Twenty four years ago, on this day, October 16th, 2001Â
Washington, DC – With many areas of the country still facing tight electricity supplies in coming years, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham today announced more than $110 million in new projects to apply leading edge clean coal technologies to improve the reliability and environmental performance of the Nation’s coal-burning power plants.
Abraham announced that the federal government will share the costs of outfitting eight power plants to become “showcases” of ways coal plants can continue generating low-cost electricity with better performance and in compliance with tight environmental standards.
October 16, 2001 Abraham Announces Projects to Bolster Electricity Supply from Coal Plants “Power Plant Improvement Initiative” is Precursor to President’s Clean Coal Technology Program
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the US was in one of its periodic phases of announcing âenergy independenceâ (see also Nixon in late 1973).
The specific context was Dubya Bush on the campaign trail had said that carbon dioxide would need regulating. After his daddyâs Supreme Court picks gifted him the White House, his boss (Dick Cheney) kibboshed that.
What I think we can learn from this – they lie, they lie, they lie.
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Seventy-nine years ago, on this day, October 14th, 1947 âÂ
Captain Chuck Yeager of the U.S. Air Force flies a Bell X-1 rocket-powered experimental aircraft, the Glamorous Glennis, faster than the speed of sound over the high desert of Southern California and becomes the first pilot and the first airplane to do so in level flight.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 310ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the second world war had been an astonishing accelerant of technological progress (states fund scientists to develop better ways of killing). All sorts of things become possible.
The specific context was – the new US Air Force wanted some nice publicity.
What I think we can learn from this – we are clever hairless murder apes.
What happened next – we kept getting faster (did you SEE Top Gun: Maniac?).
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â 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, October 7th, 1967,
Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson (April 25, 1942 â October 7, 1967)[1] worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from its earliest days in 1960 until her death in October 1967.[2] She served the organization as an activist in the field and as an administrator in the Atlanta central office. She eventually succeeded James Forman as SNCC’s executive secretary and was the only woman ever to serve in this capacity. She was well respected by her SNCC colleagues and others within the movement for her work ethic and dedication to those around her. SNCC Freedom SingerMatthew Jones recalled, “You could feel her power in SNCC on a daily basis”.[3]Jack Minnis, director of SNCC’s opposition research unit, insisted that people could not fool her. Over the course of her life, she served 100 days in prison for the movement.[1]
October 7 1967 Ruby Doris Smith Robinson dies – https://snccdigital.org/people/ruby-doris-smith-robinson/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 322ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 425ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was the Black Civil Rights movement was in full swing. It gave wider society so much (was an initiator for second wave feminism, anti-war, ecology, gay rights etc etc). But has of course been pacified and diminished in the history books.
The specific context was that life was never particularly easy for women of colour in these movements.
What I think we can learn from this – we should remember, celebrate and learn from these people
What happened next – exhaustion, co-optation and repression did what they always do – by the early 1970s, things were very different⌠(See Debbie Louisâ And We Are Not Saved).
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Nineteen years ago, on this day, September 30th, 2006,
A group of 14 Democratic lawmakers, led by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, sends a letter to the inspector generals of both the Commerce Department and NASA requesting formal investigations into allegations that Bush administration political appointees suppressed evidence linking global warming to increased hurricane intensityâŚ
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that until about 1989 concern over climate change was broadly bi-partisan (this is NOT to say that the people running Reagan were âgreeniesâ – they were not). From 1989 we see serious efforts to silence or sideline top scientists (Hansen, Bolin) and to rile up a culture war. This was under George H.W. Bush.
The specific context was HWâs son, Dumbya – sorry, Dubya – took it to the next level. James Hansen, for example, was on the receiving end of many efforts to sideline/silence him.
What I think we can learn from this is that the people running the show are greedy, stupid, selfish, have no respect for impact science (while loving production science).
