Seventy six years ago, on this day, September 9, 1947, the communist paper the Daily Worker e takes a look at what is going on.
Daily Worker 9 Sept 1947 LONG BEFORE THE A-BOMB fell scientists talked and wrote about the possible use of nuclear energy. They envisioned steamboats crossing the Atlantic, powered by the atomic energy from a spoonful of water. They discussed ways of melting the polar ice-caps and changing world climate. They wrote of creating new lakes for irrigating and fructifying the deserts
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 310ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in the aftermath of World War II, which had been ended with a couple of nuclear bombs – the second of which was most definitely gratuitous (as was the final air raid on Tokyo) the dreams of power beyond imagining were real or looked like they could be realised. The daily worker communist newspaper reminds us that shaping the planet to meet human needs and once the Promethean dream seemed to be within reach.
What I think we can learn from this is that humans have dreamt of changing the planet advertently and with forethought but what we have ended up with instead is inadvertent weather and climate modification as per the warnings of Captain Orville in 1957-58.
What happened next
In 1953 Gilbert Plass gave his warning about carbon dioxide build-up.
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..