Tag: 1979

Categories
Germany

June 13, 1979 – Financial Times article mentions the concerns of Helmut Schmidt (German Chancellor) about carbon dioxide build-up

Forty seven years ago, on this day, June 13th,1979, the Financial Times ran an article (on page 3, since you ask) “Schmidt to seek international action on energy.”

At the end of it, this – 

“Despite West Germany’s large coal reserves, Herr Schmidt has recently expressed doubts privately about markedly increasing use of the fuel.

“His attitude appears grounded in fears recently underlined here by the scientist and energy expert, Dr Carl Friedrich von Weizsaecker, that increased carbon dioxide production could, over decades, cause climatic change with serious economic and political consequences.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context for this was that Herman Flohn, a German meteorologist/climatologist had been aware of Guy Callendar’s 1938 paper and wrote about it during the war. Afterwards, Flohn had kept talking about it, and written about it.

The specific context was that various German scientists had been trying to ring the alarm bell by this point. Also, the first World Climate Conference had taken place in February 1979.

What I think we can learn is this: People knew. We knew. At the highest levels. And here we are.

What happened next: Schmidt gave an interview to Time magazine, and name-checked carbon dioxide build-up (this got quoted in South Australian parliament, in case you wanted to know that). Schmidt, on a visit to the US, talked to Senator Ribicoff.  July 18, 1979 – US Senators ask for synthetic fuel implications for greenhouse warming. Told.

And then – 

November 15, 1979 – the FT reports on German concerns about fossil fuel effects.

You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

June 13, 1988 – “‘Greenhouse Effect’ Could Trigger Flooding, Crop Losses, Scientists Say” – All Our Yesterdays

June 13, 2008 – activists stop coal train, throw coal off. Convictions eventually quashed… – All Our Yesterdays

June 13 1963 – Revelle, Von Braun and Teller talk futures

June 13, 1988 – “‘Greenhouse Effect’ Could Trigger Flooding, Crop Losses, Scientists Say”

June 13, 2008 – Australia-Indonesia joint statement on climate change – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
United States of America

June 9, 1979 – New York Times covers climate change – “Increase of Carbon Dioxide in Air Alarms Scientists”

Forty seven years ago, on this day, June 9th, 1979, the Grey Lady made herself useful… 

Increase of Carbon Dioxide in Air Alarms Scientists – The New York Times

  • By Philip Shabecoff; Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 8 — It is invisible, odorless and poses no immediate threat to human health. Government policies to combat air pollution ignore it completely: But the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is arousing growing alarm among scientists and environmentalists and could impede this country’s efforts to solve its energy problems.

Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a gas released by the burning of fossil fuels. Burning oil produces carbon dioxide, and burning coal produces even more. Unlike other gases released into the air by combustion, such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide, or dust particles, it does not make people sick or reduce visibility.

The Government, therefore, has not regarded carbon dioxide as a pollutant and, aside from one small research operation in the Department of Energy, has not paid any attention to it.

Concerned for 20 Years

But that research office recently issued an interim report that stated, “It is the sense of the scientific community that carbon dioxide from unrestrained combustion of fossil fuels is potentially the most important environmental issue facing mankind.”

Scientists have been concerned with the increasing carbon dioxide in the air for the last 20 years. But in the absence of any hard evidence about the consequences of its presence, the issue was more for speculation and the Sunday supplements than for Governmental action.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.

The broader context for this was that the New York Times had been reporting intermittently carbon dioxide buildup since 1953 under then reporter Waldemar Kaempfert, and had picked up the wire service report in 1955 of the GE scientist John Hutton giving testimony. This reporter, Walter Sullivan, was pretty famous. He’d written a book about the International Geophysical Year and was fully aware of carbon dioxide build up. In 1972 he had met Stephen Schneider, and presumably the two had stayed in touch. And here we are. 

The specific context was that by this stage, the Department of Energy, I think, from when it was still called the ERDA had been holding conferences and to a lesser extent, releasing reports about carbon dioxide build up. (That reluctance to release reports had been the final spur for William Barbat, btw.)

What I think we can learn is this: Really by the late 1970s this issue of CO2 build up was not controversial in that people admitted it was happening and that it could cause problems. There wasn’t really, yet an active, coherent denialist lobby. 