What happened next –
Launtberg held hearings the following year –
The War on Science went on, and has accelerated dramatically in the nine months – everybody knows the good guys lostâŚ
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Eighteen years ago, on this day, September 27th, 2007,
2007 Kyoto Protocol Inaction Demonstration, Washington D.C.
Four environmental organizations including Greenpeace, Oil Change International, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and the U.S. Climate Emergency Council, staged a protest against climate change inaction and the Bush Administration’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Demonstrators gathered outside the State Department, where Bush was (ironically) holding an international meeting on climate change. Nearly 50 activists, including Greenpeace Executive Director John Passacantando, were arrested on civil disobedience charges, i.e. refusal to disperse.
and more here – https://climateandcapitalism.com/2007/09/23/dc-rally-to-protest-bush-climate-change-conference/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 364ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the US had signed up to the UNFCCC treaty in 1992, having made sure – via threatening to boycott the Earth Summit – that the text contained no commitments for reductions of emissions.
The specific context was that there was a huge industry lobbying effort in the run-up to the Kyoto conference (to be held in December 1997) to ensure that profits would not be harmed. This effort by the green groups is part of the fight.
What I think we can learn from this – the green groups are always outspent, of course, and are up against the Western belief that âsome technology will turn up at the last minuteâŚâ
What happened next – the Kyoto conference delivered a weak protocol, which the US pulled out of in 2001. There was then an effort to create a sequel, in Copenhagen in 2009. That failed. Then, in 2015 the world-saving âParis Agreementâ, oh yes.
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Seventy five years ago, on this day, September 26th, 1950,
On 26 and 27 September 1950, the U.S. Navy conducted a secret experiment named “Operation Sea-Spray” in which balloons filled with S. marcescens were released and burst over urban areas of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Although the Navy later claimed the bacteria were harmless, beginning on September 29, 11 patients at a local hospital developed very rare, serious urinary tract infections. One of the afflicted patients, Edward J. Nevin, died.[27] Cases of pneumonia in San Francisco also increased after S. marcescens was released.[28][29] (That the simulant bacteria caused these infections and death has never been conclusively established.) Nevin’s son and grandson lost a lawsuit they brought against the government between 1981 and 1983, on the grounds that the government is immune,[30] and that the chance that the sprayed bacteria caused Nevin’s death was minute.[31]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 310ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was the âCold Warâ and all the ânational securityâ stuff was offering opportunities to conduct wild experiments with pretty much no oversight or risk of exposure. So scientists went wild.
What I think we can learn from this That when governments bang on about ânational securityâ, watch out for your health. Or watch it decline because – absent an extremely vigorous civil society – you are gonna get used as some kind of guinea pig.
In the Senate subcommittee hearings in 1977, the Army revealed:
Between 1949 and 1969, open-air tests of biological agents were conducted 239 times. In 80 of those experiments, the Army said it used live bacteria that its researchers at the time thought were harmless. In the others, it used inert chemicals to simulate bacteria.
In the 1950s, army researchers dispersed Serratia on Panama City and Key WestFlorida with no known illnesses resulting.
In the 1950s, army researchers dispersed zinc cadmium sulfide, a known cancer-causing agent, over Minnesota and other Midwestern states to see how far they would spread in the atmosphere. The particles were detected more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away in New York state.
Bacillus globigii, never shown to be harmful to people, was released in San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., and along the Pennsylvania Turnpike, among other places.
In New York, military researchers in 1966 spread Bacillus subtilis variant Niger, also believed to be harmless, in the subway system by dropping lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto tracks in stations in midtown Manhattan. The bacteria were carried for miles throughout the subway system. Army officials concluded in a January 1968 report that: “Similar covert attacks with a pathogenic disease-causing agent during peak traffic periods could be expected to expose large numbers of people to infection and subsequent illness or death.”[17]
In a May 1965 secret release of Bacillus globigii at Washington’s National Airport and its Greyhound Lines bus terminal, more than 130 passengers were exposed to the bacteria and traveled to 39 cities in seven states in the two weeks following the mock attack.[5]
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Seventy years ago today, on Thursday September 22nd 1955, a scientist employed by General Electric stood in front of an audience of engineers and told them that the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere âmay be having a greenhouse effect on our climateâ because mankind was âcontaminating the earthâs atmosphere faster than nature can clean it.â
The audience was a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, hosted by the Cleveland Engineering Society. The scientist giving the after-dinner speech, titled âFact and Fantasyâ was John G. Hutton, originally English, who had gained a PhD in electrical engineering at Yale.
