Tag: Frank Press

Categories
United States of America

May 8, 1980 – Nature article “CO2 could increase global tensions.” Exxon discussed underneath. Delicious ironies abound.

Forty four years ago, on this day, May 8th, 1980, there was an ironic juxtaposition in the British science journal Nature…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the synfuels battle had just happened. And Americans, political leaders had been warned about the geopolitical consequences of CO2. Other people were saying the same stuff. 

What we learn is that CO2 was a really live issue in the late 70s, early 80s. People knew what was coming, they couldn’t say exactly when. And history is full of these delicious little moments, I guess.

What happened next, Exxon gave up on renewables and being vaguely responsible and all the rest of it and switched to denial very effectively. American politicians continued to be aware of CO2. There were congressional hearings, Senate hearings and then after 1985 it really picked up steam. 

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: 

May 8, 1972 – “Teach-in for Survival” in London

May 8, 1992 – UNFCCC text agreed. World basically doomed.

May 8, 2013 – we pass 400 parts per million. Trouble ahead.

May 8, 2015 – denialist denies in delusional denialist newspaper

Categories
United States of America

 April 14, 1980 – Carter’s scientist, Frank Press, pushes back against CEQ report

Forty four years ago, on this day, April 14th, 1980, the US chief scientific advisor was not happy about people bigging up the carbon dioxide threat…

The following April, Frank Press, the head of the OSTP, reacted angrily to a draft of a Council on Environmental Quality report that he felt greatly overemphasized the dangers and underplayed the uncertainty. “At this moment of great national trauma with respect to energy, inflation, and foreign affairs, I believe it is a serious disservice to the public to raise widespread concern about an issue with hazards, that are, at the moment, so speculative and uncertain.”27

Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate Author(s): Nicolas Nierenberg, Walter R. Tschinkel, Victoria J. Tschinkel
IN: Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40, No. 3
(Summer 2010), pp. 318-349

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that American scientists had been banging the drum for a while. And Frank Press had been on the receiving end of this, as Jimmy Carter‘s Chief Scientific Adviser. There’s a memo from 1977. There was the Global 2000 report underway. 

This, from the Council on Environmental Quality is a separate issue. The CEQ had been set up in 1970 under Nixon. I think Press was probably worried that too much attention was being paid to what was still possibly regardable as a speculative issue, despite the previous year’s Charney Report. 

It was an election year, and anything that could pin Carter as a nervous ninny was to be avoided. This was difficult since the man had already sat there dressed in the cardigan and given a “malaise speech.” But that’s the context. 

What we learn is that scientific advice is never just about the science, especially from a political appointee. 

What happened next? 

Well, I didn’t know how much influence Press had. The CEQ report did finally come out that maybe it was ready before January 1981 when it was released. Maybe it was held back until after the election?

The CEQ report was released in January 1981. But it was a dead duck because the Reagan administration was about to take office. 

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 14th, 1989 – 24 US senators call for immediate unilateral climate action

April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson

Categories
Science Scientists United States of America

July 23, 1979 – Charney Report people meet – will conclude “yep, global warming is ‘A Thing’.”

On this day, 23 July 1979, the  “Ad Hoc Study Group on C02 and Climate” begins at Woods Hole, giving us the  “Charney Report.”

Short version – a scientist (Gordon MacDonald) and a Friends of the Earth activist (Rafe Pomerance) had managed to get President Jimmy Carter’s science advisor (Frank Press) to get Carter to request a study on whether this “greenhouse effect” thing was gonna actually be the problem some were saying.

So folks met, under the leadership of one of the big original beasts of atmospheric science, Jule Charney.

And they came up with the view, “yes”.

See this excellent summary, written by Neville Nicholls, an Australian scientist

Here’s a flowery (but good) bit from Nathaniel Rich’s “Losing Earth”–

The scientists summoned by Jule Charney to judge the fate of civilization arrived on July 23, 1979, with their wives, children and weekend bags at a three-story mansion in Woods Hole, on the southwestern spur of Cape Cod. They would review all the available science and decide whether the White House should take seriously Gordon MacDonald’s prediction of a climate apocalypse. The Jasons had predicted a warming of two or three degrees Celsius by the middle of the 21st century, but like Roger Revelle before them, they emphasized their reasons for uncertainty. Charney’s scientists were asked to quantify that uncertainty. They had to get it right: Their conclusion would be delivered to the president. But first they would hold a clambake.

They gathered with their families on a bluff overlooking Quissett Harbor and took turns tossing mesh produce bags stuffed with lobster, clams and corn into a bubbling caldron. While the children scrambled across the rolling lawn, the scientists mingled with a claque of visiting dignitaries, whose status lay somewhere between chaperone and client — men from the Departments of State, Energy, Defense and Agriculture; the E.P.A.; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They exchanged pleasantries and took in the sunset. It was a hot day, high 80s, but the harbor breeze was salty and cool. It didn’t look like the dawning of an apocalypse.

Why this matters. 

“We” really knew enough by the late 70s. Everything since then has been footnotes.

What happened next?

Carter lost the 1980 election, handsomely. It would be another 8 years before the simulacrum of international action began.