What happened next: In August of 1981 Sullivan wrote up a study led by James Hansen, it was front page news in the New York Times, and it had two interesting consequences. One is that the New York Times editorialised on CO2 to build up, and the other that Hansen found his funding withdrawn for a grant that had already been issued. That was how the Reagan administration did things. 

On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays

References

You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.

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.

If you want to get involved, let me know.

If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).

Also on this day: 

June 9, 1966 – Lovelock’s report 

June 9, 1967 – New York Times reports on temperature drop… 

June 9, 1989 – the Australian Labor Party versus the unions versus the planet #climate 

June 9, 2005 – Capitalism asks G8 leaders to save the world

June 9, 2010 – Gina’s protest 

Categories
United States of America

May 22, 1979 – Frank Press asks NAS to look into climate change. …

Forty seven years ago, on this day, May 22nd, 1979,

President Carter’s chief scientific adviser Frank Press requests NAS to look at CO2

[following MacDonald and Pomerance] Finally, weeks later, MacDonald called to tell him that Press had taken up the issue. On May 22, Press wrote a letter to the president of the National Academy of Sciences requesting a full assessment of the carbon-dioxide issue. Jule Charney, the father of modern meteorology, would gather the nation’s top oceanographers, atmospheric scientists and climate modelers to judge whether MacDonald’s alarm was justified — whether the world was, in fact, headed to cataclysm.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 3xxppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that from the mid 1970s, various scientists in the United States – we’re talking Gordon MacDonald, Alvin Weinberg, Roger Revelle, perhaps a few others – had been able to lobby the ERDA to start taking climate change seriously and put pressure on the higher-ups in the science establishment in the United States, especially President Carter’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Frank Press. And Press, on this day, asked the National Academy of Sciences to have a look at the issue with new eyes to see if the fears of the carbon dioxide action advocates were fair and justified. 

The specific context was that Chief scientists understandably want to make sure a problem they are being told about is actually a problem, before they go to their political pay masters with it. That’s fair and legitimate. 

What I think we can learn from this. That for all reasonable circumstances, we knew enough by the late 1970s to be taking action.

What happened next. The NAS did the study. This was the Charney report, and it said, “yeah, if we keep tipping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere there’s absolutely no reason not to believe that the temperature will go up significantly and that will cause a world of pain” and Press clearly didn’t like that, didn’t think it should be something on Carter’s agenda, especially in the following year, which was an election year. 

Frank Press died 2020 – a life of magnitude https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2004812117

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: 

May 22, 1972 – Horizon doco “Do you Dig National Parks?” – All Our Yesterdays

May 22, 1989 – Greenhouse plebiscite mooted

May 22, 2007 – “Clean coal” power station by 2014, honest…

May 22, 2000 – Industry versus the greenhouse trigger

May 22 – Build Back Biodiversity: International Biodiversity Day

Categories
United Kingdom

May 3, 1979 – Nature editorialised on “costs and benefits of carbon dioxide”

Forty-seven years ago, on this day, May 3rd, 1979

Costs and benefits of carbon dioxide. Nature 279, 1 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1038/279001a0

Bondi, H. David Davies’ editorship ends. Nature 283, 1 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/283001b0

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Nature magazine had been reporting on CO2 build up, or at least mentioning it in passing, since 1964, and had editorialised that it was a ‘scare’ in 1971 under the editorship of John Maddox. 

The specific context was that from the mid-70s onwards, there was a build up of awareness internationally, especially in Europe and the United States, about CO2 as a pollutant. And in April, as alluded to in the editorial itself, there had been a four day workshop on CO2 build up and societal impacts in Annapolis, Maryland. Among the British attendees were Crispin Tickell, who at that point was a consigliere for British European Commissioner Roy Jenkins, and Tom Wigley, who was head of the Climatic Research Unit.

And this is exactly the same time that obviously Margaret Thatcher is coming to office, and the report by the Interdepartmental Group on Climatology is working its way through the system. There’s no mention of the Nature editorial in the files I’ve seen National Archives, which does not, of course, mean that it was not discussed. It simply means that there isn’t a surviving minute of it. 

What I think we can learn from this is 

That intelligent people from the mid-late 70s were well aware of the CO2 build-up issue.

That our Lords and masters didn’t pay any attention and that they simply sought advice from the people who were going to tell them the things they wanted to hear

Or maybe they had the misfortune to go to the wrong advice-givers and would it have been different if they’d gone to CRU? I don’t know. We’ll never know. We can’t know history doesn’t provide those experimental points. 

