Category: United States of America

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International Geophysical Year United States of America

February 8, 1956 – Roger Revelle sexes up the dossier to House Committee on Appropriations

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, February 8th, 1956, US scientist Roger Revelle was giving TESTIMONY BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956

You can read it here.


Fossil fuels and Carbon dioxide
Dr. REVELLE. . . . There is still one more aspect of the oceanographic program which I thought you gentlemen would be interested in. This is a combination of meteorology and oceanography.
Right now and during the past 50 years, we are burning, as you know, quite a bit of coal and oil and natural gas. The rate at which we are burning this is increasing very rapidly.
This burning of these fuels which were accumulated in the earth over hundreds of millions of years, and which we are burning up in a few generations, is producing tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide in the air. Based on figures given out by the United Nations, I would estimate that by the year 2010, we will have added something like 70 percent of the present atmospheric carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This is an enormous quantity. It is like 1,700 billion tons. Now, nobody knows what this will do. Lots of people have supposed that it might actually cause a warming up of the atmospheric temperature and it may, in fact, cause a remarkable change in climate. . . .


Warming of the earth
We may actually, for example, find that the Arctic Ocean will become navigable and the coasts become a place where people can live, then the Russian Arctic coastline will be really quite free for shipping, as will our Alaskan coastline, if this possible increase in temperature really happens.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that big science cost big money, and Revelle was trying to assure Congressmen that this was money well spent. And so came up with various stories and scenarios. 

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists have to know how to keep the money flowing. This is a perennial problem in the area of big science, but using the word big  like that has a pejorative implication, doesn’t it? We’re no longer in the era of people tinkering in their sheds, much as we like to hark back to that with the folk Story of Google.

What happened next … the International Geophysical Year.

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United States of America

January 29, 1980 -Exxon HQ tells its Vice-Presidents that CO2 build-up is “a potentially serious problem”

On this day, 45 years ago, the head of Exxon’s Science and Technology Department laid out some basic facts. We know this thanks to the sterling investigative work of Inside Climate News. You can read the whole thing here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that since 1977, Exxon scientists had been helping educate the C-suite about what Exxon’s product (i.e. fossil fuels) might be doing to the atmosphere, and helping oceanographers with their research.

What we learn is that, to coin a phrase “Exxon knew.”

What happened next Exxon kept supporting climate research for a couple of years. In the mid-80s it did a reverse ferret and became the denial generating and supporting scamp we all know and love.

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, obv

Also on this day: 

January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift

January 29, 2004 – John Daly, Australian skeptic, dies

January 29, 2006 – Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

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United States of America

January 28, 1987 –  Scientists warn politicians #01: United States

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, January 28th, 1987.

1987 Scientific basis for the Greenhouse effect. 

Testimony by Gordon MacDonald given to a joint hearing before the Subcommittees on Environmental Protection and Hazardous Wastes and Toxic Substances of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, One-hundredth Congress, first session, 28 January 1987.

page 123 of Abrahamson 1989

(Wally Broecker also gave testimony)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that after the scientific meeting in Villach, Austria in October 1985 atmospheric scientists saw both an opportunity and a need to push hard on carbon dioxide build up. And so you had various bits of testimony, perhaps most famously, Carl Sagan in December 1985 . You’d had other greenhouse hearings all through the 80s, thanks in part to people like Al Gore. Some of these had been the subject of television news stories (for example Walter Cronkite in 1980). 

What’s perhaps interesting about this is you have Gordon MacDonald, who, by this time, had been writing about weather modification and carbon dioxide for 20 years, and also Wally Broecker, who had been trying to get politicians interested (see his 1980 letter toPaul Tsongas). 

What I think we can learn from this is that before the issue finally broke through in 1988 there was a steady increase, especially from the mid 80s, of scientists pushing to turn a problem into an issue. 

