It’s not easy, but if you say, “Well, we haven’t gotten where we wanted; I’m going to quit,” you just guarantee that the worst is going to happen. It’s a constant struggle. Take, say, Tony Mazzocchi — one of the heroes of modern labor, head of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers [International] Union, one of the first serious environmentalists in the country. His constituents at the front line were being murdered by pollution, destruction of the environment, and so on. This is in the early seventies, way before the environmental movement took off. His union was working toward dealing with the environmental crisis, and it moved on to try to establish a labor party in the nineties. It could have worked, but it didn’t make it.
One hundred and four years ago, on this day, June 12th, 1920, a sci-fi novel with mention of carbon dioxide build-up was published.
But just when men were congratulating themselves on this new Golden Age, fissures opened slowly in the Earth’s crust, and carbon dioxide began pouring out into the atmosphere. That gas had long been known to be present in the air, and necessary to plant life. Plants absorbed its carbon, releasing the oxygen for use again in a process called the “carbon cycle”.
Scientists noted the Earth’s increased fertility, but discounted it as the effect of carbon dioxide released by man’s burning of fossil fuels. For years the continuous exhalation from the world’s interior went unnoticed.
Constantly, however, the volume increased. New fissures opened, pouring into the already laden atmosphere more carbon dioxide–beneficial in small amounts, but as the world learned, deadly in quantity.
The entire atmosphere grew heavy. It absorbed more moisture and became humid. Rainfall increased. Climates warmed. Vegetation became more luxuriant–but the air gradually became less exhilarating.
Soon mankind’s health was affected. Accustomed through long ages to breathing air rich in oxygen and poor in carbon dioxide, men suffered. Only those living on high plateaus or mountaintops remained unaffected. All the world’s plants, though nourished and growing to unprecedented size, could not dispose of the continually increasing flood of carbon dioxide.
By the middle of the 21st century it was generally recognized that a new carboniferous period was beginning, when Earth’s atmosphere would be thick and humid, unbreathable by man, when giant grasses and ferns would form the only vegetation.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 303ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that science fiction writers had been around since Lucretius, and then Jules Verne and then on to things like “The Poison Cloud” (a London suffocates story) and so on.
What we learn: What a stupid species we are, not listening to our story-tellers…
What happened next: The emissions kept rising, albeit slowly until the 1950s and the Great Acceleration.
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 347ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that nine months earlier, WMO, UNEP and ICSU had organised and held ascientific meeting in the Austrian city of Villach at which scientists had come together, done the maths, shed some illusions, and realised that the shit was about to hit the fan, and if that the human species wanted a nice 21st century it needed to get its shit together. And scientists had started to alert politicians, some of whom are already of course well sensitised. Looking at you, Al Gore. Carl Sagan had given testimony to a Senate committee in December 1985. Drums were continuing to be beat. Articles were written. And I don’t know if anyone specifically briefed the Washington Post journo, but that’s the context.
What we learn is that I think even Joe Biden was in on the act talking about carbon protection or climate protection. 1988 was the icing on the cake of this issue that had been building in the problem stream for quite some time. Until politics stream and policy stream came together thanks to a series of focusing events such as the drought testimony the changing atmosphere conference, which was in essence another fruit of the Villach meeting.
It’s interesting to look at that three years from Villach to Toronto, institutionally who was doing what why how? Okay.
What happened next? The issue kept building in ‘87 and ‘88 until even George Bush and Margaret Thatcher had to talk about it. And then we all magically solved the problem. Oh yes.
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, June 9th, 1971, Carroll Wilson (who died in 1983) mentioned carbon dioxide build-up at an Electricity Industry conference.
For more, see this article in the Atlantic (paywalled).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Caroll Wilson was one of those within-institution cross-organisation movers, shakers fixers well-connected, well-respected. He had already helped put together the conferences that led to the Limits to Growth report. So he would have received a fair hearing. And would have been well aware of the work that was about to get underway about the Study of Man’s Impact on Climate in Sweden.
