Sixty seven years ago, on this day, March 15, 1956, Roger Revelle laid out the facts while trying to assure senators that taxpayers’ money was being well spent. It got reported the following day by the Los Angeles Times.
Anon, 1956. Gas fumes suspected as factor in climate. Los Angeles Times, March 16, p. 25.
AND
Norman, L. 1956. Fumes seen warming arctic seas, Washington Post and Times Herald , March 19, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that big science was getting big money. And congressmen wanted to show that they were keeping informed. Revelle’s was in preparation for the International Geophysical Year. And he enjoyed, I think, testifying about this sort of stuff. At this point, it wasn’t clear that carbon dioxide levels were definitely going up. There had been a publication in 1955 querying the accuracy of the various measurements.
What I think we can learn from this
Congressmen have been aware of the issue as has anyone reading a newspaper since 1956. Actually, you can go earlier, but I would say the pivotal years are from 56 to 59. Before that, it’s just not that clear.
What happened next
Revelle would solve that uncertainty about atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by hiring Charles David Keeling. And by 1959, it was clear that yes, co2 levels were definitely rising.
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 years ago, on this day, March 12, 1963, in New York
“Dr. Keeling was concerned enough about rising carbon dioxide levels to participate in a panel by the Conservation Foundation on March 12, 1963 “Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere”, the report issued being among the first to speculate that anthropogenic global warming could be dangerous to the Earth’s biological and environmental systems. It includes on page 6: “many life forms would be annihilated” [in the tropics] if emissions continued unchecked in the upcoming centuries. They also projected that carbon dioxide emissions could raise the average surface temperature of the earth by as much as 4°C during the next century (1963-2063)”
Probably the first gathering of scientists and policymakers devoted specifically and explicitly to carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Conservation Foundation had been set up in New York in 1948
The International Geophysical Year was now 5 years in the past, a lot of data had been collected. In January of 1961, there had been a five day scientific conference organised by the American Meteorological Society and the New York Academy of Sciences with plenty of people talking about carbon dioxide buildup, and alongside that there had been other scientific efforts. So the Conservation Foundation, which had been aware of CO2 buildup as a potential problem for a while, held a gathering, the first ever carbon dioxide build up conference
What I think we can learn from this
Well, these sorts of events are fascinating for the legacy they leave. And for several years – really till the end of the 1960s – the publication about this meeting was cited whenever in writing about carbon dioxide buildup for years, and it only really fell away entirely after the 1971 study on the man’s impact on climate.
It also seems to have been the “last gasp” in climate science for Gilbert Plass whose statements and work from 1953 had been so important for the growth of acceptance of the carbon dioxide theory.
And in all probability, it was where Lewis Herbert aka Murray Bookchin got his facts for the section in his book written in 1964 and published in early 1965, called Crisis in our Cities, which will be discussed soon.
And the reason I say this is that the event was in New York, Bookchin was in New York and it’s impossible to imagine that he wasn’t aware of the Conservation Foundation’s activities. Bookchin’s politics were not of the technocrats. But just because he didn’t agree with the funders does not mean he’d have ignored what was happening under their auspices.
What happened next
Plass dropped out.
Roger Revelle and Charles Keeling kept doing what they were doing.
And the closing statement – well, it came to pass…
Fifty four years ago, on this day, March 11, 1969, some NASA scientists mention the (non-controversial) build-up of C02
John E. Naugle, Donald Hearth at hearing on NASA budget
“If we are to understand our own atmosphere and to evaluate the long-term consequences of man-made changes (such as the increase in carbon dioxide content), we need to conduct comparative studies of the atmospheres of the other planets.”
“As we look at our planet, as we look at the population that is increasing, we know that man is not only polluting, but possibly beginning to change the very fundamental nature of our atmosphere on the earth.”—John E. Naugle
So it’s really no surprise to the NASA folks would be aware of carbon dioxide buildup because well it’s fairly basic science
What I think we can learn from this
This is just one more example of how, by the late 1960s, scientists were informing politicians about the basic facts of what was being done to the planet. It was not a theory, it was just a fact.
What happened next
NASA put men on the moon. Apollo 13 showed for anyone who was paying attention the dangers of carbon dioxide buildup. Man didn’t get beyond low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was done on the cheap, and it showed twice. Now it looks like 50 years later, we are going to put Whitey on the moon. In the words of Gil Scott Heron.
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 two years ago, on this day, March 7, 2001, the US news network CNN showed what is “normal” and what is “bad” in its cosmology, when reporting on old white men in suits versus protests…
7 March 2001 CNN reports on climate protests “marring” (pointless) climate talks – Protests mar climate talks
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there were climate negotiations in Italy, at which the Americans were – surprise surprise – basically saying “fuck you.” This was shortly after George Bush was selected as President.
The Hague negotiations in November 2000 had ended in such a disaster that the meeting wasn’t finally closed. And so with your big Cheney as his vice president, it looks pretty perilous for international climate negotiations.
