Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 19th, 1971, John Maddox, ditor of the British Science Journal covers himself in glory on the topic of climate change.
19 Feb 1971 The Great Greenhouse Scare editorial by John Maddox NATURE VOL. 229 FEBRUARY 19 1971
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that more and more people were talking about carbon dioxide buildup. Maddox would presumably have known that there was going to be a Study of Man’s Impact on Climate in Sweden. He knew that the Alkali Inspectorate had come out with a report in the August of 1970. So this was another salvo and Maddox by this time was writing a book called The Doomsday Syndrome.
What we can learn is that smart, elite, hardworking people can be fundamentally wrong. They can also dig their heels into the ground and keep being wrong, because the ego leads them to believe that they must be right.
What happened next, Maddox published his book. As late as July 1988. Maddox was being a douche on the subject. See “jumping the greenhouse gun.” And the emissions kept climbing.
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 two years ago, on this day, October 15, 1971, a crucial book was published…
Man’s Impact on Climate
Edited by William H. Matthews, William H. Kellogg and G. D. Robinson
Hardcover
9780262130752
Published: October 15, 1971
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326,4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that American scientist William Kellogg had pulled together a bunch of people to meet near Stockholm in the summer of 1971. This was a follow-up to the Williamstown meeting (the Study of Critical Environmental Problems) in July of 1970 that had been held under the auspices of Carroll Wilson (. The secretariat function for the Man’s Impact on Climate meeting was partly under the control of a young Stephen Schneider (see quote from global warming his 1989 book).
What I think we can learn from this
The early 1970s was the time when the institutional interest and architecture around carbon dioxide began to take shape. If you are a climate history geek like me well, you’re one of very few.
What happened next
After the 1972 to Stockholm conference this sort of ad-hoc gathering was complemented by more official processes under the sponsorship of the UNEP and so forth. There was a flurry of meetings through the early mid 1970s, many of which have been discussed on this site. Funding also came from the Rockefeller Fund which means obviously that the climate scientists were merely unwitting dupes of our evil Davos overlords.
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 two years ago, on this day, October 8, 1971, former Junior Minister Lord Kennet decided to push back against the “carbon dioxide is definitely not an issue to worry about” line coming from John Maddox, then editor of the journal Nature. Kennet had, in 1968, been the first UK politician (afaik) to talk about the possible problem of climate change. Here’s an excerpt from Kennet’s letter.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Maddox, the editor of Nature, had been consistently smearing those who raised environmental concerns. Wayland Young, aka Lord Kennet had been an effective minister in the last Wilson government, and was quite right in what he said here.
This was in the context of the British state having a new Department of the Environment and preparing its international negotiating position ahead of the Stockholm conference it was a member of the Brussels group to slow things down
(Also see that Maddox had been schooled by Ian Martin of Thames Television on 28th of February 1970. Ian Martin had essentially been talking about “wicked problems” and “post-normal science”, but these terms did not exist yet.)
What I think we can learn from this is that just because you’re the editor of a Big Scientific Journal doesn’t mean you don’t need to be taught about how the world actually works by politicians and television executives. Of course, you’ll refuse to learn …
What happened next
Kennet continued to work on environment stuff including water pollution. Maddox wrote a book called The Doomsday syndrome in 1972, and turned out loads of articles and speeches dismissing the greenhouse effect all through the 70s and 80s. And as late as 1988, after Jim Hansen and Steve Schneider spoke up he was still chiding them.
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 two years ago, on this day, September 22, 1971, (in)famous Australian activist Maurice Crow wrote about the climate crisis …
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone in Australia was running around like a headless chicken saying the apocalypse was at hand from business to mainstream NGOs to the communists. And they had been importing American radical commentary in their International Socialist magazine etc. Maurice Crowe just put an effort at a local spin on it.
What I think we can learn from this is that calls for “system change” were around 50 years ago. And as per a recent article in Environmental Politics, what is meant by system change is a moveable feast.
