Fifty four years ago, on this day, December 29, 1969, there was
Symposium on Climate and Man, 136th Meeting of the American Association for Advancement of Science, Boston
This from a pre-symposium teaser, published in Science, tells you enough to be going on with –
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by 1969 environmental issues, air quality issues, long-term effects of carbon dioxide issues, were pretty well-known in the scientific community, the “environmental” community, and were becoming quite well known with anyone who could read any quality newspaper. A one-day symposium on the topic when everyone’s gathering together anyway for a meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science was quite fun.
What I think we can learn from this
There was early knowledge early discussion, if you want to call 1960s early.
What happened next
The next seriously consequential meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science with regards to climate change was the 148th in 1982 which was held in New York, with James Hansen and Herman Flohn both sounding off. Though I’m sure people who were involved in the big AAS processors in between will tell you otherwise
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
Battan, L. J. (1969). Climate and Man. Science, 166(3904), 536-537.