Fifty seven years ago, on this day, February 20, 1969,
“Col. Bernt Balchen, polar explorer and flier, is circulating a paper among polar specialists proposing that the Arctic pack ice is thinning and that the ocean at the North Pole may become an open sea within a decade or two.”
Expert Says Arctic Ocean Will Soon Be an Open Sea Catastrophic Shifts in Climate Feared if Change Occurs; Other Specialists See No Thinning of Polar Ice Cap
By WALTER SULLIVAN February 20, 1969. New York Times.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Arctic had been perceptibly warming since the end of the 19th century. And this had been spotted onwards and onwards from 1916 onwards. It was not a particularly controversial finding, though, the mechanism was in dispute, and the speed with which the changes would hit were within dispute.
The specific context was that all things environmental were a hot topic, because in January of 1969 the Santa Barbara oil spill had happened. You’d also had the Earth Rise photo from NASA, and everyone was beginning to worry about the impacts of man’s activities.
What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve known that we were causing havoc and mayhem for a long time. We haven’t always been accurate on how that havoc and mayhem would unfold, because, well, after all, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future. It’s worth noting that Walter Sullivan, their science correspondent, had been neck deep in the International Geographical Year, publicity or reporting, so he knew what he was talking about.
It was also Sullivan who, in 1981 reported on James Hansen’s findings, I think, in August, and that ended up costing Hanson some funding, which had already been granted because the Reagan administration was, well, the Reagan administration.
What happened next: More and more attention paid to the melting of ice caps and the freeing up of polar sea lanes, etc. And now as of 2026, well, the fights are on.
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 five years ago John Maddox is fulminating against the concern over carbon dioxide build-up. Yeah, Maddox, that one is gonna age like a glass of milk (30+ yrs later, he admitted he was wrong. Sort of).
On the same day (and perhaps some in the room had seen the editorial?) people in the Ecology Party, since renamed the Green Party – were talking about the climate threat. Forty five damned years.
Sixty eight years ago, on this day, February 19 1958,
A meeting at Linneas Society London, from which Council for Nature group forms.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that in the 1950s it was becoming clear that industrialization wasn’t just an issue for cities air quality, but also large chunks of the beautiful English countryside and diverse species were being wiped out. This had been going on for ages. Of course, I don’t want to say that it was just in the 50s.
The specific context was -well, I don’t know about the Council for Nature, presumably the Tory government wanting to look like it gave a shit. And there will have been people within the Tory government who did give a shit.
What I think we can learn from this is that there are always these fine sounding names slapped on state bodies that are there ostensibly to regulate and protect. These bodies always run out of steam, get captured, get corrupted, and occasionally renewed, but during their capture and corruption, they waste a lot of people’s time and hope and then cause cynicism, despair, apathy, which you could argue is ultimately a feature, not a bug.
What happened next:
Oh, these groups come and go, get rebranded and waste a lot of everyone’s time and hope.
The Council for Nature. Nature 181, 867–868 (1958). https://doi.org/10.1038/181867a0
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 three years ago, on this day, February 18, 2003,
This special coal fires edition of the International Journal of Coal Geology is a by-product of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) symposium entitled Coal Fires Burning Around the World: A Global Catastrophe, held on February 18, 2003 in Denver, CO. The purpose of the symposium, organized and convened by Glenn B. Stracher of East Georgia College, Robert B. Finkelman of the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, VA, and Tammy P. Taylor of Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, was to disclose the severity of the coal fires problem to the scientific, engineering, and lay communities and to promote interest in the interdisciplinary study of this environmental catastrophe.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that scientists had been measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere accurately since 1958, and had been speculating about shitfuckery of monumental proportions, And from the late 70s that speculation had firmed up, there were various efforts to disprove or to test the idea significantly. For example, the Charney Report. But these had come to naught because of politicians’ ignorance and a lack of a social movement/civil society push.
It’s fairly elementary. 19th century physics, Greenhouse gases trap heat. Carbon dioxide is one, not the only greenhouse gas. If you put lots more of it into the atmosphere, you will get more heat. Take a look at Venus..
The specific context was that by 2003 it was clear that the United States, under George W Bush was not going to be any better, in fact, possibly even worse than his dad, and that there was going to be hell to pay.
Of course, that hell would be paid, in the first instance, by all the other species on the planet, and people, mostly not rich and white and people not yet born. But hell has a way of catching up with you. And here we are in 2026.
What I think we can learn from this is that the warnings have been endless, and there is a subset of humanity that just doesn’t give a fuck, and they are able to hire all sorts of goons, physical goons like ICE, intellectual goons like, well, frankly, most of academia, including humanities and well, it’s their planet. We just cling to the edges of it
What happened next: Bush kept being Bush. He was then, from sort of 2002-3 onwards, bigging up” technology”, which is always their answer, regardless of how implausible it is.
And the emissions and the concentrations and the impacts they kept making themselves felt.
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 three years ago, on this day, February 17, 2003,
SYDNEY, Feb 17, AAP – One of Australia’s big four banks has indicated its support for an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases.