What happened next. Nature fell back under the editorship of John Maddox, and in 1988 he was still at his bullshit games of publishing editorials about “jumping the gun” and getting chided by Wally Broecker this time. 

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: 

May 3, 1978 – First and last “Sun Day”

May 3, 1989 “Exploration Access and Political Power” speech by Hugh Morgan

May 3, 1990 – From Washington to Canberra, the “greenhouse effect” has elites promising…

May 3, 2024 – Friends of the Earth and Client Earth win a court case

Categories
Coal United Kingdom

April 10, 1979 – National Coal Board top scientist versus 19th century physics

On this day, 47 years ago,   Joseph Gibson, chief scientist at the National Coal Board, was keen to dampen concern and examination of coal’s global environmental impacts. With palpable glee he wrote a letter on April 10 1979 to the Chairman (Brian Flowers) and the board members.      

“I promised to let Board members have a copy of the IEA report on the greenhouse effect…. The only firm fact so far is that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing. It is concluded that there is no evidence of a rise in global temperature due to this concentration increase at present.” He then goes on to quote from the work, by Irene Smith – “There is little evidence to support either a complacent or an alarmist attitude…”

(Gibson, J. 1979 Carbon Dioxide and the Greenhouse Effect. April 10 TNA COAL 30/414)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the National Coal Board had been explicitly aware of carbon dioxide build up since (at the latest) 1972, and was looking for an excuse not to have to do much. And in Irene Smith’s work, they were able to cherry pick what they wanted. 

The specific context was that Gibson was surely aware that in other parts of the British state apparatus an “Interdepartmental Group on Climatology” was about to present a report.

What I think we can learn from this is that people who are comfortable in their own way of thinking find it hard to take new threats seriously until they are staring them in the face. 

What happened next:  The National Coal Board hired some people to do some work on the carbon dioxide work. This was good stuff, but it all kind of didn’t contribute in the way that it could have, not because those people were less than stellar, but simply because the Thatcher governments had other fish to fry. And Thatcher had made it clear herself that she wasn’t going to “worry about the weather”.  

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 10, 2006 – “Business warms to change” (Westpac, Immelt) – All Our Yesterdays

April 10th, 2010 – activists hold “party at the pumps”

April 10, 2013 – US companies pretend they care, make “Climate Declaration”

Categories
Nuclear Power Sweden

April 4, 1979 – Olof Palme u-turns on nuclear referendum

47 years ago today, the Swedish Prime Minister decides on a referendum

“The nuclear policy controversy came to a head following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Olof Palme, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, had for a long time been a strong supporter of nuclear power and against a nuclear referendum. On April 4, 1979, however, after a week of intense media coverage of the nuclear accident, Palme, afraid of losing more antinuclear supporters to the Center Party in the upcoming September 1979 elections, announced that he was in favor of a nuclear referendum. Within hours the other parties agreed to Palme’s suggestion.” (Lofstedt 1992: 4) 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Palme had been made aware about climate change from carbon dioxide quite some time ago. In April 1974 he had been briefed on it by Herman Flohn. In November 1974, Palme had spoken about it publicly.

The specific context was that energy politics is always messy!

What I think we can learn from this is that energy politics are always messy. And that some referenda matter more than others.

What happened next:  

A non-binding referendum on nuclear power was held in Sweden on 23 March 1980.[1] Three proposals were put to voters. The second option, the gradual phasing out of nuclear power, won a narrow plurality of the vote, receiving 39.1% of the ballots cast to 38.7% for option 3.[2] Option 1 was the least popular, receiving only 18.9% of the votes.[2]

The actual long term result of the nuclear power politics in Sweden after the referendum has been most similar to option 1 which did not change ownership of nuclear power plants. Some were fully private and others owned by the government, and this did not change much. High profits in hydroelectric generation were not excessively taxed. Although some of the nuclear power plants were decommissioned, the Swedish government decided to reverse the policy.[3]

1980 Swedish nuclear power referendum – Wikipedia

Also on this day

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

April 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Academia United States of America

April 4, 1979 – DOE and AAS meeting

Forty seven years ago today, they’re half-way through what SHOULD have been a crucial meeting…

2-6  April Annapolis Maryland DOE and AAAS meeting on social science and climate.