What happened next

The Long, Hot Summer and drought, the endless summer, as Andrew Revkin would have it, of 1988 provided the final impetus. That was the year that James Hansen gave his testimony and the Changing Atmosphere conference happened. Candidate for the presidency, George Herbert Walker Bush, talked about solving the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. And then Margaret Thatcher gave her speech at the Royal Society, and the issue had indeed arrived.

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.

Also on this day: 

January 28, 1969 – Santa Barbara Oil spill

January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick

January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK

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United States of America

January 27, 1967 –  Time Magazine talks carbon dioxide build-up

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, January 27th, 1967,

After the usual litany of localised issues, it ends with this remarkable set of paragraphs. 

Other scientists are concerned about the tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide released into the air by the burning of “fossil fuels” like coal and oil. Because it is being produced faster than it can be absorbed by the ocean or converted back into carbon and oxygen by plants, some scientists think that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 10% since the turn of the century. The gas produces a “greenhouse” effect in the atmosphere; it allows sunlight to penetrate it, but effectively blocks the heat generated on earth by the sun’s rays from escaping back into space.

No Apocalypse. 

There has already been a noticeable effect on earth—a gradual warming trend. As the carbon-dioxide buildup continues and even accelerates, scientists fear that average temperatures may, in the course of decades, rise enough to melt the polar ice caps. Since this would raise ocean levels more than 100 feet, it would effectively drown the smog problems of the world’s coastal cities.

The waters, however, need never rise. Within his grasp, man has the means to prevent any such apocalyptic end. Over the short run, fuels can be used that produce far less pollutant as they burn. Chimneys can be filtered so that particulate smoke is reduced. Automobile engines and anti-exhaust devices can be made far more efficient. What is needed is recognition of the danger by the individual citizen and his government, the establishment of sound standards, and the drafting of impartial rules to govern the producers of pollution. Over the long run, the development of such relatively nonpolluting power sources as nuclear energy and electric fuel cells can help guarantee mankind the right to breathe.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Time had first covered the possible problem of C02 build-up in 1953, in response to Gilbert Plass’s statements at the AGU meeting. The more immediate context was that questions of pollution, air, water, noise had been exercising American journalists and writers for several years. There’s the wonderful song Pollution by Tom Lehrer two years earlier. 

And the crucial context, perhaps, is not so much Lyndon Johnson’s message to Congress in February 1965 but Philip Abelson’s editorial in Science two weeks before Time published this 

What I think we can learn from this is that if you were reading either Science or Time magazine or both back then, the idea of carbon dioxide build up as a problem was there at the beginning of 1967 which is 58 years ago. This was not arcane. This was not bizarre. This was 1967. Alongside this, you also had, of course the book Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner, that had come out the previous year. 

What happened next

Time and Newsweek kept doing the sort of hand wringing, “What have we done?” reports As did US News and World Report. And then, really, by late 1969 the environment “took off” as an issue.

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.

Also on this day: 

January 27, 1967 – James Lovelock told to keep schtum about climate change by Shell science boss

January 27, 1989 – UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27, 1986 – Engineers try to stop NASA launching the (doomed) Challenger Space Shuttle

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Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

January 26, 1972 – “Enhance Oil Recovery” with carbon dioxide kicks off.

Fifty three years ago, on this day, January 26th, 1972, a new technology came along.

CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been carried out in the United States and Canada since the 1960s. The world’s first large-scale CO2-EOR project, Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee (SACROC), has been implemented by Chevron in the oilfield in Scurry County, Texas since January 26, 1972 [13]. The CO2 for this project comes from the natural CO2 fields in Colorado and is pipelined to the oilfield for flooding. More than 175 million tonnes of natural CO2 in total were injected in the SACROC project during 1972–2009 [14].  

Ma et al  – 2022. Carbon Capture and Storage: History and the Road Ahead. Engineering Volume 14, July 2022, Pages 33-43

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that economies were still growing at a rate that we would now consider either astonishing or Chinese. Energy companies were looking to extract more oil and gas, of course, and to do it as cheaply as possible. In retrospect, we can now see this is the formal beginning of enhanced oil recovery. But at the time, I guess it was just one more experiment (EOR had already been piloted on a much smaller scale). 

