Seventy one years ago, on this day, May 24th, 1954,
24 to 26 May 1954 – Eriksson, “Report on an informal conference in atmospheric chemistry held at the Meteorological Institute, University of Stockholm, May 24-26, 1954,” Tellus, 6 (1954)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the question of carbon dioxide build-up had returned to prominence with the 1953 presentation by Gilbert Plass at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting. The Swedes had a lot of expertise in this field, and prestige (Carl Rossby etc).
What I think we can learn from this is that from the early 1950s good scientists were looking at this and going “hmm.”
What happened next. According to Weart (1997) they set up carbon dioxide monitoring stations and just got noise because there were too many forests nearby.
Rossby died too young. The baton was picked up by Bert Bolin and others. For all the good it did us, at a species-level.
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.
One hundred and twenty nine years ago, on this day, December 24th, 1895, Svante Arrhenius explains the work that went in…
“His preliminary calculations showed that the required changes in CO2 were in the order of 50%. Hogbom, who was present, confirmed that those changes could have occurred in geological times. It remained, however, to demonstrate this quantitatively. The construction of the model which enabled him to do so occupied him for most of 1895. Writing to a friend at the end of the year, he found it “unbelievable that so trifling a matter has cost me a full year” (5) ”
Svante Arrhenius to Gustaf Tammann, December 24, 1895, Arrhenius Collection, Center for History of Science, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm in Crawford, E. 1997 Arrhenius’ 1896 Model of the Greenhouse Effect in Context Ambio, Vol. 26, No. 1, Arrhenius and the Greenhouse Gases (Feb., 1997), pp. 6-11
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 295ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Svante Arrhenius had gone through a divorce and partly to distract himself he’d spent a year doing insane calculations about the effects that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 would have. He had produced this work. He had presented this work and it was about to be published.
What we learn is that in the days before ENIAC computers, if you were a mathematician it was like that joke “Did you hear about the constipated mathematician? He had to work it out with a pencil.”
What happened next is his work was kind of disregarded thanks to a misunderstanding of how carbon dioxide works in the stratosphere, but it wasn’t lost altogether because some people took it seriously. Then Guy Callendar did the sums also without a computer and presented that work to the Royal Meteorological Society in front of Kenneth Hare and others.
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.
Fifty-four years ago, on this day, December 3rd, 1970, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme tries to get some future-thinking going,
When, on 3 December 1970, he expressed the government’s intention to appoint a working group for futures studies, Olof Palme reiterated this outlook on futures studies, seeing them as a tool for national policy choices and based on Swedish values of neutrality, independence, and solidarity. If Sweden did not engage in the study of the future, Palme said, it would be dependent on future visions foreign to Swedish values. The study of the future was to seek a Swedish path between two seemingly existing alternatives of the future. Heidenblad 2021
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that all sorts of futurology, horizon-scanning stuff was getting done. And Olof Palme had just been talking about the threat of climate change. And his point about if you’re not doing it yourself, you’re gonna have to accept someone else’s vision is a really solid one.
What we learn. Palme was a cut above.
What happened next. More futurology work got done. You can read about it here. All of Palmer kept doing stuff until 1986.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 424ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that after the 1972 Stockholm Environmental Conference the United Nations Environment Program had been set up, and there was money and interest sloshing around for computer modelling of climate. It was fairly crude by today’s standards, but, you know, baby steps. There was Bolin, Flohn and the others. And presumably, Olof Palme was being kept informed. Flohn certainly briefed Palme at some point. I think that year
What we learn is that the scientific understanding of the build up of the consequences of the buildup of CO2 came along in leaps and bounds in the 70s. They’re only a couple of years away from “yellow danger light” as per Thomas Malone in July of 1977. Of course, the old beasts – Landsberg Charney and John Mason, were pooh poohing it all together. And Reid Bryson was angry that his dust theory was going tits up. But it was real, the emerging carbon consensus. That’s what we learned.
