Fifty five years ago, on this day, December 26, 1968, Fred Singer, who had been present for the foundation meeting of the International Geophysical Year, and would go on to be a weapons-grade asshole denialist, organised a symposium (it was part of his day job). That symposium was about the global effects of environmental pollution for the American Association for the Advancement of Science
https://doi.org/10.1029/EO051i005p00476
Smart cookie called J. Murray Mitchell was there and laid it out.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the US Federal Government was making some of the right noises about climate change. It had just found out that there would indeed be a United Nations meeting in 1972. But this meeting will have been organised months and months in advance of that final decision.
What’s amusing about it is that Fred Singer became one of the leading the nihilists denialists.
What I think we can learn from this
We knew way back when. We knew.
What happened next
Caroll Wilson organised the 1970 Workshop in Williamstown about Man’s Impact on the environment. The following year there was Man’s Impact on Climate, organised by William Kellogg, in Stockholm.
This 5 years was the period where are the new institutions and collaborations got hashed out – GARP, then SCOPE and so on…
J. Murray Mitchell was exceptionally blunt (and accurate) in his warning in 1976 – “If we’re still rolling along on fossil fuels by the end of the century then we’ve had it.”
We were and we have.
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.