Tag: 1968

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Australia

April 2, 1968 – Oz Senate debates Air Pollution Select Committee

Fifty six years ago, on this day, April 2nd, 1968 some Australian politicians decide to create an investigative committee into Air Pollution.

See link here

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that, for any debate to get as far as a Senate hearing, and for the suggestion of setting up a select committee on air pollution, then some people must have been pushing hard, lobbying behind the scenes, making sure they had the numbers. And it’d be fascinating to try and figure out who initiated the debate and why.

It was most certainly not about climate change, per se. It will have been about the air quality in especially Sydney and Melbourne, but also the other population centres of Australia. The climate issue came along in the midst of the hearings. 

What we learn is that issues or a body that is set up to investigate one thing can stumble across something else, and be consequential for that reason. This is surely quite unsurprising. 

 What happened next? By 1969 the committee was hearing from experts warning about carbon dioxide buildup…including a certain Professor in Tasmania…

The final report released in September of 1969 explicitly flags carbon dioxide buildup as something to watch. People knew. We knew. 

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.

Also on this day: 

April 2, 1979 – AAAS workshop in Anaheim begins…

April 2, 2008 – Senator Barack Obama blathers about coal

Categories
United States of America

March 31, 1968 – Can the world be saved?

Fifty six years ago, on this day, March 31st, 1968, the ecologist LaMont Cole pondered the Big Question…

Cole, L. 1968. Can the world be saved? New York TImes, March 31.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that people were beginning to freak out about not just the bomb, but also the Population Bomb, local air pollution, national air pollution a sense of fragility and weakness.

This might be tied to the in this instance of the Tet Offensive and the question of whether rich white people could continue to dominate.

LaMont Cole at this point was worried about the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere potentially dropping and causing us all to choke to death; that was revealed to be not something to worry about a couple of years later.  

What we learned is that you know, people were reading this stuff and it was sensitising them. When things like the Santa Barbara oil spill came along, in late January of 1969, folks could join the dots and go, “oops.” 

What happened next, the Santa Barbara oil spill. People joining the dots and going “oops.”

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.

Also on this day: 

March 31, 1998 – another report about #climate and business in the UK

March 31, 1998 – two business-friendly climate events in UK and Australia

Categories
Greenland

January 21, 1968 – Ultima Fule on Ultima Thule

Fifty six ago, on this day, January 21st 1968,

“ an aircraft accident, sometimes known as the Thule affair or Thule accident (/ˈtuːli/; Danish: Thuleulykken), involving a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52 bomber occurred near Thule Air Base in the Danish territory of Greenland. The aircraft was carrying four B28FI thermonuclear bombs on a Cold War “Chrome Dome” alert mission over Baffin Bay when a cabin fire forced the crew to abandon the aircraft before they could carry out an emergency landing at Thule Air Base. Six crew members ejected safely, but one who did not have an ejection seat was killed while trying to bail out. The bomber crashed onto sea ice in North Star Bay,[a] Greenland, causing the conventional explosives aboard to detonate and the nuclear payload to rupture and disperse, resulting in radioactive contamination of the area.“

(Lind et al., 2015)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Americans were busy rattling their dicks and swinging their sabres and the world was consistently on a nuclear knife-edge, to use a cliche, and all across the world B52s with nukes were having near misses. And this was just another. 

What we learn is that the waste remains, the waste spreads. We have poisoned this beautiful planet. “We” being sabre swingers and those who benefit from that sabre swinging and stay silent. And now everything has been ruined  and you know the rest. 

What happened next? We almost tried ourselves in 1983-4. Things got dialled back a bit. See also Barry Commoner on radiation building up in the system. 

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

Lind, O. C., Salbu, B., Janssens, K., Proost, K., & Dahlgaard, H. (2005). Characterization of uranium and plutonium containing particles originating from the nuclear weapons accident in Thule, Greenland, 1968. Journal of environmental radioactivity, 81(1), 21-32

see article here – “https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0265931X04003297

Also on this day: 

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

January 21, 2010 – The flub that sank a thousand policies #auspol

Categories
Science Scientists

January 8, 1968 – LaMont Cole to AAAS about running outta oxygen, build-up of C02 etc

Fifty six years ago, on this day, January 8th, 1968,

According to a Newsweek report (8 January 1968), Professor L. C. Cole of Cornell University (in a paper delivered at the 134th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) asks whether man is not destroying the earth’s natural supply of oxygen. He points out (1) that the increasing combustion of fossil fuels has greatly accelerated the formation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and (2) that, in the United States alone, some one million acres of suburbanised forest and grassland each year lose their ability to regenerate the oxygen supply through photosynthesis.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there was concern among a few scientists that levels of oxygen would drop and that we would all ultimately suffocate. That was rendered null a year or two after this, but there was generalised concern about oxygen levels, carbon dioxide levels, you name it. As the consequences of modernity, as we laughingly call it, were becoming apparent. Cynically, you could also say that people were so fed up with the Vietnam War, but there were costs attached to speaking out against that, that they found something else to be worried about….

