One hundred and sixty nine years ago, on this day, September 13th, 1856,
Her article sparked interest and praise, notably in the 13 September issue of Scientific American magazine, in an article titled ‘Scientific ladies – experiments with condensed gases’: ‘Some have not only entertained, but expressed the mean idea, that women do not possess the strength of mind necessary for scientific investigation […] the experiments of Mrs Foote afford abundant evidence of the ability of woman to investigate any subject with originality and precision.’ https://www.chemistryworld.com/culture/eunice-foote-the-mother-of-climate-change/4011315.article#/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 285ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the 19th century was kinda exciting for “science” (new word, only just taking over from “natural philosophy”).
The specific context wasEunice Foote was a campaigner for women’s suffrage, and a scientist.
What I think we can learn from this – we could have done better as a species, but, well, here we are…
What happened next
Foote’s work specifically on climate was forgotten, but then rediscovered by retired petroleum geologist Ray Sorenson. In January 2011, in the American Association of Petroleum Geologists‘ on-line journal Search and Discovery he had this article.-: “Eunice Foote’s Pioneering Research On CO2 And Climate Warming“
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 six years ago, on this day, September 11th, 1969, Californian Congressman George Brown introduced an “omnibus” environment bill.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 324ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it was 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that through the second half of the 1960s various Congressmen (mostly but by no means entirely Democrats) had introduced various bills about pollution (air, water etc). Most of this had been performative.
The specific context was that by mid-1969 the “environment”/ecology was competing with the assault on Vietnam for people’s attention (anti-war activists were understandably suspicious, obvs).
What I think we can learn from this is that politicians have antennae, and will try to amplify the things they want amplified. (Not ALL of them are corporate meat-puppets, at least, not all of the time).
What happened next – the times were propitious, and President Nixon signed the NEPA into law in January 1970. Various bodies were formed, reports written and released, speeches given. Guess what – the emissions kept climbing.
To be fair to George Brown, he was behind the successful push for a National Climate Act, that President Carter signed in 1978.
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 nine years ago, on this day, September 10th, 1997 another pro-apocalypse propaganda outfit was launched, ahead of the UNFCCC negotiations to take place in Kyoto (COP-3).
“Global Climate Information Project” launched”
Launched on September 9, 1997, by some of the nation’s most powerful trade associations, the Global Climate Information Project (GCIP) has rolled out an ambitious campaign for combating possible emission regulations courtesy of the Kyoto conference.
Through an advertising campaign that, according to GCIP figures, has already spent more than $3 million in newspaper and television spots and could spend as much as $13 million, the GCIP aims to cast doubt upon the need for emissions controls by questioning the politics and the science behind a United Nations agreement.
Writing on the media campaign unveiled by the GCIP, Bruce Clark of the Financial Times remarked that it “could become one of the most expensive lobbying efforts since the ‘Harry and Louise’ commercials that helped doom” the Clinton administration’s health-care reform proposal”
“A Clear View, Vol 4, No 16, Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research”
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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that business interests always mobilise and collaborate to face down challenges to their right to socialise the costs and privatise the profits. There’s lots of good research on this – Merchants of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway remains a good place to start.
The specific context was that Kyoto was coming and business had already done a great job in demonising it, in boxing in US Senators. But you can never be too sure, so thus the “Information” (sic) Project.
What I think we can learn from this. The war for the public mind goes on, and on.
What happened next – the war for the public mind went on.
New battalions were formed, new weapons tested. The strategic imperative remains unchanged – keep the peasants too busy to fight back. Buy off the smart one that you can, sideline or dephysicalise those you can’t.
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 four years ago, on this day, September 9th, 1971 climate scientist Stephen Schneider wrote a letter to the New York Times about some industry bullshit that the Times had run as a n op-ed.
AND on the same day, things were a foot in the United Kingdom
“Whereas Bray had been highly sceptical of the World model, Cottrell had been enthused by its demonstration. Returning to Britain, he proposed that the British government develop a similar model, stating his belief that ‘Forrester’s approach is the most important development of its kind since Keynes’ general theory’.117
Given the centrality of Keynesianism in post-war economic policy, this was a significant claim. Heath, as his early enthusiasm for management science had revealed, had some interest in forecasting and simulation, and gave his permission for a scoping study on the feasibility of a British world model. Cottrell held a meeting on the subject at the Cabinet Office in September 1971, in which he had told the assembled civil servants that developing a global model for British purposes would require £50,000 and four staff. In response, an unnamed civil servant argued that the Treasury had a more sophisticated econometric model that it used for forecasting. Despite this criticism, the general idea of a global environmental model was well received, and further work was proposed.118 “
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 326ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that in the late 1960s people started worrying about the global impact of industrialisation and population growth (as distinct from concerns about localised pollution).
