Fifty five years ago, on this day, April 15th, 1969, a well-known British Scientist was sounding the alarm.
Anon, 1969. Air Pollution Could Cause Flood- Expert. Coventry Evening Telegraph, April 16, p.10
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326.4ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that more and more senior British scientists were switching on to the danger of carbon dioxide. And Mellanby was one of the first, maybe first, to make a public song and dance about it.
What we learn is that well, whoever went to that event in Coventry in 1969, will have been sensitised to the issue.
What happened next? Mellanby kept talking about it. Mellanby was okay with the Blueprint for Survival of January 1972.
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, on this day, April 10th, 1969, new US President, Tricky Dick Nixon, was schmoozing, trying to get ahead of the environment issue (huge since the Santa Barbara Oil Spill) and also distract from the ongoing atrocities in Vietnam.
Nixon to North Atlantic Council April 10, 1969 – “Having forged a working partnership, we all have a unique opportunity to pool our skills, our intellects, and our inventiveness in finding new ways to use technology to enhance our environments, and not to destroy them.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324.6ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Nixon was bombing the crap out of Vietnam. It turned out he had not got a “secret plan for ending the war”, as he had promised during the 1968 election campaign. Bombing Vietnam back into the Stone Age was causing a certain diplomatic froideur. And so he was hoping to throw the environment onto the table as something for the Europeans to focus on instead of all the dead, napalmed, Vietnamese babies.
What we learn is that there are dead cats and fluffy cats. You throw a dead cat on the table when you want to distract from something but you can also throw some kittens onto the table and say, “Aren’t they nice?” Both tactics are used.
What happened next? The Europeans were largely unconvinced. They had their own European Conservation Year. There were talks about NATO and its Committee on Challenges for Modern Societies. And Daniel Patrick Moynihan was writing memos by September.
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, on this day, January 28, 1969.
“Oil from an offshore rig had covered the Santa Barbara beaches, trapping and killing the shore birds. College students and other young people had been enlisted to try to save the birds, by hand, one at a time. So night after night, television carried pictures of crying young people with dying birds in their arms. The networks picked this up… and across the continent environmental pollution came to be viewed as a highly personal, deeply involving part of people’s lives. The television viewers identified with the young volunteers and felt their pain.” (Sachsman, 2000)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that offshore oil drilling had been underway off the Santa Barbara coast for a number of years. There had been rising concerns about environmental pollution starting first in the cities and the air quality but also a river had caught fire or was to later in the same year, but it really caught fire before and generally a sense of fear about the consequences of industry.
What we learn – the Santa Barbara oil spill happening in a rich place managed to act as a kind of lightning rod for all of this stuff. It’s really the starting pistol for a lot. And it jolts people into awareness of the costs attached. The fact that it happened to rich people who were powerless to overcome the bureaucracy is kind of entertaining. So there’s some rather useful chapters in Wholly Round. There’s also “GOO” “get oil out”, which is akin to “Just Stop Oil.” And a sense that things were going tits up.
What happened next? There’s a three year flurry of concern. Earth Day happens in April of 1970. And then it kind of peters out by ‘72, after the Stockholm conference. You start to get other issues impinging especially stagflation economic crisis, the oil shock, etc.
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
SEE ALSO HARVEY MOLOTCH 1970 AND Raina Galaitas “Wholly Round” book And Gordon MacDonald about The Environment
Fifty four years ago, on this day, December 29, 1969, there was
Symposium on Climate and Man, 136th Meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science, Boston
This from a pre-symposium teaser, published in Science, tells you enough to be going on with –
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by 1969 environmental issues, air quality issues, long-term effects of carbon dioxide issues, were pretty well-known in the scientific community, the “environmental” community, and were becoming quite well known with anyone who could read any quality newspaper. A one-day symposium on the topic when everyone’s gathering together anyway for a meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science was quite fun.
What I think we can learn from this
There was early knowledge early discussion, if you want to call 1960s early.
What happened next
The next seriously consequential meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with regards to climate change was the 148th in 1982 which was held in New York, with James Hansen and Herman Flohn both sounding off. Though I’m sure people who were involved in the big AAS processors in between will tell you otherwise
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
Battan, L. J. (1969). Climate and Man. Science, 166(3904), 536-537.
Fifty four years ago, on this day, November 27, 1969, the Canberra Times ran a piece about pollution….
Paul Backshall of London Reuters with Pollution: Gases in the Atmosphere article, reprinted in Canberra Times Thursday 27 November 1969, page 18 Check out Trove here.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone was writing articles about air pollution at this point. Someone in Reuters in London had written something of that ilk, and the Canberra Times had syndicated it.
What I think we can learn from this is that newspapers are hungry beasts and will syndicate things, even if it doesn’t have much of local spin to it, especially if the issue is popular enough.
What happened next
The Canberra Times kept reporting. Everybody was aware of what was at stake. What didn’t happen was that we didn’t stop the party. And now, the hangover…
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, November 5, 1969, Jestyn Phillips, a member of the House of Lords said the following –
VISCOUNT ST. DAVIDS My Lords, can my noble friend say whether he and British Railways have taken account of the fact that what were abnormal temperatures last summer may not be abnormal if we continue to discharge carbon dioxide into the air by the burning of various fossil carbons, so increasing the greenhouse effect?
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that it was clear that some members of the Lords were paying attention to what was being written in newspapers, magazines (including the Listener in April 1969). And the idea of the greenhouse effect was out there and of concern by 1969, including in the Financial Times and so forth.
