Tag: Roger Revelle

Categories
United States of America

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC work Working Group Five

Sixty years ago, on this day, April 4th, 1964, a working group of the President’s Scientific Advisory Council got looking at climate change…

PSAC was the second presidential task force to whom Revelle had introduced the issue of CO2. The first was a subgroup of President Johnson’s Domestic Council, which released a report in 1964. Joseph Fisher, Paul Freund, Margaret Mead and Roger Revelle., “Notes Prepared by Working Group Five, White House Group on Domestic Affairs,” April 4 1964. 

(Howe, 2014:219) [Mead and 1975 conference, with Stephen Schnenider)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Roger Revelle, Conservation Foundation people, Charles Keeling, etc were looking at the carbon dioxide numbers and thinking, “you know, this is one to keep an eye on” as per the 1963 meeting.

And so on to Johnson. Within the Presidential Science Advisory Committee, which had been set up in the immediate aftermath of Sputnik, the climate issue was just one of those things that people thought about. (I’m not sure how Margaret Mead came to be involved, but I’m glad she was!)

The thing that we learned is that there they are within the policy subsystems beavering away, trying to get people to take this stuff seriously. 

What happened next? 

Well, a little under a year later, Johnson gave a special address to Congress about environmental pollution. And you know what? It mentioned CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. And that was thanks to Revelle. 

In November 1965 there was a long report, led by John Tukey, that kinda-sorta emerged from this PSAC group, but went much broader.

How did Margaret Mead get involved? She and then-husband Gregory Bateson will already have known about the issue via G. Evelyn Hutchinson, I’m sure. 

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: 

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-upApril 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Arctic Science Scientists United States of America

March 19, 1956 – Washington Post reports Revelle’s statements

Sixty eight years ago, on this day, March 19th, 1956, the question of possible climate change due to carbon dioxide build-up gets an airing (sorry) in the Washington Post.

19 March 1956 Washington Post story on Revelle’s predictions 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Roger Revelle as well as being a really good scientist was a really good political operator. He knew how to tell Senators interesting stories so that they would give big science, big money. And one of the stories Revelle was telling in ‘56, ahead of the impending International Geophysical Year was that carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere might cause some interesting physical effects. 

What we learn from this is that the idea of the independent scientists mucking around with his test tubes is a comforting myth, but only a myth. And already, by the end of the 40s, this was entirely obvious, given how the war had been one, Manhattan Project, Vannevar Bush, all of that stuff. 

What happened next? With some of the money, a tiny portion of the money that Revellel got, he hired Charles David Keeling to make fantastically accurate measurements of atmospheric CO2, giving us the Keeling Curve and evidence that yes, carbon dioxide was definitely building up in the atmosphere. Until that point this was not entirely certain, though it was strongly suspected. It’s always good to have proper evidence to back up your suspicions, isn’t it? 

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

Norman, L. 1956. Fumes Seen Warming Arctic Seas. The Washington Post and Times Herald; March 19,  pg. 3

Also on this day: 

March 19, 1990 – Bob Hawke gives #climate speech

March 19, 1998 – industry cautiously welcoming emissions trading…

Categories
Science Scientists

December 30, 1957 – a letter from Gilbert Plass to Guy Callendar

Seventy six years ago, on this day, December 30, 1957, the English steam engineer Guy Callendar wrote to the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass

“Plass wrote to Callendar that Revelle and Suess and Arnold and Anderson had “attacked the carbon dioxide climatic theory ‘quite vigorously’ at a meeting earlier this year.”

They claimed that it was absolutely impossible to have had a sufficient increase in the CO2 amount in this century for the reasons that were given in their articles. I think you have pointed out several ways that their conclusion could be in error and I feel that there are still several possible explanations. 64 (Fleming 2007, p.81)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 421ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that American scientists who were studying carbon dioxide build-up and had been writing about it were still not quite sure what was going on. Understandably – if all the answers were obvious you wouldn’t need to explore anything, and that’s not how science works 

Guy Callendar had written the first serious “carbon dioxide is causing climate change” scientific article in 1938 presented it, to muted response, at the Royal Meteorological Society. 

Gilbert Plass was, more than anyone, responsible for putting carbon dioxide squarely on the agenda with his 1953 statements at the American Geophysical Union and then onwards in 1956 with his articles

What I think we can learn from this is that it’s always a messy murky picture in the early days of any issue. Later on it looks like a procession, but a good historian will try to remember the messiness and make it understandable, without removing the messiness.

Obviously that’s an ongoing process that we need to remember how little we knew and how confused the picture was.

What happened next

Callendar kept writing articles and letters. He died in 1964.

Gilbert Plass continued to be engaged for another few years on the climate issue and then wasn’t.