What I think we can learn from this is that EOR, which is still the raison d’etre behind CCS, or the only way that it will make money, has a long history, longer than 1972. 

What happened next

Well, CCS had a long, slow development process. There were studies in the late 70s through the 80s. There was momentary interest in it in 1989 and then the people who would have done it realized how much it would cost and how they could get more bang for their buck elsewhere. And CCS finally took off in the 2000s because the Kyoto Protocol looked like it might come into force, and rich nations needed something with which to pretend to be taking action.

Somebody should write a book. Oh, wait.

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.

Also on this day: 

January 26, 1970 – British PM offers US a “new special relationship” on pollution. (Conservative then tries to outflank him.)

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United States of America

January 23, 1968 – US federal bureaucrat flags carbon dioxide build-up as “rapidly accelerating and alarming”

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, January 23rd, 1968, a US federal government bureaucrat, Roy F Bessey, flags the possible long-term problem of carbon dioxide build up.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that more and more people were switching on to the possibility of global, rather than local, impacts of “the Great Acceleration”.  President Lyndon Johnson had namechecked carbon dioxide build-up in a February 1965 address, and in January 1967, the editor of Science had led an editorial about the atmosphere with C02 build-up…

What I think we can learn from this is that by 1968 it is not terribly surprising to see experts saying that there might be trouble ahead.

What happened next

That trouble ahead? It’s arrived, hasn’t 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.

Also on this day: 

January 23, 1957 – New Zealand scientist warns about consequences of carbon dioxide build-up  

January 23, 1992 – denialist bullshit in the Fin

January 23, 1995 – The Larsen B starts to break up with us.. (Ice, Ice, baby)

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United States of America

January 21, 2013 –  5 Ways President Obama Could Fight Climate Change Now

12 years ago, on this day, January 21st 2013, another helpful listicle is published, in the Huffington Post (natch).

 5 Ways President Obama Could Fight Climate Change Now

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 397ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Obama had already done everything he was going to do on climate change (i.e. nowt). He had been unwilling to spend political capital in 2009-10 to overcome Republican opposition, since getting some healthcare through was his main game.  But it was the beginning of his second term, and small l-liberals needed to keep projecting Hope onto him, and churning out listicles like this.

What I think we can learn from this

Ooof. We believe, or pretend to believe, what we want about Saviour Politicians.

What happened next

The emissions kept climbing. What else is there to say, really?

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.

Also on this day.

January 21, 1960 – at least 435 coal miners killed in apartheid South Africa incident #BusinessAsUsual   #Racism   #Profiteering   #GlobalApartheid

January 21, 1968 – Ultima Fule on Ultima Thule

January 21, 2010 – The flub that sank a thousand policies #auspol

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United States of America

January 18, 1972 – Plastic is in your blood..

Fifty three years ago, on this day, January 18th, 1972, the Washington Post runs a story, well

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Stockholm climate conference was coming. Eeryone was still therefore very aerated about  environmental issues, generally.

Plastics were on a kind of  similar trajectory as DDT. They’d gone from wondrous scientific, technological gift in the 1950s “Better Living Through Technology” to something regarded as potentially or actually dangerous. And the generational shift here is, of course, captured in the scene from the film The Graduate where Benjamin Braddock’s father’s friend, Mr McGuire,says “One Word. Plastics!”

 But here we are with plastic even being found in the blood. It turns out, as per Barry Commoner and his laws of ecology, “there is no ‘away.’” 

What I think we can learn from this is that these problems, these dangers, have been with us for two generations or awareness of them, but some of them are simply too hard to solve. DDT could be erased like the CFCs that were depleting the ozone. BUt carbon dioxide could not, and neither could plastics. 

What happened next

Plastics continued to be everywhere in every sense. Oceans are full of them. They’re in the clouds, and we have doomed ourselves. So it goes. 

