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April 12, 1955 – Coventry Evening Telegraph – “Melting Ice Could Menace the World”

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, April 12th, 1955, a regional newspaper in England explained what was coming.

Anon, 1955. Melting Ice Could Menace the World. Coventry Evening Telegraph April 12 p.7

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there was, for many years, a consensus that the world was warming up. It wasn’t quite so clear what was causing it. This article explicitly mentions carbon dioxide as one possible culprit.

What we learn is that the idea of the world warming was not particularly controversial. But the mechanism was, and what Gilbert Plass, drawing on Guy Callendar, did was give a plausible explanation. That’s a really important distinction, something I hadn’t quite figured out.

What we learn is that the British regional press back at this time was still worthy of the name more or less (though I’m sure it didn’t feel to campaigners at the time that it was!). One mustn’t look at the past with rose-tinted glasses. 

What happened next The Coventry Evening Telegraph did keep reporting on the issue. There was just a general awareness that things were warming up, and that there might be trouble ahead.

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 12, 1992 – seminar asks “How sustainable is Australian Energy?” (proposes switch to gas)

April 12, 1993 – “environmental economics” gets a puff piece