What happened next
The environmental movement ran aground a bit but as late as 1975 there was a “radical ecology” conference in Melbourne and Crow was part of it.
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 two years ago, on this day, August 23, 1971, a blueprint for survival (of corporate capitalism) was sent, written by a guy who then got appointed to the Supreme Court by Tricky Dick Nixon.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the American elites were becoming more and more worried about the upsurge in citizen action after the quiescent 1950s. By 1971 it wasn’t just the blacks demanding theri civil rights, it was latinos, women, homosexuals, anti-war protesters, environment protesters, you name it. And and the so-called “crisis of democracy” (to use the term from the Trilateral Commission) was becoming a real thing, a real threat. The Powell memorandum is a nice clear summation of how to fight back…
What I think we can learn from this is that the counter-assault has been quite successful against the democratisation of society. And the state is not without its strategists, who are able to be clear about what is required and how to get it.
The Powell memorandum makes for interesting, important reading. And if we lived in a democracy it would be taught in schools – that this is what happened, But the very existence of the Powell memorandum shows you that that wouldn’t exist; it’s like the Lewis law and feminism
The Australian equivalent would be people like Geoff Allen, who set up the Business Council of Australia – but the foundations in Australia are less deep pocketed, there isn’t quite that same mentality.
What happened next
The Powell memorandum became the how-to manual for the American foundations. You have things springing up like the Heritage Foundation in 1973, which has been incredibly influential.
Powell then went on to be a supreme court Justice put in place by Nixon which tells you everything you need to know.
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 two years ago, on this day, August 23, 1971, recently retired Australian civil servant Nugget Coombs delivered a lecture on “ecological and economic realities” at 12th Pacific Conference, Canberra.
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 everyone was running around talking about ecological damage and – as the phrase would come out next year – “the Limits to Growth.” So you have what sounds, even today, as quite radical perspectives.
The other context is Nugget Coombs had been a very important influential even famous civil servants in Australia. He was recently retired and was able therefore to talk more freely. This paper sets out clearly what was stake.
What I think we can learn from this
That the language around non growth economy meeting human needs ecological limits. all of this has been around forever well 50 years.
What happened next
Coombs kept active and was still alive 20 years later when the next big wave of “Environmental Concern” came around.
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 two years ago, on this day, April 5, 1971, a UK scientist gave an overview of “pollution in context to an assembled audience of the great and the good (and the mediocre and middling)
POLLUTION IN CONTEXT by MARTIN IV. HOLDGATE , PhD Director of the Central Unit of Environmental Pollution , Department of the Environment,* delivered on Monday 5th April 1971 Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 119, No. 5180 (JULY 1971), pp. 529-542
Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce
1. Naturalness One broad classification can be based on ‘naturalness’. Some substances that can be ‘pollutants’ occur naturally, and are widely dispersed in the world. Some are essential to life. Carbon dioxide is a good example: it is the foundation of photosynthesis by which green plants using solar energy create sugars. Without CO2 in the air, life as we know it could not exist on this planet. And much CO2 enters the air naturally through the respiration of living things and organic decay. Since 1890, man, burning fossil fuels (which are themselves a residue of undecomposed organic carbon that escaped conversion to CO2 long ago) has raised the CO2 level of the atmosphere from around 290 to 320 parts per million but in that same period the natural input has certainly greatly exceeded the artificial
(Holdgate, 1971: 530)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Everyone was talking about pollution – air, water, noise, you name it. Doomwatch was on the tellie, and the European Year of Conservation had just finished, with the big UN conference in Stockholm just over a year away.
What I think we can learn from this
Again, none of this is a secret. “We” “knew.” And then pushed it out of our minds, and then it had to be pushed back in. Then was pushed out again.
This has a name – the Issue Attention Cycle, as per Downs in 1972. But Robert Heilbroner had predicted this would be the case as early as April 1970…
What happened next
The attention died down, as people got bored/used to things, and then other (economic) problems came along.
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...
