Fifty four years ago, on this day, September 9th, 1971 climate scientist Stephen Schneider wrote a letter to the New York Times about some industry bullshit that the Times had run as a n op-ed.
AND on the same day, things were a foot in the United Kingdom
“Whereas Bray had been highly sceptical of the World model, Cottrell had been enthused by its demonstration. Returning to Britain, he proposed that the British government develop a similar model, stating his belief that ‘Forrester’s approach is the most important development of its kind since Keynes’ general theory’.117
Given the centrality of Keynesianism in post-war economic policy, this was a significant claim. Heath, as his early enthusiasm for management science had revealed, had some interest in forecasting and simulation, and gave his permission for a scoping study on the feasibility of a British world model. Cottrell held a meeting on the subject at the Cabinet Office in September 1971, in which he had told the assembled civil servants that developing a global model for British purposes would require £50,000 and four staff. In response, an unnamed civil servant argued that the Treasury had a more sophisticated econometric model that it used for forecasting. Despite this criticism, the general idea of a global environmental model was well received, and further work was proposed.118 “
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 326ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. 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 was that in the late 1960s people started worrying about the global impact of industrialisation and population growth (as distinct from concerns about localised pollution).
The specific context was that a) Schneider was already making a name for himself as combative and b) the British state was beginning to think about systems modelling (aware that the Club of Rome report was coming)…
What I think we can learn from this is that there was mention of carbon dioxide and limits to growth way back when. It had pushed out from the undergrowth in the late 1960s…
What happened next: By 1973, we were back to sleep, for the most part. A few new NGOs, a couple of magazines (Your Environment, The Ecologist). It is very very hard to combat a world view.
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:
September 9, 1947 – The Daily Worker talks about melting the ice-caps
September 9, 1971 – of Australian Prime Ministers and American scientists…