What happened next. A meeting in Norwich the following year put the death to the cooling idea. The Energy and Climate report of the National Academy of Sciences came out in 1977. And then, of course, the First World Climate conference in 1979. And that’s the end really, of there being serious debate about the CO2 problem.
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.
Twenty eight years ago, on this day, July 18th, 1996, John Howard showed his priorities…
Its Ministerial Declaration was noted (but not adopted) July 18, 1996, and reflected a U.S. position statement presented by Timothy Wirth, former Under Secretary for Global Affairs for the U.S. State Department at that meeting, which:
1. Accepted the scientific findings on climate change proffered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its second assessment (1995);
2. Rejected uniform “harmonized policies” in favor of flexibility;
3. Called for “legally binding mid-term targets”.
AND
“PRIME Minister John Howard yesterday [18th] snubbed the international community, claiming Australia would continue to oppose reductions in greenhouse gases.
“Australia has drawn international condemnation for its refusal to accept legally binding reductions in greenhouse gases now accepted as causing global warming.”
Benson, S. 1996. Howard snubs world / Greenhouse gas call `hurts Australia’. Daily Telegraph, July 19, p.14.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 362ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard had come to power in March of that year and took the Keating government’s antipathy to all things climate, and dialled it up from a solid eight or nine to an 11. “This one goes up to 11”.
What we learn is that the Australian political elite was extremely hostile to anything that would get between them and profits. For coal companies, they could see no other way of being in the world. And they didn’t see the need for that other way, because they didn’t accept 19th century physics {LINK}
What we learn is that we’ve already learned that John Howard is a contemptible climate criminal.
What happened next, Howard dialled up the ante – the international agreement campaign against Australia having to cut emissions was not an 11 but a 12. The following year, he sent diplomats all around the world to try to carve out a special deal for Australia and was spectacularly successful in doing so.
And here we are almost 30 years later; acts of cosmic vandalism. And you need a heart of stone not to despair.
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.
Sixty seven years ago, on this day, June 17th, 1957, Guy Callendar submitted an article – “On the Amount of Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere” to Tellus, the Swedish scientific journal.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Guy Callendar had now been writing about the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming planet for 20 years. He had presented this work in 1938 at the British Meteorological Society and received a polite but relatively dismissive hearing. Callendar must have been looking at the work around the IGY and hopefully, he was feeling at least a small sense of vindication. I don’t know, even though he’s been largely ignored by or tolerated by the British scientific establishment.
What we learn is that the old Hollywood trope of the lone genius, who’s right when the establishment is wrong or looking the other way, is not entirely without foundation.
What happened next Callendar had one more significant paper in him in 61/62. I think he must have been too sick to be invited to the Conservation Foundation meeting in 63. And he died in 1964 on the same day of the year, Svante Arrhenius had died, in 1927.
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.
Fifty-two years ago, on this day, June 12th, 1972, the idea of One True Path To Wealth got questions by Barbara Ward and Margaret Mead.
NGOs, too, soon challenged the U.S. delegation’s platform. In a statement to the plenary session on June 12, a collection of NGOs, led by Barbara Ward and American anthropologist Margaret Mead, strongly criticised existing notions of development. In the development process, there needed to be “a greater emphasis on non-material satisfactions . . . and, above all, altruism in the pursuit of the common good.” Ward and Mead argued that technical fixes – more production – would not solve developmental problems, because a balance between environment and development “can be achieved only if we face honestly the problem of social justice and redistribution.” More concretely, they called for a tiny percent of GNP to be allocated in grants and low-interest for long-term loans for concessionary assistance and for additional flows of capital assistance from the developed nations to offset costs in the developing world. 132 “NGO Plenary Declaration,” Reprinted in Special Issue: The Stockholm Conference, Not Man Apart,
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that developing nations had been deeply suspicious of the agenda – in every sense – of the Western nations in calling for this conference on the human environment. They saw it as another way of the West restricting the economic development of what was then called the Third World. There had been a conference in Founex (which is I think, in Switzerland) in 1971 to allay some of these concerns.