What I think we can learn from this
By November 1969, “even” politicians were talking about it, drawing (possibly fallacious) connections.
What happened next
In January 1970 a TV programme “And On the Eighth Day”, directed by Richard Broad, appeared.
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, October 22, 1969, an article by Edmund Muskie, a senior American politician (someone seen as a contender for president, and had been the prospective VP on Hubert Humphrey’s ticket in 1968) was published. Muskie was aware of the issue (as were many others, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan).
22 Oct 1969 Edmund Muskie article- ENVIRONMENTAL JURISDICTION IN THE CONGRESS AND THE EXECUTIVE – published which includes the following – “The increased use of fossil fuels affects not only local environments but the global environment as well. The increased introduction of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contributes to the greenhouse effect, raising temperatures.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
A couple of months earlier, Daniel Moynahan had raised the question to a higher level with his memo which Muskie may or may not have seen. But Muskie would have been aware, presumably, that from a foreign policy perspective the US were trying to create the environment as a separate entity which they could dominate (Nixon had given a speech about it to the North Atlantic Council in April 1969, hoping people would just stop talking about the napalming of babies). The UN Secretary General U Thant was speaking about the issue by June 1969.
See also ”Arming Mother Nature”
What I think we can learn from this is that from 1968-69 senior politicians in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, we’re talking about fossil fuels causing catastrophic climate change. This is far earlier than I think most people understand.
What happened next
I think Muskie made a bid to be the Democratic nominee and if I recall, rightly, his mental health history talked against him.
MUSKIE WAS CARTER’S SEC OF STATE AT THE END. NAME IS ON THE GLOBAL FUTURE TIME TO ACT REPORT
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, June 10, 1969, the chair of the Atomic Energy Commission gave carbon dioxide build-up as an anti-coal/pro-nuke argument.
“Speaking today before the opening session of the 37th annual convention of the Edison Electric Institute, Glenn T. Seaborg, chairman of the AEC said that
“While tremendous efforts were under way to cut the sulphur content of coal, oil and gas – fossil fuels – there were “no methods known of eliminating carbon dioxide that results from combustion.” ”
The Times goes on to report “Nuclear power adds no pollutants to the atmosphere.”
(Smith 1969)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the nuclear lobby was starting to realise that it could use the alleged low carbon nature of its power stations versus coal. You’d seen Teller to do this in 1957-59. You’d seen an article in the 1964 “Population Resources” book that did the same thing. And I think the editor of the journal Science Philip Abelson had also mentioned climate change as an argument for nuclear in the late 1960s…
Seaborg had already warned about this in 1966 at a commencement address at UC San Diego.
“At the rate we are currently adding carbon dioxide to our atmosphere (six billion tons a year), within the next few decades the heat balance of the atmosphere could be altered enough to produce marked changes in the climate–changes which we might have no means of controlling even if by that time we have made great advances in our programs of weather modification.” [wikipedia]
The “nukes will save us from climate” thing goes back longer than a lot of people would think.
What happened next
Nukes didn’t save us from climate.
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
Smith, G. 1969. UTILITIES URGED TO BACK A-POWER. The New York Times; Jun 10, pg. 63
Fifty four years ago, on this day, April 25, 1969, Dave Keeling gave a speech at the “Symposium on Atmospheric Pollution: Its long-term implications” just over 10 years after he started measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa.
He was asked to change the title to “Is carbon dioxide from fossil fuel changing man’s environment? from If carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is changing man’s environment, what will we do about it?”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by now Charles Keeling had been collecting atmospheric co2 data at Mauna Loa for 10 years and there was a distinct upward trend. So his first title was proposed as this and then for whatever reason, he had to tone it down. Which is interesting.
What I think we can learn from this
There are pressures within communities be they scientific activist, academic, political, designed to minimise disruption. One to hammer down any tall nails. And you can argue that human society is not possible, really without those mechanisms. You could also argue that by hammering down nails by cutting down the “tall timber” in the words of the Skyhooks, you’re less likely to get important shit done in the time that you need to.
See also that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Half a Life,” with David Ogden Stiers Willis, where he’s a 60 year old guy who’s going to have to be Logan’s Run, even though he possibly has the way out for his endangered society.
What happened next
Keeling kept taking his measures. He gave an even more interesting speech in May 1969. Keeling was proved right. And we are toast
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, March 11, 1969, some NASA scientists mention the (non-controversial) build-up of C02
John E. Naugle, Donald Hearth at hearing on NASA budget
“If we are to understand our own atmosphere and to evaluate the long-term consequences of man-made changes (such as the increase in carbon dioxide content), we need to conduct comparative studies of the atmospheres of the other planets.”
“As we look at our planet, as we look at the population that is increasing, we know that man is not only polluting, but possibly beginning to change the very fundamental nature of our atmosphere on the earth.”—John E. Naugle
So it’s really no surprise to the NASA folks would be aware of carbon dioxide buildup because well it’s fairly basic science
What I think we can learn from this
This is just one more example of how, by the late 1960s, scientists were informing politicians about the basic facts of what was being done to the planet. It was not a theory, it was just a fact.
What happened next
NASA put men on the moon. Apollo 13 showed for anyone who was paying attention the dangers of carbon dioxide buildup. Man didn’t get beyond low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was done on the cheap, and it showed twice. Now it looks like 50 years later, we are going to put Whitey on the moon. In the words of Gil Scott Heron.
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..