The following day the newspaper the Plain-Dealer carried the story under the headline âClears H-Bomb as Weather Climate.â From there the story got picked up by UP (United Press) which quoted Hutton – having explained that trees and plant life absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen – as sayingÂ
âHowever⌠when people chop down trees, bulldoze once-rural land for suburbs, and build factories on former open fields, they lessen the amount of carbon dioxide nature is cleaning from our air.â
Hutton also referred to the Los Angeles smog problem (see Rebecca Johnâs investigation for DeSmog on how fossil fuel companies warped the scientific research effort around this, burying the carbon dioxide aspect).
Hutton had been born in 1916, Sunderland, England. Having failed his exam to enter secondary school, he worked in manual labour and went to night school in order to be accepted to Durham University. From there he was awarded a fellowship to attend Yale, where he got his Masters and Doctorate. After brief stints in Canada and teaching at Cornell, he started working for General Electric in 1943 as an electrical engineer.
Hutton’s inspirations
Hutton already was an experienced after-dinner speaker by this time, and it is not clear why he chose to talk about climate change.
Two years previously Gilbert Plass, drawing on the work of Swedish Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius, and the more recent work of English Steam Engineer Guy Callendar, had pointed to the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a long-term threat. Also in 1953 economist Willam J. Baxter, author of the very popular âTodayâs Revolution in Weatherâ had touched on the theory. When Hutton spoke, Plassâs first academic paper on CO2 build-up had been submitted but not published, and Roger Revelle, the famous scientist and administrator, had not yet begun to use carbon dioxide build-up as one part of his (successful) campaign to convince US federal politicians to fund expensive science. Â
It may simply have been that the International Geophysical Year – a world-wide collaboration of data gathering – was coming soon (1957-1958) and he thought it worth talking about; he told his Cleveland audience that carbon dioxide build-up would be investigated during the IGY.
Two other possible sources of inspiration deserve a mention. In June 1955, Fortune magazine had published an article by the extremely well-known and respected Jonny von Neumann. In âCan we survive technology?â the Hungarian genius noted that
â[t]he carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry’s burning of coal and oil-âmore than half of it during the last generationâmay have changed the atmosphere’s composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit.â
The second source is internal to GE. Another – far more prominent – General Electric scientist was already making waves on the question of carbon dioxide and the atmosphere, albeit from another perspective.
From the late 1940s, pursuing work he and others had conducted during the second world war, Irving Langmuir advocated using frozen carbon dioxide (âdry iceâ) to see clouds.
On the afternoon of October 13, 1947, an Air Force B-17 aircraft penetrated a hurricane 415 miles (667 km) east of Jacksonville and dumped several pounds of crushed dry ice into the storm, just to see what would happen. This was the first attempt to modify a tropical cyclone by seeding it with freezing nuclei.
Regardless of Huttonâs specific impetus, the idea that man might modify the weather and climate – either deliberately (as a weapon of war, or to improve crop growth) or accidentally was âin the air.â In June 1953 tornados had occurred in places that had rarely had them before, and there was a great deal of speculation and anxiety around the possibility that H-bomb tests had caused them (for a great summary of this see McBrien, 2019).
What happened next
There was immediate newspaper coverage around the United States in local papers. Usually this was buried in later pages, but on several occasions it was front page news. (e.g. âEngineer lays hotter weather on growing industrializationâ The Buffalo News, September 23, page 1) and âAuto Exhaust May Change Climate More Than A-Bombâ Omaha World-Herald, November 18, page 1)
Over the following months, the story was syndicated elsewhere, often with the âno, itâs not H-bombsâ angle emphasised.
In February 1956 the science correspondent for the Washington Evening Star (then a far more important paper than the Washington Post) covered Huttonâs speech.
Other publications, including Journal of the Franklin Institute, âManagementâ and âPower Plant Engineeringâ also ran articles covering his speech.
