Tag: Daniel Moynihan

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United States of America

January 26, 1970 – US science bureaucrat writes “what’s going on?” memo about #climate

Fifty three  years ago, on this day, January 26, 1970, a Nixon-era scientist (a professor in Applied Physics no less) called Hubert Heffner  expressed (understandable!) uncertainty about climate change. In September the previous year Daniel Moynihan had written a memo – now famous on the internet – about the possible consequences of carbon dioxide build-up.

“Moynihan received a response in a Jan. 26, 1970, memo from Hubert Heffner, deputy director of the administration’s Office of Science and Technology. Heffner acknowledged that atmospheric temperature rise was an issue that should be looked at.

“The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between,” he wrote. “One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to the temperature rise.”

Heffner wrote that he would ask the Environmental Science Services Administration to look further into the issue. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38070412

Hubert Heffner

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.

The context was the US administration of Nixon was trying to use environmental issues to change the conversation in Europe, away from, well, you know, napalming Vietnamese children.  That’s part of the context of the Moynihan memo. The Germans were underwhelmed by this as a tactic.  Meanwhile, the United Nations bureaucracy was grinding forward with preparations for the Stockholm conference, to be held in June 1972.

What I think we can learn from this

It was still okay at this point to be just not quite sure. We must not allow hindsight to condemn folks for not knowing for sure (I think by late 1970s that argument becomes much much less viable).

What happened next

In August 1970 the first Council on Environmental Quality report came out, with a chapter written by Gordon MacDonald – see here .

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

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United States of America

September 17, 1969 – trying to spin Vietnam, Moynihan starts warning about #climate change

On this day, September 17 1969, Patrick Moynihan, wrote a memo to the Nixon administration warning of the build up of carbon dioxide.

See here.

To quote yesterday’s blog, which was also about 1969, the context is that by the late 1960s smart people were paying attention to – and starting to get worried about – carbon dioxide build-up. Burnet was not alone in this.

But the broader context – which I have not seen in the popular accounts of Moynihan’s warning (it crops up on Twitter occasionaly). Tricky Dick Nixon was keen to get Europeans thinking about, well, anything other than Vietnam, and was seeking to retool NATO to include “challenges to modern society” – including ‘the environment’.

Connecting with President-elect Richard Nixon in 1968, he joined Nixon’s White House Staff as Counselor to the President for Urban Affairs. He was very influential at that time, as one of the few people in Nixon’s inner circle who had done academic research related to social policies.

In 1969, on the initiative of Nixon, NATO tried to establish a third civil column, establishing itself as a hub of research and initiatives in the civil region, dealing as well with environmental topics.[6] Moynihan[6] named Acid Rain and the Greenhouse effect as suitable international challenges to be dealt by NATO. NATO was chosen, since the mutual defense organization had suitable expertise in the field and experience with international research coordination. The German government was skeptical and saw the initiative as an attempt to regain international terrain after the lost Vietnam War. The topics, however, gained momentum in civil conferences and institutions.[6]

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Daniel_Patrick_Moynihan

Why this matters.

Let no-one tell you this was a sudden surprise in 1988 (and even if it were, we’ve had a generation to start taking action).

What happened next?

More and more people became aware of the problems. But awareness is not political and economic power, and those who were doing nicely from the sale of deliciously cheap and abundant fossil fuels saw no reason to stop. And every reason to stop those who wanted them to stop. So that’s what they did, very well, for a very long time. Eternity, effectively.