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.