Greenpeace today said initial findings of its survey of Business Council of Australia (BCA) members revealed Westpac supported the aims and objectives of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
AAP. 2003. Westpac supports Kyoto Protocol – Greenpeace. Australian Associated Press Financial News Wire, 17 Feb
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the idea of rich countries having to reduce emissions was there from the beginning of public international climate concern in 1988, but the administration of George HW Bush had, using its diplomatic muscle, prevented targets and timetables for reductions being in the UNFCCC’s text at that point, Australia was playing, and I mean that in every sense, the role of a “responsible middle power”. However, the domestic forces arrayed against emissions reductions and policy instruments like a price on carbon dioxide to make reductions happen were extremely strong.
The specific context was that in 1997 the Kyoto Protocol had been agreed, Australia had managed to get an extremely generous increase in its reductions. De jure 108% but de facto, once you took into account the land clearing clause, 130%.
In September 1998 the Canberra Times reported that Cabinet had decided it would not ratify Kyoto unless the Americans did. In March 2001 the Bush administration pulled the US out of Kyoto, and in June of 2002 Howard had followed through on that, choosing to make the announcement on World Environment Day, primarily, I assume, to own the libs.
But business had seen value in Kyoto ratification. New South Wales had lots of forests and could get so-called carbon credits, but only if Australia ratified. Meanwhile, carbon trading was going to enable nice fat fees for consultants and bankers in lots of loopholes, but Howard was opposed. Therefore it’s not particularly surprising to see Westpac coming out in favour.
What I think we can learn from this is that “capital” is not unitary, not a monolith. There are competing, overlapping, conflicting interests, all of which need managing, usually within and between trade associations, but sometimes just the big beasts – the really big beasts – doing it behind closed doors.
What happened next: later on in that year, Howard blocked an emissions trading scheme for Australia that all his Cabinet wanted, and he went on to win another election. Westpac kept on talking, and in 2006 combined with the Australian Conservation Foundation, the biggest green group to push the case for “Early action on climate change” in April of 2006.
Meanwhile, during all this, the emissions kept climbing, the concentrations kept climbing, and the chances of humans, humanity, civilization, whatever label you want to stick on it, avoiding the absolute worst consequences of its own behaviour, shrank.
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.
In my opinion (but I’m not alone) Andy Revkin (Wikipedia, his substack) is one of the giants of climate change reporting. His 1988 reporting, putting James Hansen’s pivotal testimony in broader context, and his later Dot Earth blog for the New York Times would be enough, on their own, to cement his status. But there is much more to say. Please read and share this excellent interview he has generously given to All Our Yesterdays. (Also, suggest other people to be interviewed!)
1. A little bit about yourself – where you were born, grew up, how you found yourself doing journalism.
I was born and raised in Rhode Island, a lucky circumstance that came with lots of access to the sea, from snorkeling to sailing to fishing. Some great high school teachers led me to ecology, ocean science and resource management. I headed toward a career in marine biology while at Brown University but after I won a traveling fellowship that took me around the world, I shifted to a focus on writing about the environment and science instead of doing the research. There is a lot more on my journey to, and within, journalism in this Sustain What post: Can There Be Passion and Detachment in Environmental Journalism?
2. Do you remember when and how you first heard about carbon dioxide build-up, and what you thought?
Late in 1984, my second year at Science Digest magazine, I was asked to write an article about nuclear winter – the hypothesis that vast plumes of smoke from cities burned in a nuclear war could reach the stratosphere and dangerously chill Earth. My reporting at the now-threatened National Center for Atmospheric Research introduced me to the supercomputers and models already being used to study global warming from accumulating heat-trapping carbon dioxide. That cover story ran in March 1985 and my first
cover story on global warming, at Discover Magazine, ran three years later. At first in my reporting, climate change felt like a simple pollution problem (like smog, acid rain, etc.) that would respond to regulation. But even in that first big story there were hints this was a vastly harder challenge. I’m glad I included this line, which really nailed a core reality: “[E]ven as the developed nations of the world cut back on fossil fuel use, there will be no justifiable way to prevent the Third World from expanding its use of coal and oil. How can the developed countries expect that China, for example, which has plans to double its coal production in the next 15 years in order to spur development, will be willing or even able to change course?” (Folks can download a pdf of the October 1988 Discover Magazine cover story here.)
3. What happened in 1983 that brought you to the environmental beat?
My youth in Rhode Island and my education all drew me toward environmental science and related challenges. That carried forward into my journalism. My first big prize-winning magazine feature story, in 1983, was on worldwide perils from worker exposure to the weed killer Paraquat. That also led my editors to sustain that focus.
4. That period, 1985-1992, was – it turns out – foundational (in good ways and bad). What are some of your most vivid memories of that period?