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

January 18, 1964 – Nature mentions atmospheric carbon dioxide build-up

January 18, 1993 – Australian unions and greenies launch first “Green Jobs” campaign

January 18, 1993 – Job’s not a good un. “Green Jobs in Industry Plan” achieves … nothing. #auspol

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United States of America

January 15, 1981 – US calls for efforts to combat global environmental problems

Forty four years ago, on this day, January 15th, 1981,

The Carter Administration called today for a major, sustained national and international effort to cope with what it said were ”increasingly critical global resource, environmental and population problems.”

A report prepared jointly for the President by the State Department and the Council on Environmental Quality warned that excessive world population growth, dwindling resources and environmental degradation represent serious threats to the political and economic security of the United States.

Shabecoff, Philip (1981). “U.S. Calls for Efforts To Combat Global Environmental Problems.” New York Times, January 15

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the people with a green tinge in Carter’s administration, mostly, but not entirely, huddled in the Council for Economic Quality, had tried to get environmental issues to the fore, despite being told by Carter’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Frank Press to ignore the carbon dioxide issue. 

Carter had lost the November, 1980 election comprehensively. Everyone knew that Reagan was not a fan of environmental issues. He wasn’t even aware of the Global 2000 report, and therefore this was a desperate last effort, perhaps to say to other nations “hold on. We’ll be back in hopefully four years.” It would, of course, be a bit longer than that. 

What I think we can learn from this is that policy entrepreneurs within these systems have to try to save the furniture, that you can never look at an individual news item without thinking about the broader context. 

What happened next

 Reagan’s goons went too hard too fast, and there was pushback against them, so people like James Watt and Gail and Gorsuch became hate figures and had to be removed, and as per McCright and Dunlap, what the right have largely learned is to keep the edifice and maybe even some of the rhetoric, if you like, but to gut everything from the inside in terms of funding. I. And powers and so forth and so it continues down unto this day you. 

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.

Also on this day:

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United States of America

January 13, 1967 – crucial editorial in Science – “Man is changing the earth’s atmosphere…”

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, January 13th, 1967, the editor of the most prestigious American scientific journal, Science, writes about the carbon dioxide threat,

“Man is changing the earth’s atmosphere.  Most obvious is the increasing concentration of carbon dioxide.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that almost exactly two years before Lyndon Johnson, President of the United States, had made an address to Congress that included mention of CO2 build up. And in the intervening period, there had been a report in November 1965  by the President’s Scientific Advisory Panel Council and other reports. Abelson, who had trained as a nuclear physicist, clearly had his finger on the pulse (part of the job spec for editor of the premier scientific journal in the United States!) 

What we learn is that at the beginning of 1967, readers of the journal Science would have been aware of this as a potential issue. Now, it turns out that the estimates of temperature increase were vastly overblown, overstated. The word could is doing a lot of work. Nonetheless, it shows us that this was an issue that scientific political elites were aware of. 

What happened next  Ableson did keep talking about CO2. So for example, there’s him at a symposium later that year. 

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.

Also on this day:

January 13, 1965 – President Lyndon Johnson gets a memo about carbon dioxide build-up and climate change

January 13, 2004 – Bob Carr rallies states for emissions trading

January 13, 2005- UN Secretary-General calls for “decisive measures” on climate change

January 13, 2021 – New Scientist reports on types of intelligence required to deal with #climate change  

ps – from Wikipeia-

Abelson was outspoken and well known for his opinions on science. In a 1964 editorial published in Science magazine, Abelson identified overspecialization in science as a form of bigotry. He outlined his view that the pressure towards specialization beginning in undergraduate study and intensifying in PhD programs leads students to believe that their area of specialization is the most important, even to the extreme view that other intellectual pursuits are worthless. He reasoned that such overspecialization led to obsolescence of one’s work, often through a focus on trivial aspects of a field, and that avoidance of such bigotry was essential to guiding the direction of one’s work.[7]