CRIPSIN TICKELL PRESENT – see his October 1979 article in EUROPE

YOU HAVE DONE THIS ONE!!
April 4, 1979 – DOE and AAAS meet on social science and climate – All Our Yesterdays

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that since 1977 the Department of Energy had been hosting conferences, famously Miami Beach in March of 77 and commissioning reports about carbon dioxide build up. The Carter administration was “on it” as it were – or the Carter administration wasn’t, but people working in the DOE were. And I think a lot of this is probably down to a nuclear physicist called Alvin Weinberg. Anyway, here we are in April of 79 and the crucial things here are that 

  1. Tom Wigley of the Climatic Research Unit was present and presenting.

b) Crispin Tickell, then the consigliere for Roy Jenkins, was present at this meeting. We know this thanks to Tickell’s October 1979 article in Europe magazine.

The specific context was that by 1979 smart people were beginning to “freak out”, in a very measured and contained way.

What I think we can learn from this is that we have known for so long.  And done so little (well, made the whole shituation much worse).  

What happened next:  

Nature ran an editorial in May 1979 that namechecked this conference. The DOE asked people like Schelling to do a report on the societal implications that was released in early 1980 and whatever progress was being made towards tackling the carbon dioxide problem was halted with the coming of the Ronald Reagan gang in January of 1981 and here we are completely fine. Fuck. Risk. 

Also on this day

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

April 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Energy Nuclear Power

March 28, 1979 – Three Mile Island 

Forty seven years ago on this day, March 26th, 1979,

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.[2][3] It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public.[4] The accident was the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history until it was exceeded by the Church Rock uranium mill spill four months later.[5] On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, the TMI-2 reactor accident is rated Level 5, an “Accident with Wider Consequences”.[6][7]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was there had been high hopes for nuclear in the 1950s – “electricity too cheap to meter” and all that.  The coal industry had fought back, and so had, well, reality and economics.

The specific context was that the 1973-4 Oil Shock had concentrated everyone’s minds.

What I think we can learn from this is that every technology comes with costs.

What happened next – anti-nuclear activists highlighted the dangers. A few of those worried about carbon dioxide (especially William Barbat), tried to say there were bigger dangers. 

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

Barbat in CO2 Newsletter

Also on this day: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
CO2 Newsletter CO2 Newsletter articles

Front page news – “Broecker’s 6 meter rise does not appear unreasonable” – C02 Newsletter Vol. 1, no. 5

Here’s the front page story on the CO2 Newsletter for June-July 1980. You can find out more about the newsletter here.

We knew. We knew. Brave diligent people like William Barbat tried to amplify the science, connect the dots, connect the policymakers, the publics and the evidence.

A sense of urgency was introduced to the CO2-greenhouse problem July 30, 1979, when Wallace Broecker (Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory) explained to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, “We have good evidence that during the peak of the last interglacial period, the sea level did indeed stand 6 meters (20 feet) higher than it does now, and we don’t think the temperature of the globe was any more than 1 degree Celsius warmer than now.”

A 1 degree C warming is generally expected to be reached shortly after the turn of the century if the CO2 buildup continues as in the past, The energy scenario of F. Niehaus (International Atomic Energy Agency) which might halt a CO2-induced global warming just short of 1 degree C, as shown in the inset, would call for a rapid phase-out of fossil mostly by nuclear, This scenario was presented at the same Senate hearing. 

Broecker’s 6 meter rise (point ‘a’) does not appear unreasonable on a plot of temperatures vs. sea elevations ranging from ice ages to no-icecap conditions. Global average temperatures of 4 degrees to 5 degrees C cooler than now are shown for the ice ages, as used by Svante Arrhenius in his CO2 greenhouse model of 1896. Corresponding to these periods of maximum glacial advance are vestiges of shorelines 85 to 130 meters lower than now as shown by bar +b’. (Lag in destruction of the Laurentide ice sheet precludes

other equilibrium values for conditions cooler than now.)