Roger Revelle died in 1991, having spent a long time trying to get the US state and others scientists politicians to take climate change seriously/

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
United States of America

April 4, 1964 –  President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

On this day, April 4, 1964, 

“Revelle had painted a similar picture of the CO2 problem before President Johnson’s Domestic Council a year earlier, and in 1964 he called for similarly bold action. “With the advance of science and technology,” he wrote, “our power to change nature has grown enormously both for good and for ill. …by gaining greater understanding, we will be able to make conscious changes—to bring more water to deserts, to bring cooler summers and warmer winters to the Middle West and the Northeast. In thinking about how we can make our country a better place in which to live by changing our environment, we must not be afraid of big things that can be done only on a national or international scale. We must be sure to make more than little plans.”

Joseph Fisher, Paul Freund, Margaret Mead, and Roger Revelle, “Notes Prepared by Working Group Five, White House Group on Domestic Affairs,” April 4, 1964, President’s Committee [White House Group on Domestic Affairs], File 42, Box 20, Roger Revelle Collection MC 6, Scripps Institute of Oceanography Archives, La Jolla, California. 

Howe, J. 2010  MAKING GLOBAL WARMING GREEN: CLIMATE CHANGE AND AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM, 1957-1992

and

“PSAC was the second presidential task force to whom Revelle had introduced the issue of CO2. The first was a subgroup of President Johnson’s Domestic Council, which released a report in 1964. Joseph Fisher, Paul Freund, Margaret Mead and Roger Revelle., “Notes Prepared by Working Group Five, White House Group on Domestic Affairs,” April 4 1964.

(Howe, 2014:219)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Revelle had been aware of the potential problem of carbon dioxide build-up for almost a decade, and Dave Keeling had been taking accurate measurements at Mauna Loa for 6 years by now, with a steady increase…

What we can learn

Revelle was there, inside the bureaucracy, keeping the (potential) issue on the agenda… 

What happened next

In 1965 Lyndon Johnson mentioned carbon dioxide build-up in his address to congress. The National Science Foundation kept doing work on weather modification and climate.  Gordon Macdonald and Margaret Mead kept going on the topic…

Categories
Uncategorized United States of America

March 15, 1956 – scientist explains climate change to US senators

Sixty seven years ago, on this day, March 15, 1956, Roger Revelle laid out the facts while trying to assure senators that taxpayers’ money was being well spent.  It got reported the following day by the Los Angeles Times.

Anon, 1956. Gas fumes suspected as factor in climate. Los Angeles Times, March 16, p. 25.

AND 

 Norman, L. 1956. Fumes seen warming arctic seas, Washington Post and Times Herald , March 19, p.3.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that big science was getting big money. And congressmen wanted to show that they were keeping informed. Revelle’s was in preparation for the International Geophysical Year. And he enjoyed, I think, testifying about this sort of stuff. At this point, it wasn’t clear that carbon dioxide levels were definitely going up. There had been a publication in 1955 querying the accuracy of the various measurements.

What I think we can learn from this

Congressmen have been aware of the issue as has anyone reading a newspaper since 1956. Actually, you can go earlier, but I would say the pivotal years are from 56 to 59. Before that, it’s just not that clear. 

What happened next

Revelle would solve that uncertainty about atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by hiring Charles David Keeling.  And by 1959, it was clear that yes, co2 levels were definitely rising. 

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
Science Scientists

February 9, 1956 – Scientists puzzle over where the carbon dioxide is going….

Sixty seven years ago, on this day, February 9, 1956 scientist Hans Seuss  (cosmic rays) wrote to his colleague Roger Revelle (marine science, among other things)

“I am not too happy about the whole thing” – 

Weart, 1997, p 346, footnote 78

The thing he wasn’t happy about was being able to account for Gilbert Plass’s point about the build-up of atmospheric CO2…

Further context here, via an excellent 1990 book by Michael Oppenheimer and Robert Boyle, called “Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect” (a race we have clearly lost, btw).

“According to Gordon MacDonald of the Mitre Corporation, who spent some time at Scripps during the 1950s, the Revelle-Suess collaboration  on the CO2 question was fortuitous, for neither was studying climate. Suess was interested in the cosmic rays that produce the carbon-14 isotope in the atmosphere. Revelle was an expert in marine sediments, which were the presumed graveyard for carbon removed from the air by the ocean. Suess and others had noted a small decline in the carbon-14 content of new tree rings versus ones that were fifty years older,  indicating that the carbon dioxide taken in by plants in recent years was deficient in carbon14 compared to earlier times. Fossil fuels are lacking in carbon-14 because it disintegrates by radioactivity over the eons of burial. The two scientists proposed that fossil-fuel combustion had gradually diluted the carbon-14 that is produced continually by cosmic rays, by adding the dominant carbon-12 to the atmosphere. In other words, emissions had not been removed completely and immediately by the ocean. From this and other data they surmised that carbon-dioxide levels would grow significantly in the future and affect climate.”

Oppenheimer M. and Boyle, R . (1990)  Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect. London I.B. Tauris, page 224

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The scientists, Suess and Revelle were puzzling over what would become their seminal paper released in early 1957. That paper suggested that scientists had made an unsafe assumption, (based on Revelle’s 1930s work), that carbon dioxide would be absorbed by the ocean because the layers of the ocean mixed well. 