Fun fact, only one world leader was there besides Olof Palme, Indira Gandhi of India. And these fights about what development meant and who it was for and who would be in charge of it were turning up of course, both at the conference itself, and at the People’s Conference, and so forth.
What we learn is that how you see the world very much depends whether you are serving or eating. In the words of Leonard Cohen, homicidal bitchin’ goes down in every kitchen. And the main problem has been a lack of trust. And Western nations have done nothing to earn that trust.
What happened next? The Stockholm conference gave us some fine words but it also gave us the United Nations Environment Program, headquartered in Nairobi, a lot smaller than was hoped but powerful enough to co-sponsor with WMO a series of meetings about climate change.
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.
Thirty six years ago, on this day, June 6th, 1988 there is a well-publicised warning by scientists in Stockholm (Bolin etc) releasing study.
We are entering a new phase….
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that ever since the pivotal meeting in Villach, in September 1985, scientists had been trying to raise the alarm – briefing senators, writing reports etc etc.
What we learn is that James Hansen’s testimony, on June 23 1988, did not appear in a vacuum. The terrain was being prepared by many others.
What happened next was that Hansen’s testimony – and the Changing Atmosphere meeting in Toronto the week after, at the end of June – set the ball rolling.
The emissions have kept climbing, of course. As have the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. And here we are.
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.
Fifty-three years ago, on this day, May 12th, 1971, some trees in Stockholm became a focal point
One Swedish political history was the Almstriden – “the Trees”, in 1971: street demonstrations against the Stockholm park, Kungsträdgarden. “Listen to the hu tree, you who make decisions at city hall and in the future you hear humming there”, the journalist’s words that echo Bob Dylan’s song “The Times They Are A-changing”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that this was four years into the Swedish “environmental turn” (Heidenblad), with the big conference on the environment due to happen in another year.
What we learn is that there are these local flashpoint protests, which in and of themselves, seem insignificant but may have various consequences around radicalising some people (while also perhaps dismaying others so much that they steer clear of action). And these flash points may also reveal the fine words of politicians, just that just fine words.
What we learn is that there are lots of these little “brown m&ms” events where you can – if you want to – see that those in charge of things are not paying attention and not competent. Now, if you’re a rock star, getting on a stage and you’re worried that a spotlight will fall on you or someone else, then you’re highly incentivized to push the red stop button or pull the big lever that says stop. If however, you personally are less likely to suffer consequences, then it’s easier and safer to just go along… (and this is what was good in the neoconservative Robert Kagan’s article in November 2023 about the so called resistance to Trump; that people will make a calculation to avoid trouble and that for bad things to stop, people have to put aside their personal short-term interest and make a bigger longer decision “taking one for the team.”).
What happened next? I think the tree got cut down. I think it didn’t matter in the cosmic scheme of things except to the tree but it’s a real brown m&m moment,
and is also the end of Peddler and Davis BrainWrack, which should be worth mentioning.
sidebar if you can produce all of this for something like all like yesterdays simply by going out and talking with a piece of paper, why can’t you use that exact same habit to get first drafts down have other bigger better things? There’s no reason why. So just get on with it.
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.
Sixty five years ago, on this day, May 9th, 1959, a popular science journal, Science News, covered the findings of Swedish climate scientist Bert Bolin.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 316ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bolin had been paying attention. His boss Carl Rossby was now dead and Bolin was stepping up and had spoken at the AAAS meeting earlier that year.
What we learn – it wasn’t a big secret or surprise or particularly controversial, that CO2 would increase rapidly. Since Gilbert Plass’s statements in 1953 this was common knowledge.
What happened next Bolin kept working on it, kept pressing. By the early 1970s had got the United Nations Environment Program, created at Stockholm, on side and then became first IPCC chair. He died in 2007.
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.