What I think we can learn from this
What’s important here is the framing that protest activity by civil society would besmirch the nice, cool, rational debates of our lords and masters. Now, if you put it bluntly, the journalist who wrote it, or the sub-editor who wrote it, would either say, “Well, look, it’s just a headline. And we don’t have much space.” They might agree with the point about the politics at a superficial level. But if pushed, they would say “No, why should the mob be able to influence what the smart technocrats are doing?”
And that hatred of ordinary people, and their involvement is persistent. And it’s the case that if you don’t abide by that, then you don’t get your role as a journalist or as an academic or whatever.
If you’re interested in this stuff, then obviously, reading Chomsky is a good idea, but also the life and times of Randolph Bourne who died just after World War One. Obviously Gramsci on the power of hegemony. If and how the popular press works, and any number of publications by the Glasgow Media Group etc
What happened next
Bush pulled out of Kyoto, an entirely sane and rational decision “marred” by protest.
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 five years ago, on this day, March 7 (or thereabouts) 1988 at a conference on Gaia running from 7 to 11 March…
Richard Gammon of the US government’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at Seattle in Washington state, seems to have been the first off the starting blocks. After seeing the complete data for 1987 and the first results for 1988, he told a conference in March 1988: “Since the mid-1970s we have been in a period of very, very rapid warming. We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.”
(Pearce, 1989:3)
[“The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference” in San Diego was from March 7 to 11.]
Rarely has a hypothesis immediately sparked such a passionate response. There is something in it for everybody, from hard core scientists to philosophers, ultraconservationists, students of world religions, mystics, politicians, and space enthusiasts; they were all there in San Diego, March 7–11, 1988, for the AGU Chapman Conference on Gaia Hypotheses. For 4 days an impressive list of specialists presented and debated the pros and cons of Gaia Hypotheses from diverse perspectives: modern and ancient biology, ecology, biochemistry, the physicochemical systems of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere, and the evolution of the solar system.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 352.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “earth systems” scientists were very interested in the Lovelock and Margulis Gaia theory, enough to have a conference about it. And from the October 1985 Villach meeting onwards, the scientists and politicians were all getting more interested in just how soon the signal would emerge from the noise on climate change…
What I think we can learn from this
James Hansen was not an outlier in his June 1988 testimony. Sure, there wasn’t necessarily a majority, but what Hansen said was not all that unusual or surprising (see Schneider’s Greenhouse Century for accounts of how journalists kept looking for quotes from him to try to set up a “Hansen/Schneider split” story.)
What happened next
Within months climate change would become unavoidable for politicians. No more long grass…
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 years ago, on this day, March 4, 2003, President Bush’s greenwash strategy was revealed in all its steaming glory
The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.
“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that George Bush was clearly not going to do anything about climate change. It’s not clear that Al Gore, who actually won the 2000 presidential election, would have either, but there you are. So it became a question of how to position the issue. So-called “perception management.” And the Luntz memo basically says,
What I think we can learn from this
The battle for the control of the public mind is a never-ending battle. (Or rather, the propagandisation and the attempts to combat it, so that we can have a public sphere not dominated by rich vested interests, is never-ending). And as reality, physical reality, impinges more and more, you’re gonna find more and more people spewing propaganda and more and more people and this is the crux, wanting to believe it. So, this is not brainwashing against resistance. This is going with the grain.
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..
Fourteen years ago, on this day, March 2, 2009, protestors blockade a coal plant
The blockade lasted nearly four hours, forming what organizers called the largest display of civil disobedience on the climate crisis in U.S. history.
Police were out in force, but no one was arrested.
The 99-year-old plant is responsible for an estimated one-third of the legislative branch’s greenhouse gas emissions. It no longer generates electricity for the legislative buildings but provides steam for heating and chilled water for cooling buildings within the Capitol Complex.
Environmental and climate celebrities led the protest action, including NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen, who released a video on YouTube in February urging people to join him March 2 at the demonstration to send a message to Congress and the President that, “We want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.”
2009 Capitol Coal Plant protest – demonstrators blockade one of the five gates to the Capitol Power plant. March 2, 2009.http://www.capitolclimateaction.org“
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there is always ongoing effort to shut individual energy projects. And these can be dismissed as NIMBY. But it’s really important to fight those battles because how else are you gonna stop local madness and build the confidence, competence and credibility to stop the national and international madness?. And also to try to have an influence on national policy, obviously.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember and celebrate resistance not just dissent, but actual resistance.
Beyond Coal’s pivotal moment came at a meeting in Gracie Mansion about, of all things, education reform. Michael Bloomberg, the Wall Street savant-turned media mogul-turned New York City mayor, was looking for a new outlet for his private philanthropy. It quickly became clear that education reform would not be that outlet.
“It was a terrible meeting in every way, and Mike was angry,” recalls his longtime adviser, Kevin Sheekey. “I said: ‘Look, if you don’t like this idea, that’s fine. We’ll bring you another.’ He said: ‘No, I want another now.’”
