Tag: 1975

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November 13, 1975 – climate testimony to House of Reps committee

Forty seven years ago, on this day, November 13, 1975, scientists were busy trying to inform politicians of the coming threats.

Concerning possible effects of air pollution on climate

Testimony before the Subcommittee on Environment and the Atmosphere of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives,  13-14 November 1975 

And got turned into an article in the Bulletin of the AMS.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that by 1975 scientists who studied this stuff were getting more and more alarmed about the build up of CO2. The best way of demonstrating this is the Wally Broecker paper “are we on the cusp of a pronounced global warming.” But it’s one thing for something to appear in a scientific journal like Science, it’s another for politicians to hear it. Of course, US politicians had been hearing this stuff for years, a long time. 20 years really going back to Roger Revelle in the lead-up to the International Geophysical Year

What’s different here is there’s more certainty, more science, and the build-up of co2 has continued. 

What I think we can learn from this

It takes a very very long time for a new idea/problem to become an issue. There is enormous inertia in people’s heads, in our (political) cultures.

What happened next

An attempt to get legislation through failed.  There was soon a second push for a climate act with George Brown and others. It worked.

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.

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Australia

August 30, 1975 – The Science Show does climate change…

Forty eight years ago, on this day, August 30, 1975, the very first edition of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s new science program carries a segment about climate change.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-science-show-celebrates-35-years/3023384#transcript

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Scottish public intellectual Ritchie-Calder had been aware of the potential problem of climate change since 1954 at the latest (probably earlier).  He had been speaking of it as a serious problem by 1963 at the latest. His January 1970 article about “Mortgaging the Old Homestead,” which had been serialised in the Bulletin and elsewhere, included a relatively lengthy mention of the carbon dioxide problem.

At the time this show was broadcast the Australian Academy of Science was conducting an investigation into “the carbon dioxide problem”. It was Nugget Coombs who’d set that ball rolling, using Kissinger’s speech to the General Assembly as a pretext. 

What I think we can learn from this is that intelligent Australians who listened to the Science Show knew from 1975 what was going on.

What happened next was that the Science Show kept covering the climate issue and we’ve already talked about it on this website – the  Nirenberg and O’Brien episode and others… well done Robyn Williams!

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.

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Science Scientists United Kingdom

 August 18, 1975 – it’s gonna get hotter, not cooler, say scientists

Forty eight years ago, on this day, August 18, 1975, a bunch of people who had been thinking about man’s impact on the climate for quite a while get together in Norwich, England, for a meeting about what’s coming. They decide that there’s no ice age on its way but there IS a decent chance of a large amount of warming…

1975  18-23 August 1975 Norwich meeting which ended speculation about possible cooling.

http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2008/10/the_great_global_cooling_myth.html

Paterson 1996 is good on this…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was interested in the weather – was it getting colder? was it getting warmer? There had been public pronouncement in both directions including, infamously, the 1971 Rasool and Schneider paper. The popular version of this was The Weather Machine by Nigel Calder which became a BBC documentary. And there were questions asked in the House of Commons. 

But the people who actually studied the climate issue were looking closely at carbon dioxide and by now beginning to think this is the issue – we’re going to get warming not a cooling. Wally Broeker’s paper in Science had just been published a month earlier and the National Academy of Science had started its 2-year study on understanding climate.

What I think we can learn from this is that although doubt continued in public because bad ideas and stories have a long half-life this workshop was the moment at which any lingering doubts about the cooling were put to one side, at least in the minds of people who knew what they were talking about.

What happened next was that by 1976 the World Meteorological Organisation was making statements about the likelihood of warming. It was also a very very hot summer in Europe and especially the United Kingdom the 1976 drought which was until 1995 rather the hottest for years. And 2022 was much hotter globally.

But we get used to anything – until we can’t…

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.

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United States of America

December 22, 1975 – “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth’s Heat Rises” (surely “when”?)

On this day, December 22 in 1975, the New York Times ran a story “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth’s Heat Rises.”

But carbon dioxide was not in the frame.