What we can learn is that there have been scientists warning of trouble ahead. But those scientists may have sometimes understandably picked something to be concerned about that wasn’t actually there. That doesn’t mean that all warnings are bad warnings. 

What happened next, as above, the oxygen depletion thing was put to bed in 1970 or so. Lamont Cole died in I think, 1979. 

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

Cole, L. 1968. Can the World Be Saved? BioScience, Vol. 18, No. 7 pp. 679-684 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1294188 .https://doi.org/10.2307/1294188

Also on this day: 

Jan 8, 1958 – “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ

January 8, 2003 – Energy firms plan to “bury carbon emissions”…

January 8, 2013 – Australian Prime Minister connects bush fires and #climate change

Categories
Science Scientists

December 26, 1968 – “Global Effects of Environmental Pollution” symposium

Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 26, 1968, Fred Singer, who had been present for the foundation meeting of the International Geophysical Year, and would go on to be a weapons-grade asshole denialist, organised a symposium (it was part of his day job). That symposium was about the global effects of environmental pollution for the American Association for the Advancement of Science

https://doi.org/10.1029/EO051i005p00476

Smart cookie called J. Murray Mitchell was there and laid it out.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the US Federal Government was making some of the right noises about climate change. It had just found out that there would indeed be a United Nations meeting in 1972. But this meeting will have been organised months and months in advance of that final decision.

What’s amusing about it is that Fred Singer became one of the leading the nihilists denialists.

What I think we can learn from this

We knew way back when. We knew.

What happened next

Caroll Wilson organised the 1970 Workshop in Williamstown about Man’s Impact on the environment. The following year there was Man’s Impact on Climate, organised by William Kellogg, in Stockholm.

This 5 years was the period where are the new institutions and collaborations got hashed out – GARP, then SCOPE and so on…

J. Murray Mitchell was exceptionally blunt (and accurate) in his warning in 1976 – “If we’re still rolling along on fossil fuels by the end of the century then we’ve had it.”

We were and we have.

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
International processes Sweden United Nations

December 3, 1968 – UN General Assembly says yes to a conference about environment. C02 mentioned.

Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 3, 1968, the United Nations General Assembly voted yes to hosting a big, all-singing all-dancing Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. 

The unanimous adoption of Resolution 2398 Problems of the human environment at the twenty-third session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on December 3rd, 1968 marked the culmination of the first phase of the “Swedish initiative” 

Paglia Swedish Initiative. 

Thanks to work by a Swedish diplomat whose “own reading of media reports on climate change during autumn 1968 concluded that scientific opinion was shifting towards warming as the more likely outcome of human interference in atmospheric processes” things were different.

In contrast to Palmstierna’s memorandum and Åström’s statements at ECOSOC earlier that year—which presented the particle-induced cooling scenario first—the UNGA speech instead foregrounded and explained in far greater detail the potential for a rise in the Earth’s surface temperature caused by increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide, which is presented in the speech as a pollutant.1 No other forms of air pollution are mentioned in Åström’s December 1968 speech, including acid rain, which Palmstierna had in his memorandum gone into some detail in describing in terms of the scientific basis, and its environmental and economic effects.16 Paglia 

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

The context was that the previous year, Sweden had seen the release of two bombshell books about environmental degradation. Sweden had put the proposal by their diplomats that the UN have a look. And surprisingly quickly, given how the UN usually works this was accepted.

In July of 1968 a Swedish diplomat had even referenced temperature imbalance but with more emphasis on the problem of dust. This was three years after Lyndon Johnson had him and had mentioned carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

What I think we can learn from this

Uggh. We knew.

What happened next

The Stockholm conference happened in June 1972. Not much changed (though the UNEP was formed, smaller than its proponents wanted, of course…)

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

August 19, 1968 – Is Man Spoiling the Weather? (yes)

Fifty five years ago, on this day, August 19, 1968, a major US news magazine asks the right question…

August 19 1968. “Is Man Spoiling the Weather? What the Experts Say,” U.S. News and World Report, August 19, 1968, p. 61.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that further work by US scientists was beginning to look more closely at carbon dioxide. There have been reports by the National Academy of Science and the beginnings of more confident minority statements. But this time and even much later the article was still, understandably, couched in a “will we die in fire or will we die in ice?” kind of thing. 