An approximation of the pre-glacial global temperature as shown here 5. degrees C greater than now (point ‘c’) is derived from Eocene and early Oligocene subtropical and tropical sea-surface temperatures in the literature. These sea temperatures were based on oxygen isotope measurements made on shells of pelagic foraminifera which grew at that time,

Arrhenius had also judged that the average Arctic temperatures prior to the existence of ice sheets in that hemisphere were about 8 to 9 degrees C warmer than modern temperatures, based on observations of vegetation and animal life. Allowing for 3X to 4X polar amplification, this would correspond to an average global temperature 2 degrees to 3 degrees C warmer than now, which essentially matches the consensus of estimates for global warming which may accompany a CO2 doubling, Such a doubling is expected to be reached about 2025-2050 if growth of CO2 production continues its historical rise.

Because the West Antarctic icecap is believed by John Mercer (Institute of Polar Studies, Ohio State) to have formed at cooler temperatures than the Greenland icecap, the potential sea elevation corresponding to the absence of the Greenland ice is shown here as the sum of the rise if both icecaps were absent, that is, 12 meters higher than present. This 12 meter height – if valid can be considered to be a minimum value, for it is likely that the East Antarctic ice cap was smaller than its present size when global temperature was 2 degrees to 3 degrees C warmer.

No estimates have been published yet for how fast the Greenland ice sheet might disappear with a CO2 -induced warming, and much controversy still surrounds estimates of how fast the West Antarctic ice sheet may disappear due to a lack of precedents. If the CO2 buildup continues unabated, the  expected warming over the next half century may take place in about one-tenth the time that a similar temperature rise occurred about 10,3000 degrees before present, during which time sea level was about 0.2 to 0.3 meters per decade according to the compilations of Rhodes Fairbridge.

To illustrate the seriousness of a potential equilibrium with the warmness of a CO2 doubling, the Jefferson Memorial is depicted on the same elevation scale. For other comparisons, the absence of icecaps would correspond to sea level at the clock face of London’s Big Ben and up to the roadway of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Categories
Science Scientists

February 20, 1979 “An Assessment of the Possible Future Climatic Impact of Carbon Dioxide Increases”

Forty seven years ago, on this day, February 20, 1979 the following was published – 

“An Assessment of the Possible Future Climatic Impact of Carbon Dioxide Increases Based on a Coupled One-Dimensional Atmospheric-Oceanic Model” Hunt and Wells

https://doi.org/10.1029/JC084iC02p00787

A radiative-convective equilibrium model of the atmosphere has been coupled with a mixed layer model of the ocean to investigate the response of this one-dimensional system to increasing carbon dioxide amounts in the atmosphere. For global mean conditions a surface temperature rise of about 2°K was obtained for a doubling of the carbon dioxide amount, in reasonable agreement with the commonly accepted results of Manabe and Wetherald. This temperature rise was essentially invariant with season and indicates that including a shallow (300 m) ocean slab in this problem does not basically alter previous assessments. While the mixed layer depth of the ocean was only very slightly changed by the temperature increase, which extended throughout the depth of the mixed layer, the impact of this increase on the overall behavior of the ocean warrants further study. A calculation was also made of the temporal variation of the sea surface temperature for three possible carbon dioxide growth rates starting from an initial carbon dioxide content of 300 ppm. This indicated that the thermal inertia of the slab ocean provides a time lag of 8 years in the sea surface temperature response compared to a land situation. This is not considered to be of great significance as regards the likely future climatic impact of carbon dioxide increase.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was the idea that carbon dioxide build-up could warm the planet goes back to Arrhenius in 1895. The idea got nudged forward by Guy Callendar in 1938 onwards, and then pushed to the next level by Gilbert Plass in 1953.

The specific context was that by the late 1970s, it was broadly agreed among the relevant scientific community that there was serious trouble ahead, and this is laid out in painstaking and painful detail in William Barbat’s CO2 Newsletter, which I am releasing through the course of 2026.

What I think we can learn from this is that information on its own, the truth on its own, will not set you free.

What happened next: More studies, more emissions, more concentrations, spasms of protest, but no action worthy of the name to actually bend the emissions curve down, and certainly reducing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 via various so called draw down projects is a complete fucking fantasy.

And I didn’t have kids because the second half of the 21st Century is going to make the first half of the 20th look like a golden age of peace, love and understanding. But I’m standing here narrating this, looking at sparrows and finches and things and I guess it’s my job just to enjoy it for as long as I can. I suppose.

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: 

February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist

February 20, 1970 – South Australian premier sets up an Environment Committee

February 20, 2017 “Clean Coal” money being spent on PR