Dr Howard Wilcox, who had a book called “Hothouse Earth” argued that – in the words of the NYT-

“man’s output of heat into the atmosphere, if allowed to increase at present energy and industrial growth rates, will raise the earth’s temperature enough to melt the polar ice caps and flood many populous areas of the earth in the next 80 to 180 years.”

 That ‘heat’ would be the key driver, was not the case…, as both William Kellogg and Murray Mitchell pointed out – the final paragraphs in the story are these:

Dr. J. Murray Mitchell, Jr.; senior research climatologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration laboratory in Silver Spring, Md. in a telephone interview offered, similar observations:

“I agree with Dr. Wilcox’s concern and his scientific analysis and statistical evidence. But I feel that the more immediate danger will come from the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide that are thrown off into the atmosphere along with the heat that Dr. Wilcox talks about.”

Baynard Webster, “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth’s Heat Rises,” New York Times, December 22, 1975

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

Why this matters

We need to remember that – as per the Landsberg article mentioned a few days ago, carbon dioxide was not the only villain in the picture.

What happened next

Within a couple of years, it was obvious that carbon dioxide was, in fact, the big thing to worry about. 

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Australia

December 11, 1975 – German scientist gives stark climate warning in Melbourne

On this day, December 11, 1975, German scientist Hermann Flohn addressed a number of Australian scientists at Monash University, Melbourne, as part of a conference about… climate change.

“Now if we allow man’s interference with climate to increase exponentially as it has done in recent years, we sooner or later come to a state where this 10% rises to 100%, resulting in continuous warming made by man superimposed on these natural fluctuations of cooling and warming. This would be a really dangerous situation in that in the Northern Hemisphere we have this extremely sensitive area of the Arctic sea-ice. The few people who have dealt with models of the sea-ice have the feeling that this is in fact an extremely sensitive system which will reflect very early and very substantially any sizeable warming of the Northern Hemisphere.  The lifetime of individual ice floes is 5 or 10 years, certainly not more than 10 years, and once the ice is removed the present situation would not allow the reforming of permanent ice cover as we have it today. My feeling is that if man’s interference with the climatic system is uncontrolled for some decades, together with uncontrolled growth of energy use, sooner or later during the next century the warming will overwhelm natural factors which usually produce cooling. Then the Arctic sea-ice could disappear rather rapidly, some models say in a period of 10 years or less.”

Herman Flohn, speaking on 11 December 1975

A book was published, edited by the wonderful Barrie Pittock –

[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – In 1974 legendary Australian civil servant Nugget Combs had convinced the Whitlam government to ask the Australian Academy of Sciences to investigate the possibility of climate change (this was partly in the context of the CIA report and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger talking about potential food shortages). The AAS researched the matter and on this day in 1975 at Monash University Herman flown eminent German climatologist said the above.

Why this matters. 

We really did know enough to be worried by the mid late 70s and to start acting on the fact that the climate issue did not hit the headlines until 1988 is a travesty but the fact that since 1988 human emissions have gone up by over 60% is beyond a travesty. It is the beginning of a nightmare, or rather the continuation and amplification of a nightmare.

What happened next?

The AAS report was released in early 1976. It sank without trace because it did not say “yes there most definitely is a problem” (to have done so would have been ahead of the evidence). And in any case, Australia was in political turmoil because the elected government of Gough Whitlam had been removed by John Kerr the governor-general (If this had happened in another country we would have talked about it being a CIA coup there have been more dead bodies but I digress).

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Science Scientists United States of America

November 1, 1975 – Stephen Schneider tries to clear up the “Carbon Dioxide Climate Confusion.”

On this day, November 1 in 1975, climate scientist Stephen Schneider tried to keep folks eyes on the prize, given how many various books and hypotheses were already being thrown around

On the Carbon Dioxide–Climate Confusion  Stephen H. Schneider J. Atmos. Sci. (1975) 32 (11): 2060–2066.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 331ppm. At time of writing it was 421ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]

The context was this – 

By the mid 1970s, a cottage industry had grown up around “weird weather.”

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that there were claims and counter-claims, some outlandish

What happened next?

By the late 70s it was pretty damn clear that it was a carbon dioxide problem…