Forty eight years ago, on this day, November 27th, 1978,
On this day in San Francisco, city mayor George Moscone and openly gay city supervisor Harvey Milk are assassinated by former supervisor Dan White.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 335ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that the upsurge of the 1960s had led to all sorts of positive changes in US society, including the ability of openly homosexual people (men at first) to run for public office.
What I think we can learn from this – liberation comes with risks, as shown in the film Milk.
What happened next – the killer, Dan White, took his own life a few years later.
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:
November 27, 1956 – New York Times science writer who covered C02 build-up dies.
November 27, 1969 – Canberra Times runs pollution article, mentions melting ice-caps
November 27, 1978 – “Impacts of climate on Australian Society and Economy” begins…