On this day, September 12 1958, the Times newspaper carried a letter about … the build up of carbon dioxide…
As Hamblin, in his excellent “Arming Mother Nature,” notes
Peter Ball noted that “it is time that our school of meteorologists should take their heads out of the sand and, short of experiment or other definite proof to the contrary, give the benefit of the doubt to the worst possibility.” There might not be enough evidence to make the link, but equally so, there was not enough evidence to deny the possibility. Why take such a definitive stand? Ball pointed out that meteorologists already believed humans were having an effect on the climate. The slight warming in polar regions over the past century, he said, was undeniable, and it most likely was a result of humans burning up fossil fuels and releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Why was it so hard to accept that another human activity might have an effect as well?
(Hamblin, 2013: 124-5)
Peter Ball, letter to the Times, September 12 1958
On this day the PPM was 313.2
Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
We knew C02 was building up. We knew it might well have implications.
What happened next?
We sat on our thumbs.