Forty three years ago, on this day, July 1st, 1983, Bucky Fuller died.
Richard Buckminster Fuller Jr. (/ˈfʊlər/; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983)[1] was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more than 30 books and coining or popularizing such terms as “Spaceship Earth“, “Dymaxion” (e.g., Dymaxion house, Dymaxion car, Dymaxion map), “ephemeralization“, “synergetics“, and “tensegrity“.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 343ppm. As of 2026, 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 Fuller, along with Lewis Mumford, was one of those ‘he’s a kinda interesting thinker’ people I was encountering in my teens and early 20s (mis-spent and long long gone youth) – as per Terry Pratchett, “inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.”
In her wonderful book Wholly Round Rasa Gustaitis has a really good section on Fuller.
You can read a memoir of hers here – https://www.rasagustaitis.com/blog/blog-post-title-two-5yhzl-y6xwt-ysw2w-zgnfk-3ynym-yra8g-k6pln-h694d-bhmme-3reey-whjes-4g5bl-mtscb-eplya-2gjah-4lxxw-ksl6n
Meanwhile, Buckminsterfullerines get a run in the brilliant film Robinson in Space.
What I think we can learn from this
Fuller, Mumford, Gregory Bateson, Stafford Beer, Ursula Le Guin, Donatella Meadows, Ilya Prigonine and the rest of the systems people deserve more of my attention.
What happened next
Somebody set up a Buckminster Fuller Institute.
There is also this – https://www.buckyverse.org/en/a_fuller_explanation/index
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:
July 1, 1950 – “Is the World Getting Warmer?” asks Saturday Evening Post
July 1, 1957- A key “year” in climate science begins…
July 1, 1959 – Gilbert Plass article on climate change published in Scientific American
July 1, 1983 – Australian High Court “saves” Franklin River (it woz the activists wot won it)