded their presentations about human influence on climate, and opened the meeting to questions from the press. But rather than asking about the most important climate meeting yet, the assembled reporters first looked to the meeting’s 26-year old secretary. “Where is Dr. Schneider? When is the ice age coming?” they asked.” [source]
Stephen Schneider (RIP)’s baptism of fire, because he had co-authored a paper with dodgy assumptions, that suggested that lots more pollution could trigger.. an Ice Age.
Steve Schneider (left), Jim Hansen (centre), and S. Ichtiaque Rasool (right) at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, circa 1971.
Why this matters.
It gets hauled out by denialists as “evidence” that climate science is a grift. Maybe they still do this? I stopped paying attention to them quite a while back. Life is short.
What happened next?
Schneider did what scientists should do – listened to criticism, checked his numbers and assumptions and realised that the big long-term problem was carbon dioxide. And until his death in 2010, he performed his task with intelligence, wit and vigour.
On this day, June 18 1976 the UK Meteorological Office’s director, John S. Sawyer, replied to a request from the Cabinet Office. Two days earlier they’d asked for his take on Reid Bryson, a prominent US atmospheric scientist. Bryson was predicting imminent climate change (but NOT from the build up of carbon dioxide, which he considered a non-issue.
Sawyer was scathing – Bryson was “completely misleading and alarmist”.
The context is that by the mid-70s, with a series of “weird weather events” (including the 1976 drought, then underway), policymakers were beginning to wonder if something was up with the weather.
In 1976, the Cabinet Office wrote to the Meteorological Office’s director of research, John S. Sawyer, asking for his views on Bryson’s work. Bryson is ‘‘completely misleading and alarmist,’’ replied Sawyer only two days later, and, he continued, ‘‘the evidence that a permanent climatic change of significant magnitude is in train is at best exceedingly sketchy.’’42
J. S. Sawyer to D. C. Thomas, 18 Jun 1976, KEW, CAB 164/1379 Martin-Nielson, 2018 Computing the Climate
Why this matters.
We need to remember that it wasn’t a straight line, that carbon dioxide build-up was only one of the ways that scientists thought the weather could change. That uncertainty can be hard to recollect in the aftermath of 1985 onwards…
What happened next?
Bryson refused to accept that carbon dioxide was driving observed climatic changes. These things happen – people don’t like to admit they backed the wrong horse.
A report on climatic change finally got presented to Margaret Thatcher in 1980. Apparently her response was incredulity and “you want me to worry about the weather.” And this, from a chemist.
On this day, June 10, 1986, climate scientist Robert Watson told United States Senators the grim news…
“I believe global warming is inevitable. It is only a question of the magnitude and the timing “
The context was that in October 1985 there had been a crucial meeting of scientists in Villach, Austria. It had been sponsored by the World Meteorological Organisation, the United Nations Environment Program and the ICSU. The scientists had realised that predicted warming was likely to come harder and faster than they had been assuming. They started alerting politicians who were willing to listen (some of whom had already been engaged). Crucially, this included Republican senators (the party had completely swigged the Kool Aid yet).
“More members of Congress became interested in climate change following Senate hearings of June 1986. In these hearings a NASA scientist, Robert Watson, testified that `I believe global warming is inevitable. It is only a question of the magnitude and the timing ‘(SCEPW, 1986b, p. 22). The statement was picked up by major papers such as the New York Times and Washington Post briefly elevating what had been a relatively obscure scientific topic to national prominence. Administration officials testified before the Senate committee the next day. In general, the officials from EPA, Commerce, NASA, State, and Energy tried to downplay the significance of Watson’s comments, which only served to bring them into sharper relief. Following the testimony of the administration officials Senator John Chafee summarized the hearings as follows: `It was the scientists yesterday who sounded the alarm, and it was the politicians, or the government witnesses, who put the damper on it’ (SCEPW, 1986b, pp. 183}184). Chafee’s comments were an accurate characterization of the developing relationship between many in Congress who sought to heed the scientists’ alarm and those in the executive branch who tried to dampen it.”
(Pielke, 2000: 16-7)
See also Washington Post retrospective in 2016 very very explicit issue linkage – Pomerance acting as policy entrepreneur linking issues, at behest of Curtis Moore- see Nathaniel Rich Losing Earth
Why this matters
Good to know the scientists were speaking out before the magic years of 1988.
And that the administration was trying to gag them.
Useless, but good.
What happened next?
The issue stopped being so easily containable in the summer of 1988.
But the policy – of a global treaty – that was fought over, obviously. And as Leonard Cohen warned us “everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows the good guys lost.”
On this day, 6th June 1977, German climate scientist Hermann Flohn gave a talk entitled “Whither the Atmosphere and Earth’s Climates?” At the “Growth without Ecodisasters?” conference, aka “the Second International Conference on Environmental Future (2nd ICEF), held in Reykjavik, Iceland, 5-11 June 1977.”
Among other gems, this –
“There is no question that the impact of Man on the climatic system has now reached a level near to that of natural climatic fluctuations, and that we are on the fringe of anthropogenic climatic fluctuations on a global or at least a hemispheric scale.” “
And this
“The present situation in the field of climate modelling, and the multitude of (mostly non-linear) feedback mechanisms within the climatic system preclude an early solution to problems concerning the prediction of climatic variations, even if we accept the above-mentioned assumptions without further discussion. In addition to this, the growth-rates of energy consumption,. and of the C02 content of the atmosphere and likewise of other trace-gases, depend on many social and economic developments and on political decisions: they are also largely unpredictable.”
You can get hold of a copy of Flohn’s talk here.
Meanwhile, here’s something he had had published a couple of months prior.
Columbia University geologist Wallace S. Broecker May 31 said increased reliance on coal for energy might over the next 50 years raise the average temperature on the earth by four degrees fahrenheit. Broecker’s prediction rested on the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere: CO2 was transparent to incoming sunlight, “but somewhat opaque to outgoing earthlight” (sunlight reflected back out into space, where its heat would be dissipated). Carbon dioxide was produced by coal combustion; burning one ton of coal produced three tons of CO2.
“Coal impact on climate questioned” Facts on File World News Digest July 2, 1977
Four degrees Fahrenheit is just over two degrees Celsius. So, Broecker was wrong, but probably only by a couple of decades…
Broecker had been the first scientist to use the phrase “global warming” in the title of a scientific article. He raised the alarm, kept raising the alarm (see here for his 1980 letter to Democratic senator Paul Tsongas).
Why this matters.
Again, we knew, long before 1988. But it’s a far-off threat, of which we know little, so, you know, life goes on.
What happened next?
We kept on pretending there wasn’t really a problem – or rather, our lords and masters did. Some of us started panicking.
