Sixty three years ago, on this day, May 25th, 1962, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took time away from shagging anything that moved and gave a speech –
Secretary Udall, Members of the Senate and the House, Governors, Secretary Stahr, ladies and gentlemen:
I am too late to welcome you to this Conference which has been going on now for 2 days, and I know that I am in no position to congratulate you upon completing the work because I think that this Conference is only a step forward in a long journey which began, fortunately, many years ago and which will continue throughout our lives.
Continues here
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 318ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that various people “in the know” were getting nervous about the impacts of technology and growth (population, consumerism). There’d been various spills, clearcutting etc. The Conservation Foundation was producing reports etc etc. I don’t know if anyone had seen Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, which was about to appear in three issues of the New Yorker.
What I think we can learn from this is that, as per Sven Lindqvist, it is not knowledge we lack, but courage.
What happened next
JFK asked for – and got – a report on Carson’s book.
The climate stuff was just then coming onto the radar. Within a couple of years, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, would include mention of it in his special message to Congress on pollution.
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 25, 1953 – “I read about them in Time Magazine” (Gilbert Plass’s greenhouse warning
May 25, 1990 – Thatcher opens Hadley Centre
May 25, 1992 Keating Cabinet discusses Rio – All Our Yesterdays
May 25 – Interview with Ben King – of #climate, education and the need for tubas
May 25, 2011 – Aussie #climate scientist smeared rather than engaged. Plus ca change…