Tag: 1960

Categories
United States of America

April 1, 1960 – TIROS satellite launched

Sixty four years ago, on this day, April 1st, 1960, a weather satellite started being like the wheels on the bus (i.e. going round and round).

On 1 April 1960, the USA launched its first meteorological satellite, TIROS 1. It was a remarkable experience for people to be able to view the earth and its atmosphere from the outside. The bluish colour of our planet fascinated observers and a number of well-known features of the circulation of the atmosphere became visible through the cloud formations that they create.

(Bolin, 2007) Page 19

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 316.9ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that we’d been talking about putting satellites into space for 100 years. And that had finally happened in September 1957 with Sputnik. The Americans had some failures but were now on the path

Tiros 1 was a weather satellite. And how sad that Johnny von Neumann wasn’t alive to see it. A shame. 

What we learn from this is being able to really see and measure the world from above had an enormous impact on not just weather forecasting, but also just thinking about how the systems worked. (See Paul Edwards’ A Vast Machine).

What happened next? A lot more satellites, a lot bigger computers, a lot better picture and precisely zero meaningful action. On the problem we identified. 

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.

References

Edwards, P. 2010 A Vast Machine. MIT PRess

Also on this day: 

April 1, 1979 – JASONs have their two cents on the greenhouse effect

April 1, 2001 – John Howard sucks up to George Bush on climate wrecking

Categories
Science Scientists

November 19, 1960 – Guy Callendar gives advice on unpopularity of C02 theory

Sixty three years ago, on this day, November 19, 1960, English steam engineer Guy Callendar noted that the carbon dioxide theory was not universally accepted.

In 1961 he published the results of his study in the Quarterly Journal, concluding that the pattern of recent climatic warming was not incompatible with his hypothesis of increased carbon dioxide radiation.”67 …. As this paper was going to press, Callendar wrote a note listing “[Four] reasons for the unpopularity of CO2 theory in some meteorological quarters.” Although there was no organized opposition to anthropogenic climate change at the time, Callendar’s note reads much like a contemporary response to global warming skeptics:

a. The idea of a single (easily explained) factor causing world wide climatic change seems impossible to those familiar with the complexity of the forces on which any and every climate depends.

b. The idea that man’s actions could influence so vast a complex [system] is very repugnant to some. 

c. The meteorological authorities of the past have pronounced against it, mainly on the basis of faulty observations of water vapour absorption, but also because they had not studied the problem to anything like the extent required to pronounce on it.

d. Last but not the least. They did not think of it themselves!

68. CP 1, Levinson, 19 November 1960

Source: James Roger Fleming 2007 The Life and Times of Guy Stewart Callendar (1898–1964)  p.82

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Callendar had continued writing after the war on climate and had corresponded extensively with Gilbert Plass, the man most responsible for bringing the carbon dioxide theory to prominence in the United States. 

This article with these notes to himself was written after he’d submitted something for publication. And they bear thinking about in terms of why good ideas or sound ideas don’t go further. It’s classic, “not invented here” syndrome. People are unwilling to accept good ideas from people they don’t like.

What I think we can learn from this

is that awareness of intellectual resistance to facts is hardly novel. Even around climate, it goes back further than perhaps you think

What happened next

Callendar’s paper got published. It was his last one. Callendar died in early 1964, on the same day of the year as Svante Arrhenius who died in 1927 (LINK).

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.

Categories
Economics of mitigation Uncategorized United States of America

May 20, 1960 – Spengler suggests decline of the … whole shebang

On this day american economist Joseph J. Spengler’s  Science article –  

“Illustrative also would be the covering of much land by water should continuing population growth so step up man’s production of carbon dioxide that the oceans failed to absorb all of it, with the result that the carbon dioxide content, and hence the temperature, of the atmosphere rose sufficiently to melt the polar ice caps.”

See here

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1705886

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319 check  ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that by the late 1950s carbon dioxide build-ups existence and possible long term consequences was not confined to a tiny tiny minority. Anyone who read a newspaper, could understand exponential growth and 19th century could see that there might be some writing on the wall…

What I think we can learn from this

We knew enough to think about worrying.

What happened next?

No economist bothered to think about the problem until Nordhaus in the 1970s.

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.

