Tag: Newsweek

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Science Scientists

January 8, 1968 – LaMont Cole to AAAS about running outta oxygen, build-up of C02 etc

Fifty six years ago, on this day, January 8th, 1968,

According to a Newsweek report (8 January 1968), Professor L. C. Cole of Cornell University (in a paper delivered at the 134th annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) asks whether man is not destroying the earth’s natural supply of oxygen. He points out (1) that the increasing combustion of fossil fuels has greatly accelerated the formation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and (2) that, in the United States alone, some one million acres of suburbanised forest and grassland each year lose their ability to regenerate the oxygen supply through photosynthesis.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there was concern among a few scientists that levels of oxygen would drop and that we would all ultimately suffocate. That was rendered null a year or two after this, but there was generalised concern about oxygen levels, carbon dioxide levels, you name it. As the consequences of modernity, as we laughingly call it, were becoming apparent. Cynically, you could also say that people were so fed up with the Vietnam War, but there were costs attached to speaking out against that, that they found something else to be worried about….

What we can learn is that there have been scientists warning of trouble ahead. But those scientists may have sometimes understandably picked something to be concerned about that wasn’t actually there. That doesn’t mean that all warnings are bad warnings. 

What happened next, as above, the oxygen depletion thing was put to bed in 1970 or so. Lamont Cole died in I think, 1979. 

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.

References

Cole, L. 1968. Can the World Be Saved? BioScience, Vol. 18, No. 7 pp. 679-684 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1294188 .https://doi.org/10.2307/1294188

Also on this day: 

Jan 8, 1958 – “The masters of infinity… could control the world’s weather”, says LBJ

January 8, 2003 – Energy firms plan to “bury carbon emissions”…

January 8, 2013 – Australian Prime Minister connects bush fires and #climate change

Categories
Denial United States of America

August 13, 2007 –  Newsweek nails denialists

Sixteen years ago, on this day, August 13, 2007, the US publication Newsweek, which had been reporting on carbon dioxide build-up since 1953, had a very good report on the tactics of the denialists, under the clever title “The Truth about Denial.”

“Organisations and companies such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute and ExxonMobil emphasise conservative climate change scenarios and highlight the potential economic costs of stricter controls” (Sharon Begley, “The Truth about Denial”, Newsweek, August 13, 2007)

Vale Sharon Begley – https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/17/sharon-begley-path-breaking-science-journalist-dies/

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that climate change was absolutely back on the agenda with Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” and the fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC. There was renewed vigour in the international process with lots of talk about what would replace the Kyoto Protocol. And therefore, the denialists were up to their old tricks. Sharon Begley’s article is a good summation of how and why they do what they do. 

What I think we can learn from this

Mainstream press articles can often give you the facts you need. You may need to bolt on a decent theoretical framework, but serious mainstream media (often the business press is best) can give you a bunch of worthwhile facts to be going on with.

Btw, from reading this article, it is a tolerably accurate picture of incumbents’ behaviour. In any democratic society (a) these tactics would be taughtf in school so people could defend their minds against the onslaught  and (b) of course, you would not need to be taught it because there would laws and structures that prevented the ownership of the government by concentrated economic interests. 

What happened next

The denial kept going, becoming a hydra and a T1000 at the same time.

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.

Categories
Denial Science

April 28, 1975- Newsweek’s “The Cooling World” story.

On this day, April 28 1975, Newsweek ran a story ”The Cooling World” (pdf here) based on the idea that an ice age was imminent because of the amount of particulates thrown up into the atmosphere.

It wasn’t alone in this – The previous year (June 24, 1974) Time had an article titled “Another Ice Age?” which said “the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades” but noted that “Some scientists… think that the cooling trend may be only temporary.”

These articles have been used ever since, as the part of the myth that, in the 1970s, “all scientists were convinced that an ice age was coming. And therefore, carbon dioxide build-up is just the latest iteration of a scare that we need to pay no attention to.” This idea has faded somewhat in mainstream culture, but it still persists in the nuttier corners of the internet.

What we learn is that journalism around climate is very difficult because the issues are very complex, and that people choose not to accept the journalists and scientists can get it wrong and change their mind because they are looking to have a gotcha moment.

Why this matters. 

Denialists have kept using it.

What happened next?

Denialists kept using it

See also:

The original author, Peter Gwynne, writing in 2014

Scientific American in 2015 – For Its 40th Birthday, Let’s Retire Newsweek’s Global Cooling Story

Wikipedia on Global Cooling.