Most intriguingly, in 1956 the long-running radio program sponsored by GE, âExcursions in Science,â covered the question of carbon dioxide build-up. Huttonâs speech was not mentioned – the episode was based on Gilbert Plassâs paper which had just come out. You can listen to it here: Climate Change and Industrial Activity – Excursions in Science Radio Program from 1950s
What we learn and what happened next
The value of this is that it builds a picture of carbon dioxide build-up as a persistent (albeit minor) factor in US print media coverage of what would later be called âpollutionâ narratives. The carbon dioxide theory had received a boost thanks to Gilbert Plassâs May 1953 presentation to the American Geophysical Union. Huttonâs speech, the first I have found, came before Revelle, Teller and others, before we even had âthe Keeling Curveâ
Hutton seems not to have repeated his warning. He spent 39 years working for GE, retiring in 1981. He died in 1995 after an extended illness, just after the first âCOPâ meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and a few months before the IPCCâs Second Assessment Report stated that human activities were already having a âdiscernibleâ impact on the worldâs climate.
When Hutton made his speech in Cleveland, the atmospheric concentration of C02 was 313ppm and annual human emissions were 7.4bn tonnes.
When he died they were at 360ppm, with emissions at 23.27bn tonnes.
Today they stand at 424ppm, with emissions at 37bn tonnes.
There is a very great deal of trouble ahead. Some of it has arrived, but much much more is on its way. We can’t say we were not warned.
McBrien, Justin. 2019. ââThe Tornado Was Not the A-Bombâs Childâ: The Politics of Extreme Weather in the Age of Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing.â Environment & Society Portal, Arcadia (Autumn 2019), no. 40. Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. doi.org/10.5282/rcc/8814.
Billionaire investor Chris Sacca yesterday said that spraying particles into the Earth’s atmosphere to reflect the sun’s rays and slow global warming may now be the only way to save humanity.
Why it matters: The Lowercarbon Capital founder has helped turn a fringe idea into one now attracting serious attention.
Driving the news: “We have no opportunity for survival on this planet unless you reflect back sunlight,” Sacca said at a summit in New York City organized by venture capital firm Equal Ventures.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 421ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was the rich have always loved geo-engineering, because it sidelines questions of justice (it doesnât really, but in the short term it does) and appeals to their messiah/god complexes.
The specific context was that the COP process was obviously dead (again) and the âwell, letâs Hail Maryâ this was in the air.
What I think we can learn from this is that rich people are not necessarily smarter than anyone else. May even become dumber by the time theyâve surrounded themselves with sycophants, if they werenât at the start.
What happened next – the geo-engineering debate bubbles on, much like the methane in the clathrates.
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Forty seven years ago, on this day, September 17th, 1978,
17 Sept 1978 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the “National Climate Program Act”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 335ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that there had been efforts, since about 1974 iirc, to beef up Federal support for/co-ordination of climate research (n.b. At this point carbon dioxide was only one of many different matters of concern).
The specific context was Various tenacious politicians kept on the case, despite repeated failures (George Brown etc).
What I think we can learn from this
Science requires funding and leadership. What happens when you have neither? Well, weâre finding out.
What happened next
By 1979 it was pretty clear to the smarter people in the room that the carbon dioxide build-up was the problem to watch. The politicians took a decade to convince.
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â 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, September 15th, 1990,
The first episode of âCaptain Planet and the Planeteersâ was broadcast.
Captain Planet and the Planeteers, commonly referred to as simply Captain Planet, is an American animated environmentalist superhero television series created by Barbara Pyle and Ted Turner[1] and developed by Pyle, Nicholas Boxer, Thom Beers, Andy Heyward, Robby London, Bob Forward, and Cassandra Schafausen. The series was produced by Turner Program Services and DIC Enterprises and broadcast on TBS and in syndication from September 15, 1990, to December 5, 1992
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 354ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, itâs not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was weâve got to propagandise the young about how The System cares and can be fixed to solve whatever the problem seems to be. There are vast indoctrination efforts going on, all the time.
The specific context was that Ted Turner was then married to Jane Fonda, who switched him on to environmental issues.
What I think we can learn from this is that the efforts at getting the kids riled up? Yeah, doesnât last.
What do you think? Does this pass the âso what?â threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
References
King, D. L. (1994). Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Kids, environmental crisis, and competing narratives of the new world order. Sociological Quarterly, 35(1), 103-120.