After my nuclear winter story was published in 1985, I quit Science Digest to join a sailing friend delivering a sailboat from Dubai to the island Republic of Maldives. Spending time in those low islets reinforced my interest in environmental and social change. I then moved to a reporting job at the Los Angeles Times, writing about regional pollution issues, wildfire risk and the like before returning East to magazines and that global warming cover story. Doing that climate reporting, I’ll never forget meeting a diplomat from the low-lying Maldives wandering halls at a big climate meeting in Toronto in June 1988, musing on how his country, most threatened by warming, was essentially invisible in the discussions. In 1989 I left my magazine job and headed to the Amazon rain forest for three months to do research for my first book, The Burning Season, on the murder of forest defender Chico Mendes. That experience reinforced for me how most environmental issues are symptoms of societal issues (Brazil’s military dictatorship at the time was promoting policies fostering clearing of the Amazon and that threatened the rights of the region’s inhabitants). The biggest insight that emerged for me through those years came in 1991, when when I was writing my second book, Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast. In that book, published in 1992, I posited that humanity’s planet-changing surge was taking us out of the Holocene and into a “a geological age of our own making” that I proposed calling the “Anthrocene.” This was a decade before Paul Crutzen and other earth-system scientists formalized a proposal for the Anthropocene. (I ended up being a member of the Anthropocene Working Group from 2010 through 2016.)
5. What of your own work are you proudest, and why?
“The Burning Season” is by far the hardest and best thing I ever wrote; my 2,810-post, 100,000-comment Dot Earth blog for The New York Times has been described by others as a ground-breaking model for a learning-journey style of journalism on complex subjects; I think a few of my songs will stand the test of time – among those, “Arlington” and (hopefully) “Life is a Band.”
6. Who else would you like to give a shout out to, in terms of climate reporting/advocacy/activism (go as long as you like)
My shout-out would be to the full community of tens of thousands of people devoting time to bending curves toward progress on climate understanding (from basic research to education) and affordable access to clean energy (from basic research to policy to communication to innovation and commerce). That’s because there’s no single strategy, tactic, focal point, or person that matters most. And it’s because a diversity of responses to this kind of problem is not only essential; it’s also inevitable given human nature. Read my writing on the concept of “response diversity” as a sustainability strategy for lots more (here on climate solutions, here specifically on activism)
7. Complete this sentence “It’s important that we remember the (long) histories behind climate science, policy and activism because…”
…a focus on day-to-day politics and debate can miss vital long-timescale realities that really shape what societies can, and can’t, do addressing grand challenges of all kinds – from global warming to immigration to poverty alleviation to public health.
8. What next? What are you working on at the moment that you’d like to give a shout out to
I’ve had several book ideas simmering for a long while, but one’s life gets shorter every day and it’s also time for me to get more of my music out in the world. Since the mid 1990s, songwriting and performing have been a vital second communication pathway for me. Through this year, I’m working on a couple of albums of original songs, building on my one album, “A Very Fine Line,” released way back in 2013. Readers can learn about my songwriting side and listen to heaps of music in this Sustain What post: When Reporting Gives Way to Singing.
Lord Ritchie-Calder’s essay “Mortgaging the Old Homestead” had been published in various outlets (Australia, US). Sports Illustrated readers expressed their thanks (and alarm) on this day 56 years ago.
With climate change at the top of Australians’ worry list (recently and briefly), the denialists in the Liberal Party decide to psychologise basic physics. Bravo!
Failed Presidential aspirant John Kerry is diverting attention from the Obama administration’s uselessness (well, worse) by pointing the finger at other assholes.
Seven very long years ago, on this day, February 15, 2019,
“On Friday 15 February 2019, around 15,000 young people in towns and cities across the country walked out of school in protest at government inaction on the climate crisis. A month later, as part of a global strike, they did the same again – this time in more than three times their previous number.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 411ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that we’ve been expecting children to redeem our skanky adult asses for decades (or centuries).
The specific context was that the IPCC’s report had come out. Greta Thunberg was holding her school strikes in Stockholm. “Change” was in the air.
What I think we can learn from this is that without organisation, these things go up like a rocket and come down like a stick. They’re like a fist when you open your palm.
But we forget, we “hope” and, well, rinse and repeat…
What happened next: You could do worse than read this and weep –
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.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As the tundra melts, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.
Hansen, J. 2009. Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them. Guardian, 15 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that we have known since the fifties that putting enormous quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere was going to have consequences. We didn’t know how big, how soon, but by the late 1970s, that was becoming clear…
The specific context was that the UK government was busy bullshitting about allowing the building of new “carbon-capture-ready” coal-fired power stations. For fuck’s sake.
What I think we can learn from this is that scientists can tell the truth all they like. The truth, on its own, will not – in fact – set you free, no matter what St John wants you to believe.
What happened next: Hansen kept writing and sciencing. The politicians kept ignoring him and thousands of other scientists. So did, for the most part, the publics of the Western democracies.
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 six years ago, on this day, February 14th, 1990,
“The command sequence was then compiled and sent to Voyager 1, with the images taken at 04:48 GMT on February 14, 1990.[19] At that time, the distance between the spacecraft and Earth was 40.47 astronomical units (6,055 million kilometers, 3,762 million miles).[20]”
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar”, every “supreme leader”, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2025 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Voyager had been launched years earlier, and they turned round and looked at the earth and took the photo. There’s a nice story about how it got found, just like one pixel.
What I think we can learn from this is that beautiful images are sometimes found by accident. See also Earthrise in 1968 as pushed for by Stewart Brand.
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.
