On this day September 27 1962 the hugely influential book “Silent Spring” was published.
It had already been serialised in the New Yorker from June.
Carson’s book is regarded as the starting gun for public awareness of the dangers of technology-driven economic growth (what is now known as “The Great Acceleration” in some circles).
Industry’s response was predictable, involving heavy-handed satire and attempted smears (Carson was a lesbian, Carson was only a woman and therefore emotional and unreliable etc etc).
(Btw, see Hoffman and Ocasio (2001) Not All Events Are Attended Equally: Toward a Middle-Range Theory of Industry Attention to External Events)
On this day the PPM was 316.25 ppm. Now it is 421ish – but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
If you stick your head above the parapet and say that what seems normal is actually deeply problematic, expect trouble. (That is not to say you deserve it, or should accept it, but you’d be wise to expect it).
What happened next?
Well, in the short-term, the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 almost solved all of humanity’s long-term problems very abruptly.
On this day 23 September 1986, Senator Joe Biden (what happened to THAT guy?) launched the “Biden Initiative on Global Warming.”
Yes, 1986.
The excellent book by Howe, “Behind the Curve” contains this
“Throughout the mid-1980s, Al Gore and his fellow congressional Democrats continued to push the Reagan administration to begin dealing with the problem of climate change. In 1986, Senator Joe Biden introduced an initiative mandating that the president commission an executive-level task force to devise a strategy for responding to global warming – a strategy the president was meant to deliver to Congress within one year. The initiative became the Global Climate Protection Act of 1987, which the president signed. The bill in the end required very little real commitment from the administration, but it demonstrated an expanding congressional interest in climate change that raised the domestic political profile of the State Department’s negotiations with UNEP and the WMO leading up to the IPCC. It also led to more congressional hearings on the issue, which helped keep global warming in the news and thus on the public agenda.”
“Directs the President to establish a Task Force on the Global Climate to research, develop, and implement a coordinated national strategy on global climate. Requires such Task Force to transmit a United States Strategy on the Global Climate to the President within a year. Requires the President to then report to specified members of Congress on such report.
Directs the President to appoint an ambassador at large to coordinate Federal efforts in multilateral activities relating to global warming.
Directs the Secretary of State to promote the early designation of an International Year of Global Climate Protection.
Urges the President to give climate protection high priority on the agenda of U.S.-Soviet relations.”
To quote yesterday’s blog, which was also about 1969, the context is that by the late 1960s smart people were paying attention to – and starting to get worried about – carbon dioxide build-up. Burnet was not alone in this.
But the broader context – which I have not seen in the popular accounts of Moynihan’s warning (it crops up on Twitter occasionaly). Tricky Dick Nixon was keen to get Europeans thinking about, well, anything other than Vietnam, and was seeking to retool NATO to include “challenges to modern society” – including ‘the environment’.
Connecting with President-elect Richard Nixon in 1968, he joined Nixon’s White House Staff as Counselor to the President for Urban Affairs. He was very influential at that time, as one of the few people in Nixon’s inner circle who had done academic research related to social policies.
In 1969, on the initiative of Nixon, NATO tried to establish a third civil column, establishing itself as a hub of research and initiatives in the civil region, dealing as well with environmental topics.[6] Moynihan[6] named Acid Rain and the Greenhouse effect as suitable international challenges to be dealt by NATO. NATO was chosen, since the mutual defense organization had suitable expertise in the field and experience with international research coordination. The German government was skeptical and saw the initiative as an attempt to regain international terrain after the lost Vietnam War. The topics, however, gained momentum in civil conferences and institutions.[6]
Let no-one tell you this was a sudden surprise in 1988 (and even if it were, we’ve had a generation to start taking action).
What happened next?
More and more people became aware of the problems. But awareness is not political and economic power, and those who were doing nicely from the sale of deliciously cheap and abundant fossil fuels saw no reason to stop. And every reason to stop those who wanted them to stop. So that’s what they did, very well, for a very long time. Eternity, effectively.
1982: Warren County, North Carolina. Birth of the “Environmental Justice” movement
September 15 – October 31: State uses nearly one million dollars of police force to bury 10,000 truckloads of PCB-contaminated soil from approximately 250 miles of roadside.
Warren County citizens and their supporters march, protest and over 500 people are arrested. The environmental justice movement is launched.
On this day, September 7 1977, climate scientist Stephen Schneider is on the Johnny Carson show for the last time (he deviated from the script!)
“How many of you think the world is cooling?” That’s what Steve Schneider asked the studio audience of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in September 1977. And when the majority put their hands up, he explained that the recent cooling trend had only been short-term. Though the unscripted poll meant Steve wasn’t invited back to the programme, through the summer of that year he had brought climate science to US national TV. The appearances typified Steve’s efforts to bring climate change to the world’s notice – efforts that would later draw attention of a less desirable sort.
On this day, September 4 2006, the Royal Society (venerable Science outfit, 360ish years old) asked the American oil company Exxon to knock it off with the climate denial support.
On this day the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was 379.04 ppm Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Exxon had been/has been an enormous source of climate denial, despite their own scientists saying in the 1970s that yes, indeed, global warming because of the burning of fossil fuels was going to be a serious thing. A bunch of scientists who don’t like hand-to-hand combat coming out and saying “stop right there thank you very much” was a big deal.