These guys knew. Yes, there were more pressing short term concerns around air quality in cities and smog and so forth. But Caroll Wilson will have not said anything particularly surprising to the audience, they would have been aware of the CO2 issue, most of them.
What we learn from this is that while stuff seems shocking and new, when you’re looking without the background, once you understand any given event is part of a pattern, a flow and accretion. It kind of changes perspective a little bit.
What happened next, Wilson died in I think, 1980. The environmental push, at least the public portion of it died by 1973. And the emissions kept climbing.
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-three years ago, on this day, June 8th, 1991, the UK Minister for the Environment, Michael Heseltine, went on a (futile) mission to the US to try to get them to be less of a blocker in the negotiations around the climate treaty that had to be agreed at the Rio Earth Summit of June 1992.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the climate negotiations were upon us in full flow. The UK had just adopted the stabilisation target at least. But it was clear that the administration of George HW Bush was digging in its heels and generally being douchey. Environment Minister Michael Heseltine was therefore dispatched to see what could be done.
What we learn from this is that even under John Major the UK was trying to be less terrible than the Bush outfit. And they’re always these behind the scenes games. It is actually one of those little incidents that would be nice to cover. Heseltine was fresh from challenging Margaret Thatcher for the leadership and precipitating her departure.
What happened next? The American anti climate clique went round spreading bullshit about Heseltine and there was actually very unusually a public rebuke of this. See questions in Parliament about the July 12th 1991 article in The Times. For all the good it did. And then less than a year later, the pantomime ended with the British dispatching another envoy, Michael Howard this time, to raise the white flag on behalf of the Europeans. Targets and timetables were dead. A Tale of Two envoys…
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 years ago, on this day, June 5th, 1974 we start to wonder about how food production might be affected…,
1 Stephen Schneider, “Food: The Next Crisis,” The National Observer (5 June 1974): p. 18. This article appears to have been the first time that Schneider mentioned publicly the idea of a “genesis strategy” to deal with the potential long-term effects of climate on the global food supply.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was some people were worrying about food running out as part of that Malthusian moment, and the Green Revolution hadn’t really kicked in. And past few years harvests had been weird, weird weather. Two months earlier Henry Kissinger had given his speech about the dangers of a change in the climate at the UN . And here’s Stephen Schneider talking about the impacts that changing climate will have. At this point, not everyone is entirely sure that the problem is going to be CO2 build up. That consensus doesn’t really start to firm up until ‘75 to ‘77. By ‘79, I think it’s fairly well accepted, except by a few idiots like Robert Jastrow and John Mason.
What we learn is that we’ve been worrying about where the food’s gonna come from, for a very long time. And it’s this sort of thing that we’ll have had Crispin Tickell pondering, ahead of his sabbatical at Harvard.
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 325ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Earth Day had happened. Everyone was writing articles about how booming we were. And the US Senator was giving a speech, probably reading into the Senate record, an article from a newspaper, or magazine. But crucially, this guy said that there should be a World Ecology Unit because the problems are global, it will need forms of global governance. Now this is the whole kind of One World Government black helicopters stuff that gets nut jobs in the States so riled. It came two years before the Stockholm Conference, which gave us an underpowered under cooked United Nations Environment Program. As late as 1988 people were talking about it. On the same day as Thatcher’s speech at the Royal Society, Eduard Shevardnadze was telling the United Nations General Assembly that there needed to be a global eco government sort of outfit.
What we learn is that we’ve known that this was a massive coordination problem across nations across generations, we’ve been unable to solve it.
What happened next, the idea came to nothing, of course.
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 eight years ago, on this day, June 1st, 1966, the pivotal book about the environment, which included a section on carbon dioxide build-up, was released.