As it happened, Sheekey had just eaten lunch with Carl Pope, who was starting a $50 million fundraising drive to expand Beyond Coal’s staff to 45 states. The cap-and-trade plan that Obama supported to cut carbon emissions had stalled in Congress, and the carbon tax that Bloomberg supported was going nowhere as well. Washington was gridlocked. But Pope had explained to Sheekey that shutting down coal plants at the state and local level could do even more for the climate—and have a huge impact on public health issues close to his boss’s heart.
“That’s a good idea,” Bloomberg told Sheekey. “We’ll just give Carl a check for the $50 million. Tell him to stop fundraising and get to work.”
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 one years ago, on this day, February 27, 1992, denialists released a denial statement during what were supposed to be the last negotiations before the “Earth Summit”, the one where a text was supposed to be agreed that could then lock-in the attendance of Prime Ministers and Leaders…
In February 1992 the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) published the “Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming” objecting to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development Earth Summit planned for Rio de Janiero in June 1992.[1]
The signatories to the letter complained that the Earth Summit “aims to impose a system of global environmental regulations, including onerous taxes on energy fuels, on the population of the United States and other industrialized nations. Such policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action. We do not agree.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The climate negotiations were coming to a crunch. The whole thing might fall over. The US administration, with George Bush senior as the boss, was blocking blocking blocking, but there was always the fear they might – with a US Presidential election pending – make concessions. The denialists wanted to make that more unlikely by making it more costly….
What I think we can learn from this
Those fearful of change will keep pushing even if “their guy” (and it usually is a guy) is ‘rock solid’. They take little/nothing for granted. That attitude, and all their money, and their structural position within the economy, explains why they win so often…
What happened next
Bush held firm. The French blinked on the question of targets and timetables for emissions reductions in the climate treaty. There were extra “negotiations” in May in New York, but they were just really a white flag being run up. Everyone went to Rio for a grip and grin.
The following 30 years have been about trying to claw back a mechanism by which rich countries would actually cut emissions. It was never going to be easy, but the Bush Whitehouse rendered it actually impossible.
Am so very very glad I did not breed, because I’d have had to try to teach my kid a whole bunch of survival skills for a shituation whose particular needs are pretty impossible to specify.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Fifty seven years ago, on this day, February 20, 1966, another US senate hearing got an allusion to trouble ahead, from a particle physicist called Leland Haworth.
“Another thing that is in a strict sense a pollutant but not usually thought of as such is the carbon dioxide that comes from all our burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil, gas, and so forth — which is adding to the carbon dioxide content of the air. It is not a pollutant in the sense of doing any harm to us directly, but it could change the temperature balance of the world.”
— Leland Haworth, hearing on weather modification
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The President’s address to Congress in February 1965 had mentioned build-up of C02, and a report that came out in November did likewise. The National Science Foundation was doing further work on this, which Haworth would have been well aware of. There had been a report, released in late 1965 on the topic, which had looked at David Keeling’s measurements (as per Gordon MacDonald to Oppenheimer and Boyle, 1990).
What I think we can learn from this
A problem can be on the sidelines for a long time, and may even disappear into nothing. For a problem to become an issue will be, usually, the end result of a lot of hard work, and a few capitalised-upon disasters…. It took a while for “climate change” to break through (30 years, when it probably only needed 20 – there is a plausible alternative history narrative where by the late 1970s, the issue gets dealt with (though probably would have required the late-Brezhnev era Soviet Union to innovate, so, maybe not so plausible?!).
What happened next
By the late 1960s, more work was being done, more talk about it, including in the context of the Americans wanting a non-napalming-babies issue to talk about internationally (see Moynihan September 1969 memo). The American Association for the Advancement of Science was getting in on the act too, and by 1970, most people talking about air pollution would at least mention in passing the (potential) climate problem.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Thirty years ago, on this day, February 17, 1993 , new President Bill Clinton gave his state of the union address and said an energy tax was in the cards…
“Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy, and I want to tell you why I selected this and why I think it’s a good idea. I recommend that we adopt a Btu tax on the heat content of energy as the best way to provide us with revenue to lower the deficit because it also combats pollution, promotes energy efficiency, promotes the independence, economically, of this country as well as helping to reduce the debt, and because it does not discriminate against any area. Unlike a carbon tax, that’s not too hard on the coal States; unlike a gas tax, that’s not too tough on people who drive a long way to work; unlike an ad valorem tax, it doesn’t increase just when the price of an energy source goes up. And it is environmentally responsible. It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Vice President Al Gore had been switched onto the climate problem while studying at Harvard (Roger Revelle had taught him). He had had a book called “Earth in the Balance” come out while he was on the campaign trail. He thought you could raise money to reduce the government deficit while also cutting emissions….
What I think we can learn from this
War game the heck out of your proposal, with red team and blue team and all that…
What happened next
Resistance from the “energy lobby” (who knew?!) Brutally successful opposition too.