The specific context was that a) Schneider was already making a name for himself as combative and b) the British state was beginning to think about systems modelling (aware that the Club of Rome report was coming)…
What I think we can learn from this is that there was mention of carbon dioxide and limits to growth way back when. It had pushed out from the undergrowth in the late 1960s…
What happened next: By 1973, we were back to sleep, for the most part. A few new NGOs, a couple of magazines (Your Environment, The Ecologist). It is very very hard to combat a world view.
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 six years ago, on this day, September 6th, 1979, the American Petroleum Institute’s “do nothing” suggestion was getting some love from RJ Campion, Exxon’s climate scientist.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that in the late 1970s scientists – both employed by the state and some of the oil majors, had a pretty good idea what was coming….
The specific context was – well, here’s a passage from Ben Franta’s PhD
“Although Exxon’s research program was notable for its sophistication, the company wasn’t alone in monitoring climate science. By 1979, the API had formed a task force focused on climate change composed of representatives from the major oil companies, including Exxon’s Henry Shaw. Initially named the CO2 and Climate Task Force and in 1980 renamed the Climate and Energy Task Force, the group’s internal memos show that much like Exxon, it viewed climate research as a strategic tool to influence public perception and government regulation in favor of the fossil fuel industry.
One of the earliest known memos regarding the task force, from 1979 and written by Exxon scientist Raymond Campion, recommended the group not pursue original climate change research, because “the industry’s credibility on such issues is not high at the present time, and should an API study indicate no serious CO2 problems, the results would be greeted with skepticism.”
What I think we can learn from this is that there were paths not taken. Don’t get me wrong – even if we’d taken serious action in the late 1970s, there was still going to be serious trouble ahead. But now, well….
What happened next: The Reagan administration came in and it would not be until the very end of that shitty period – in 1988 – that the climate problem finally broke through and became 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.
Sixty eight years ago, on this day, September 1st, 1957, Popular Mechanics September 1957,
Whats happening to the weather https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DeEDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA106&dq=What%E2%80%99s+Happening+to+the+Weather&pg=PA106&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 313ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that it was the 1950s and everyone was freaked out about the possible impact of atomic and hydrogen bombs. The International Geophysical Year had begun, with all sorts of measurements of the atmosphere, the cryosphere etc. There was an excitement about the possibilities of weather modification – both to increase agricultural production but also as a weapon of war.
The specific context was that Popular Mechanics had – in August 1953 – run a short piece about Gilbert Plass’s May announcement of what carbon dioxide build-up might do.
What I think we can learn from this – the carbon dioxide issue came through all of this sort of sideways, or at least elliptically, for most people.
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.
Ninety-two years ago, on this day, September 1st, 1933, an article appeared in the U Monthly Weather Review.
“The present wide-spread and persistent tendency toward warmer weather, and especially the recent long series of mild winters, has attracted considerable public interest; so much so that frequently the question is asked “Is our climate changing? ”
Written by JD Kincer it did not mention carbon dioxide or Arrhenius (which is fair enough – the carbon dioxide theory was in the doldrums!)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 308ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that – as our denialist bezzies like to point out – “the climate is always changing”.
The specific context was that there seemed to be some warming in the Arctic, and this was known and not controversial (see this 1916 article).
What I think we can learn from this is that systems like the climate are painfully complex, and doing good science requires decent global measurements, computers and humility.
What happened next – a few years later, a British steam engineer called Guy Callendar presented his paper at the Royal Geographical Society. This was basically ignored, but in 1953, thanks to Gilbert Plass, carbon dioxide entered the building…
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
For years there have been doomsday predictions that burning of fossil fuels might bring about a climatic catastrophe. According to the most alarming theories, fossil fuels release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it acts as a greenhouse, blocking the escape of heat into space and thus warming the Earth’s surface. The ice caps could melt, sea levels could rise, agriculture could be disrupted and vast coastal areas might be inundated.
The chief weakness in such theories has been lack of evidence that the greenhouse effect is actually occurring. Though carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been increasing, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere have been falling over the last 30 years. But now seven scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration claim to have found evidence that, on a global basis, carbon dioxide has already been warming the Earth for a century. They predict it will produce ”unprecedented” warming in the next century.
Their study finds that the warming predicted by various computer models of the greenhouse effect is consistent with worldwide temperature readings since 1880 – and with observations from Venus and Mars. That gave them confidence that the effect is real and that the models can predict it. Other scientists will challenge their assumptions, methods and conclusions. Some actually believe that the greenhouse effect would be beneficial to world agriculture. Conclusive observations may not be available for decades. But it is significant that a respected team of scientists has now joined the group warning of possible catastrophe.