“Fire, an ancient friend, has become a man-made threat to the environment through the sheer quantity of the waste it produces. Each ton of wood, coal, petroleum, or natural gas burned contributes several tons of carbon dioxide to the earth’s atmosphere. Between 1860 and 1960 the combustion of fuels added nearly 14 percent to the carbon-dioxide content of the air, which had until then remained constant for many centuries. Carbon dioxide plays an important role in regulating the temperature of the earth because of the ‘greenhouse effect.’ Both glass and carbon dioxide tend to pass visible light but absorb infrared rays. This explains why the sun so easily warms a greenhouse on a winter day. Light from the sun enters through the greenhouse glass. Within, it is absorbed by soil and plants and converted to infrared heat energy which remains trapped inside the greenhouse because it cannot pass out again through glass. Carbon dioxide makes a huge greenhouse of the earth allowing sunlight to reach the earth’s surface but limiting reradiation of the resulting heat into space. The temperature of the earth — which profoundly affects the suitability of the environment for life — is therefore certain to rise as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increases.
“A report by the President’s Science Advisory Committee finds that the extra heat due to fuel-produced carbon dioxide accumulated in the air by the year 2000 might be sufficient to melt the Antarctic ice cap — in 4000 years according to one computation, or in 400 years according to another. And the report states: ‘The melting of the Antarctic ice cap would raise sea level by 400 feet. If 1,000 years were required to melt the ice cap, the sea level would rise about 4 feet every 10 years, 40 feet per century.’ This would result in catastrophe for much of the world’s inhabited land and many of its major cities.”
page 10-11 CO2 and greenhouse explained
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Barry Commoner had been campaigning on biological pollution from atmospheric nuclear testing, strontium 90, etcetera. He’d obviously been influenced by Rachel Carson. It turns out, to quote a book from 25 years later, there are consequences of modernity.
What we learn is that this book was a really important influence for a lot of people, although it is somewhat overshadowed by Commoner’s later efforts, The Closing Circle.
What happened next well, somebody lobbed a copy onto the desk of Roy Battersby, and this led him to take a completely different view with the TV programme Challenge that appeared on Fifth of January 1967. There was also a huge influence on Richard Broad, who made Report: And On The Eighth Day. The book was approvingly reviewed in The Guardian Telegraph, both of which made mention of the CO2 buildup possibility and as well in the Canberra Times, in early 1967; the reviewer then also made mention of CO2 buildup. So really, you could argue, I think strongly that Barry Commoner’s first book Science and Survival was a crucial node for climate change awareness among English speaking publics; I don’t know what influence it had in New Zealand, or Canada, or, for that matter, the US that would be interesting to find out.
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.
Forty years ago, on this day, May 28th 1982, the biologists were at it again,
“Duke University in Durham, North Carolina on August 4-5, 1977 for “Workshop on Anticipated Plant Responses to Global Carbon Dioxide Enrichment”…. Five years later, on May 23-28, 1982, a similar “International Conference on Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Productivity” was held in Athens, Georgia.”
(Idso, 1982: 72- 73)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had five years previously been a conference on essentially, “rising carbon dioxide levels will be great for plant growth. So there’s nothing else to worry about.” And this was a sequel, I don’t know why it happened. Maybe they had some money leftover or something or they just wanted a jolly and to catch up with old friends.
What we learn is that as late as 2023. “CO2 is plant food and therefore nothing to worry about” is still being circulated by intellectual giants like Richard Tice, of Reform UK (a private company masquerading as a political party). I mean, it’s just embarrassing for our species. But there you have it.
What happened next Sherwood Idso has been the go-to guy for denial and lukewarm-ism for a long time.
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.
Seventy one years ago, on this day, May 24th, 1953, the New York Times reported on Gilbert Plass’s statements at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting a couple of weeks earlier. The article was by Waldemar Kaempfert, who’d write something else on the topic in October 1956, just before his death.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The New York Times makes explicit mention of carbon dioxide buildup from industry as something that will heat the planet. This is from their science writer Walter Kaempffert.
The context is that a couple of weeks later earlier, Gilbert Plass, a Canadian physicist had made a startling presentation to the American Geophysical Union, and this had travelled around the world [Conversation article link].
What we learn is that it’s been 71 years since the warnings started coming from people who weren’t “merely” steam engineers.
What happened next – It was taken seriously, as it were, in the 1950s, then seemed to fall off for 10 years. And then came back in the late 60s and then fell off again, came back in the late 80s. And here we are 35 years after that, having increased our emissions by about 70%.
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.
