All Our Yesterdays

From 1979 to 1982 American geologist William N. Barbat published 18 issues of the CO₂ Newsletter. His family have kindly supplied copies and given permission for these to be digitised and shared. Every three weeks or so, an issue will be uploaded. To accompany each issue there will be a brief commentary. First up, Professor Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Universities of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala (Sweden).

In the first edition of William Barbat’s CO₂ Newsletter, he translates specialist climate research into accessible language, tracing the unchecked rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide, its primary cause in fossil fuel combustion, and its likely consequences, including “impending famine and social and political upheaval.” The edition offers a measured snapshot of contemporary understanding, written to “fill the communications gap” and inform the public and policymakers; all premised on the hopeful belief that knowledge would prompt action.

In the closing section of the Newsletter, Barbat turns to his two principal “solutions”, both aimed at reducing and ultimately eliminating fossil fuel use: constraining the growth of energy demand and the rapid deployment of nuclear power. Yet more significant than these, is the social and political context he sees as essential for any rational response. “Empathy and trust must be restored between politicians, administrators, businessmen[sic], and activist groups if the CO₂ buildup is to be halted in timely fashion … When heated arguments give way to cool logic, we find that the overall goals of conservationists, humanists, and industrialists actually converge to represent the desires … of a fully enlightened public.” For Barbat, reason, cooperation, and compassion are not optional add-ons; they are prerequisites for action at the necessary scale.

Barbat’s calm, almost reassuring tone sits in stark contrast to the severity of his conclusions. He warns that “Nothing short of revolutionary changes in energy production and usage appear capable of averting the adverse impacts which are expected.” He is equally unambiguous about the dangers of delay: “If we wait to let the atmosphere perform the carbon dioxide experiment, … it will be too late to do much about it”. He frames the issue as a moral one: “If we harbor any sense of responsibility toward preserving spaceship Earth, and toward the welfare of our progeny, we can scarcely afford to leave the carbon dioxide problem to the next generation.”

Yet here we are in 2026. We have pumped an additional 1.5 trillion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (from fossil fuels and land use) and the combustion of oil, gas and even coal continue their seemingly relentless rise. Instead of “empathy and trust” we have chosen delusion, misinformation and lies. Worse still, this failure has spread into expert communities, where magical thinking is increasingly invoked to prop up an unstable status quo or is quietly endorsed through collective silence. The laws of physics, however, remain unmoved by rhetoric or omission.

Since the Newsletter’s publication, humanity has become extraordinarily adept at observing and quantifying the world it is reshaping. With increasing accuracy, we can measure, model, and project the climate system, supported by ever more sensitive instruments, richer datasets, and stronger scientific confidence. Yet this growing clarity has not led to restraint or correction. Instead, it has coincided with a profound inability to act on the damage we fully understand and knowingly accelerate, paralysed not by ignorance, but by convenience, power, and habit.

This is the defining contradiction of our age: a species capable of extraordinary insight, yet seemingly incapable of acting in its own long-term interest. Whether this failure is a temporary lapse or a terminal condition remains unresolved. History, and geology, will render the verdict. Humanity may yet prove itself resilient and adaptive. Or we may simply degrade into a genetic cul-de-sac: a brief, unmistakable stratum in the fossil record, marking a civilisation that could chart its own collapse with exquisite precision, issue increasingly urgent warnings to itself, and still choose, again and again, not to listen.

I have a list of people I am inviting to provide commentaries (you may be on it – nominate yourselves or other people!) I would send a pdf of the relevant issue and you read it then write (or draw? make a video? a song?) 600-900 words in response, to be published just after the issue goes up.