What I think we can learn from this nothing much except that the media was talking about this for a long time.

What happened next

 1970 is the year that you really start to say carbon dioxide is emerging as a prominent member of the various threats that people are putting forward as long-term problems.

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
International processes Sweden United Nations

July 30, 1968 – the UN says yes to an environment conference

Fifty five years ago, on this day, July 30, 1968, the top committee of the United Nations says yes to a environment conference, something the Swedes had been pushing for.

1968 July 30 Resolution 1346 (XLV) recommends that the General Assembly consider a conference on environmental problems.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was as per previous blog posts here (May 1968)and here (December 1967). Earlier in the year one of the diplomats had given a speech, which was the first mention of climate change, though it wasn’t, because he didn’t call it that. 

What I think we can learn from this

Regardless of the names/terminology, we have known about this for a long time.

What happened next

In December 1968 , the UN General Assembly nodded it through. And then in 1972 the Stockholm conference happened. 

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
Sweden United Nations

July 19, 1968 – “man has already rendered the temperature equilibrium of the globe more unstable.”

Fifty five years ago, on this day, July 19, 1968, a Swedish diplomat pointed to the problems ahead.

Demonstrating the cutting-edge nature of the science that underpinned Sweden’s diplomatic intervention, environmental issues that emerged more prominently in the 1970s were foreshadowed by Palmstierna and Åström, including acid rain, eutrophication and climate change. Regarding the latter, for example, Åström stated before ECOSOC on July 19, 1968, “that man has already rendered the temperature equilibrium of the globe more unstable”. 

Paglia “Swedish Initiative”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that global awareness of major environmental problems, including our favourite – population – and water and air pollution get as far as the United Nations because it’s Swedish initiatives. And this was apparently the first time that ECOSOC talks about what we would now call “anthropogenic global warming.

What I think we can learn from this

The UN has been talking about, well, people have been talking at the UN about the dangers of climate change for 55 years. Let me say that again. People have been talking at the UN about the dangers of climate change for 55 years.

What happened next

ECOSOC, to which Astrom was talking, agreed to put forward a resolution, the United Nations General Assembly about holding a big environment conference. That UN General Assembly rubber stamp took place in December 1968 (the UK had tried to stop this, but realised it would be futile, so decided to roll with the punches).. And the big conference (with very little high level participation from the Second and Third World)  finally took place in June of 1972. It didn’t really give us very much about climate, but maybe I think you could argue that the science wasn’t yet mature. It gave a bit of a fillip to the World Meteorological Organisation and there was now a venue, the United Nations Environment Programme for further work, so all was not lost. And as I said, it’s really only the late 1970s that you could start to blame anyone for anything. 

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 Kingdom

July 15, 1968 – first(?) UK government attention to the possibility of climate change

There had been all kinds of warnings and speculations about possible climate change, in tv, radio, newspapers, magazines, reports and books. The first example I am currently aware of a government minister (as distinct from an MP) saying ‘hmm, this is something we might want to look at’ came on this day in 1968 (55 years ago).  It was from Lord Kennet, a junior minister in the Department of Housing and Local Government.  See here, Paul David Sims 2016 PhD thesis – 

“In July 1968, Kennet wrote to the Minister of Housing and Local Government, Anthony Greenwood, to suggest ‘the possibility of having some sort of enquiry into the adequacy of our arrangements for controlling the pollution of the human environment, right across the board’. It is difficult to measure public opinion on pollution during this period, but it is clear that there was a perception within government that the public demanded action. Citing the impact of Torrey Canyon, as well as concern over pesticides, agricultural fertilisers, industrial cyanide in rivers, and ‘possible changes in macroclimate caused by the heating of the atmosphere due to industry’, Kennet noted that ‘the public disquiet which is building up on this front can be seen week after week’, and argued that the government should appoint a wide-ranging public inquiry, perhaps in the form of a Royal Commission.52” (Sims, 2016: 198) –

52 TNA: HLG 127/1193 Pollution in the Human Environment: Proposals to Set Up a Committee or Other Body to Undertake a Study (1968-69), Minute from Lord Kennet to Minister of Housing and Local Government, 15 July 1968 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

What we can learn

This has been going on for a very very long time. Longer than we realise.

What happened next

The first Environment White Paper, published in May 1970, mentioned carbon dioxide build-up as one thing to keep an eye on. A Department of Environment was established in October 1970.