What, if anything, should be done? The nation seems to be turning to the worst possible fuels in terms of carbon dioxide. It is depending less on solar and nuclear power, which emit no carbon dioxide at all. And among the fossil fuels, it is shifting from natural gas and oil, which emit little carbon dioxide, to coal and synthetic fuels, which emit much more.
The greenhouse effect is still too uncertain to warrant total alteration of energy policy. But this latest study offers fair warning; that such a change may yet be required is no longer unimaginable.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 340ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the New York Times, and other papers, had been reporting on carbon dioxide build-up, quite intermittently, since the 1950s.
The specific context was that the Reagan administration was busy attacking science. The New York Times’ science correspondent, Walter Sullivan, had talked to James Hansen, which ended up costing some funding. See this 2007 interview with Hansenhttps://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hotpolitics/interviews/hansen.html.
Why do you think that your testimony in particular was sensitive in the [Reagan] administration, so much so that OMB would want to shade what you were saying?
Well, I think the reason it was sensitive was the fact that it got attention. In 1981 the paper that we wrote in Science — that predicted that the world would be getting warmer over the 1980s and that by the year 2000 you begin to see loss of sea ice and eventually you have opening of the fabled Northwest Passage — that article was reported on the front page of The New York Times by Walter Sullivan. As a result, we lost our funding from the Department of Energy, because, in that administration, they simply did not want that sort of attention to this problem, because it has big implications for fossil fuel industry.
What I think we can learn from this is that we knew enough and we didn’t act. We can stick that on our tombstone.
What happened next – it would be 1988 before politicians would have to start to pretend to give a damn.
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 today, on Thursday August 26th 1965, Carl W. Borgmann stood in front of hundreds of young Americans in Knoxville. Borgmann, who was the director of the Ford Foundation’s Science and Engineering programme, was there to deliver the commencement address for the University of Tennessee. He probably gave it little thought, but he was doing something unprecedented – he was using a commencement address to warn young people about the threat of carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere.
[Update 31/8/2025 – a comprehensive Wikipedia page has been created about Borgmann, in response to this article. It’s really good]
His speech was given the unwieldy title “A Conversation Ethic. Man’s Use of Science: Some Deferred Costs “ when it appeared the following year in the Massachusetts Audubon Society magazine. He began by explaining what he would not talk about.
“I would rather not deal today with new discoveries in science – not because they are not exciting, for they are, nor because I don’t feel quite comfortable with some of them, which is certainly true, but because another topic seems more urgent to me. Even as I contemplate what man may know through science, I am impelled to ask what he will do with this knowledge – not only with his new scientific discoveries, but with his older ones too, and his ingenious technologies.”
Borgmann laid out many of the challenges – physical, social and moral – facing the United States and the world. Then, two thirds of the way through the speech he said the following startlingly prescient phrases.
“Now consider the burning of fossil fuels. If everyone does it at the average we now have achieved, there will be whole new sets of problems; in fact, many American communities face them presently. What shall we do with the inevitable wastes of our energy-producing processes, with our ash heaps, with the smog of Los Angeles, with the unnatural warming of our rivers?”
Borgmann asks the students to imagine that technology will burn fuels more cleanly, before presenting them with the central dilemma.
“But even if we could afford devices which allowed for our fuels to be completely burned to water and carbon dioxide, another change in our environment is likely. Carbon dioxide, as it becomes a greater proportion of the atmosphere, behaves somewhat like the glass of a greenhouse. It traps heat from the sun, and climatic change results – not overnight, but slowly and surely. This process appears to be already under way, in fact.”
Carl Borgmann
Borgman followed this with a critique of nuclear power – “The preparation of the fuel and the handling and storage of the radioactive waste ash are not without dangers to man and his future.”
Borgmann was sixty at this point. Born in Missouri he had graduated from the University of Colorado in 1927 before working on the technical staff of the Bell Telephones Laboratories and gaining a master’s degree in chemical engineering and a PhD from Cambridge University. He had worked at the universities of North Carolina, Colorado and Nebraska before becoming President of University of Vermont in 1952.
In 1958, Borgmann had started working for the Ford Foundation. His job basically involved handing out money in the form of grants in the resource and environment field.
Borgmann was therefore extremely well equipped to understand the carbon dioxide problem.
Where did he get his information? While carbon dioxide build-up had been covered in both the scientific press, and even by President Lyndon Johnson a few months earlier, by far the most likely source of inspiration for Borgmann’s comments lie with a group that the Ford Foundation helped to fund – the Conservation Foundation.
Established in 1948 the Conservation Foundation had organised some of the pivotal meetings of US academics and policymakers in the 1950s and early sixties around environmental problems.