Categories
United States of America

March 22, 1960 – US Television warning of carbon dioxide build up, courtesy Athelstan Spilhaus…

Sixty three  years ago, on this day, March 22, 1960, viewers of a major US news channel were informed about carbon dioxide build-up and its implications.

“The Mysterious Deep” aired on March 22 and April 3, 1960, and is an important documentary for reasons beyond its music: First, it contains one of the earliest American television interviews with legendary explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, whose UNDERSEA WORLD OF JACQUES COUSTEAU would later revolutionize TV’s approach to oceanography; and second, for its remarkably prescient view of climate change. Within its first five minutes, scientist Athelstan Spilhaus warns of the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide in the world’s atmosphere that could eventually melt the polar ice caps.  https://buysoundtrax.myshopify.com/products/franz-waxman-the-documentaries-the-mysterious-deep-lenin-and-trotsk

“This documentary series hosted by Walter Cronkite,… examines outstanding events and personalities of the twentieth century. In this program, part one of two, Cronkite examines the mysteries of the ocean. Topics discussed include the following: penetrating the ocean surface; the aqualung, a self-contained breathing apparatus developed by oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau; the possibility that the ice caps will melt; the violence of the sea and scientists’ attempts to control the weather to stop violent hurricanes before they originate; how sea water is used to quench the thirsts of millions of people through irrigation systems that purify the water; the importance of seaweed harvesting in Japan; and how microphones are used to determine if sea creatures have a way of communicating. Includes a preview of part two.”

Details

  • NETWORK: CBS
  • DATE: March 27, 1960 Sunday 6:30 PM
  • RUNNING TIME: 0:26:15
  • COLOR/B&W: B&W

https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=cbs&p=19&item=T79:0499

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the International Geophysical Year ended in 1958. And the questions of the weather in the natural world continued to be fascinating to everyone. And this was at the high tide of new technologies which could see further underwater so, Cousteau and so forth. 

What’s interesting about Spilhaus was that he worked for Roger Revelle in the 1930s. As I recall, I think he did a PhD. And he was also a cartoonist, and by 1958, he had started his famous world of tomorrow cartoons and in 1958. He had done one on the greenhouse effect in a 1958 cartoon here. 

This is one of the first examples of coverage of greenhouse gas emissions on the television  

What I think we can learn from this

We really have had loads of time to get used to the idea, haven’t we?

What happened next

Nothing effective on mitigation. Lots of emissions. Then consequences.

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..

Categories
Coal South Africa

January 21, 1960 – at least 435 coal miners killed in apartheid South Africa incident #BusinessAsUsual   #Racism   #Profiteering   #GlobalApartheid

Sixty-one years ago, on this day, January 21, 1960, 435 workers were buried alive when a mine in Coalbrook, Free State collapses. (South Africa) 

In the words of scholar Alan Copley,

“At least 435 miners died when a large section of the mine collapsed on 21 January 1960. The Coalbrook Disaster can be attributed in large measure to the rise of the racist, capitalist apartheid state in South Africa after 1948. As the first major crisis of 1960 in South Africa, it dramatised and foreshadowed many of the debates that ensued during that year about the nature of the apartheid state. Key causes of the disaster were the exponential increase in demand for coal following the opening of the Taaibos power station in 1954 on the one hand, and the cumulative effects of unsound mine labour practices based on race on the other.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 316..9 ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .

The context was Apartheid and profits squeeze, of course.

What I think we can learn from this

There is no such thing as free energy. Someone is going to be on the pointy-end. The less they look and sound like you, the easier it is for you to ignore their existence, their suffering.

Personal note – I remember in 1986 (or possibly 1987) being the cause of frustration and exasperation of a very smart fellow student at my posh school, who was a big fan of nuclear. When I talked about the dangers (this was just post-Chernobyl) he pointed to all the people who died digging up coal.  I said that was different and irrelevant.  He got irritated (rightly) and was told off by his father.  My bad, Tim, my bad (which is not to say I am now pro-nuke).

What happened next

More apartheid, for decades. At a global level, it’s apartheid pure and simple. You might even call it, um, Global Apartheid.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

References

Cobley, A. (2020) Powering Apartheid: The Coalbrook Mine Disaster of 1960, South African Historical Journal, 72:1, 80-97, DOI: 10.1080/02582473.2020.1728577