Sixty six years ago, on this day, January 23, 1957, New Zealand scientist Athol Rafter laid out what was ahead of us, at an ANZAAS meeting
“A New Zealand scientist said that if the existing percentage of carbon dioxide gas in the air was doubled, the earth’s temperature would rise enough to melt polar ice caps and flood many major coastal cities.”
and
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 419
The context was that with the coming of the ability to do carbon-14 dating, it was obvious that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere were indeed climbing (at this point Charles David Keeling’s meticulous measurements at Mauna Loa were still over a year away from starting). The International Geophysical Year was about to begin, and everyone was rather excited…
What I think we can learn from this
The science of this did not used to be controversial, and people have known for a hella long time…
What happened next
The scientists kept going, with their pesky impact science, measuring the problems caused by production science….
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.