As Rebecca John reported a year ago, the Conservation Foundation’s March 1963 workshop was pivotal in raising awareness within governmental circles.
“The present liberation of such large amounts of fossil carbon in such a short time is unique in the history of the earth,” the report stated, “and there is no guarantee that past buffering mechanisms are really adequate.”
This rise in atmospheric CO2 was “worldwide,” the summary reported, and, while it did not present an immediate threat, would be significant “to the generations to follow.” The document went on to say, “The consumption of fossil fuels has increased to such a pitch within the last half century, that the total atmospheric consequences are matters of concern for the planet as a whole.” Relief was likely “only through the development of some new source of power.”
Given the Ford Foundation’s ties with the networks of corporate philanthropy and policy-shaping institutions such as the Conservation Foundation, it seems highly likely that a copy of the report landed on his desk.
In all probability, however, this was not the only source Borgmann had. Through the 1950s, and especially around the time of the 1957-8 “International Geophysical Year,” the possibility of modifying the weather and the climate had been much discussed. Carbon dioxide build-up had appeared in cartoons, public education films and on television programmes. The previous year, in August 1964, Popular Mechanics had run a story about the changing air.
Screengrab Popular Mechanics August 1964
A large portion of Borgmann’s speech appeared the following spring, in the magazine of the Massachusetts Audubon Society. From there, it was approvingly cited in an article entitled “The Future Role of the Biologist in Protecting our Natural Resources“ by the biologist Richard Goodwin in the journal Biological Conservation.
In a February 1968 luncheon speech at the New York Waldorf Astoria called “A Challenging Future”, delivered to extractive metallurgists, Borgmann covered similar ground, trying to explain that there were limits to both resources and the planet’s capacity to cope with the consequences of human ingenuity.
Meanwhile, other, more senior figures were beginning to use commencement addresses to warn students of threats in their future. On June 10, 1966 Glenn Seaborg, head of the Atomic Energy Commission warned students at UC San Diego that “at the rate we are currently adding carbon dioxide to our atmosphere (six billion tonnes a year) within the next few decades the heat balance of that atmosphere could be altered enough to produce marked changes in the climate – changes we might have no means of controlling.” Seaborg continued, saying “I, for one, would prefer to continue to travel toward the equator for my warmer weather than run the risk of melting the polar ice and having some of our coastal areas disappear beneath a rising ocean.”
By 1969 students at commencement addresses were proclaiming that “the future is a cruel hoax”
Borgmann was not, of course, responsible for this upsurge in awareness. What is remarkable though, is that the young people to whom he spoke in 1965 would have very little inkling of global atmospheric threats besides the possibility of nuclear war. Four years later, such threats were far more commonplace.
Borgmann closed his 1965 commencement address by invoking the words of Adlai Stevenson, twice Democratic presidential candidate and ambassador to the United Nations, who had died the previous month.
“We travel together, passengers on a little space ship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed for our safety to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and, I will say, the love we give our fragile craft.”
Borgmann lived a long life. He died in 1998. Three years earlier 1995 the IPCC’s Secod Assessment Report had declared that human impact on the atmosphere was already “discernible.” The year before he died, the Kyoto Protocol was agreed (though the US Senate had already signalled its unwillingness to be part of any global deal).
The warnings of carbon dioxide build-up he had given in 1965, when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was at only 320 parts per million (it is now 430ppm) had come to pass.
Sixty-five years ago, on this day, August 22nd, 1960, Life Magazine published a story about the coming presidential election.
When Life asked both presidential candidates in 1960 to define the national purpose, only John Kennedy mentioned environmental problems. “The good life falls short as an indicator of national purpose unless it goes hand in hand with the good society,” Kennedy wrote. “Even in material terms, prosperity is not enough when there is no equal opportunity to share in it; when economic progress means overcrowded cities, abandoned farms, technological unemployment, polluted air and water, and littered parks and countrysides; when those too young to earn are denied their chance to learn; when those no longer earning live out their lives in lonely degradation.”15 ;
John F. Kennedy, “We Must Climb to the Hilltop,” Life, Aug. 22, 1960, pp. 70B–77, esp. 75 cited in Adam Rome 2
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 316ppm. 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, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that although Silent Spring was still to be published, there were incipient worries – about the spread of car culture, of litter, of the Thanksgiving berries being
The specific context was there was a tight Presidential election going on, and candidates will say whatever will help them get the votes…
What I think we can learn from this – politicians will say whatever will help them get the votes (though to be fair to JFK, he did then try to make “the environment” an issue, but nobody was paying any attention.
What happened next – JFK won the 1960 election – persistent rumours about his dad having stolen Illinois for him remain…
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.