This kind of dissatisfaction and puzzling is what scientists are paid to do. If they didn’t, we’d still have “earth and air and fire and water” as per the Aristotlean version of The Elements song by Tom Lehrer.

What I think we can learn from this

Smart people have been puzzling on this for a long time, and came up with some good answers that should have had us sit up and take notice. But at a societal species level, that is too much to ask, because everyone has so much else going on at any given time. And if they don’t, it is “given” to them via pay cuts and reality television.

What happened next

Suess and Revelle published their paper. Revelle hired David Keeling to measure CO2 accurately. Other people paid attention. And here we are 70 years down the line with atmospheric concentrations 100 PPM higher than they were at the time.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

References

Weart, S. 1997.  Global Warming, Cold War, and the Evolution of Research Plans. Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences Vol. 27, No. 2 (1997), pp. 319-356

Categories
Scientists

September 13, 1992/1994- Scientists traduced, ignored

On this day, September 13 1992, Roger Revelle’s daughter wrote an op-ed  about the way her father, ailing, had been exploited by climate denialists. (see also Oreskes and Conway 2010, page 195)

Contrary to George Will’s “Al Gore’s Green Guilt” {op-ed, Sept. 3} Roger Revelle – our father and the “father” of the greenhouse effect – remained deeply concerned about global warming until his death in July 1991. That same year he wrote: “The scientific base for a greenhouse warming is too uncertain to justify drastic action at this time.” Will and other critics of Sen. Al Gore have seized these words to suggest that Revelle, who was also Gore’s professor and mentor, renounced his belief in global warming.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

http://uscentrist.org/platform/positions/environment/context-environment/john_coleman/carolyn-revelle-what-my-father-really-said

On this day the PPM was 353.01 Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Exactly two years after this was published, Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman was trying to educate ALP politicians about the facts of life (on earth)

It’s quite possible that the turning point in the debate over one of the key environmental issues facing the Keating Government came on an early spring afternoon in the Cabinet room when the Minister for the Environment, Senator John Faulkner, wasn’t even there.

Over 90 minutes on September 13, a world renowned atmospheric scientist [Dr Graeme Pearman] gave a rare briefing to Cabinet ministers on the extent of the great environmental dilemma of our age – the greenhouse gas phenomenon.

McLean, L. 1994. D Day in Gas debate. The Australian, December 5, p. 20.

On this day the PPM was 355.86 Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

“Every disaster movie starts with a scientist being ignored.”

And when scientists tell the truth, they must either be traduced or ignored.

What happened next?

Pearman finally retired in 2004. He has tried to educate folks. Australian political (and economic) leaders largely just did not want to know. And here we are.

Categories
United States of America

August 25, 1970 – Margaret Mead and James Baldwin rap on race…

On the evening of August 25, 1970,

“Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901–November 15, 1978) and James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) sat together on a stage in New York City for a remarkable public conversation about such enduring concerns as identity, power and privilege, race and gender, beauty, religion, justice, and the relationship between the intellect and the imagination.” https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/19/a-rap-on-race-margaret-mead-and-james-baldwin/

Here’s the pdf – https://archive.org/details/raponrace0000mead

This only tangentially has much to do with climate change, but Mead and Baldwin are both stone-cold geniuses, so indulge me here.

Mead was part of Roger Revelle’s subgroup about the atmosphere for President Johnson’s science advisory committee in 1964.

Baldwin? Stone cold genius, on so many issues. Key quote – ”Not everything that is faced can be dealt with, but nothing can be dealt with until it is faced.”

[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 324.69 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]

Why this matters. 

If we don’t want to listen to the smartest among us, then what is the point?

What happened next?

Mead would go on to co-chair the 1975 ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ conference with Stephen Schneider, that has the denialists all aerated [see here].

Categories
Ignored Warnings United States of America

July 31, 1981 – US politicians hold “carbon dioxide and climate” hearings.

On this day, 31st July 1981, US congressmen got to hear from scientists.

Carbon Dioxide and Climate : The Greenhouse Effect House Committee on Science and Technology 31 July 1981.  https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002758619 

“carbon dioxide and climate, the greenhouse effect:” hearing before the Subcommittee on Natural Resources, Agriculture Research, and Environment and the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, first session, July 31, 1981.

Here’s who was there. By now you probably recognise Roger Revelle and Stephen Schneider….

You have to wonder what they were thinking/hoping, given the wrecking ball that was the Reagan Administration. But, then, what else were they supposed to do?

According to Nathaniel Rich in Losing Earth

Though few people other than Rafe Pomerance seemed to have noticed amid Reagan’s environmental blitzkrieg, another hearing on the greenhouse effect was held several weeks earlier, on July 31, 1981. It was led by Representative James Scheuer, a New York Democrat — who lived at sea level on the Rockaway Peninsula, in a neighborhood no more than four blocks wide, sandwiched between two beaches — and a canny, 33-year-old congressman named Albert Gore Jr….

The Revelle hearing went as [Gore’s fixer] Grumbly had predicted. The urgency of the issue was lost on Gore’s older colleagues, who drifted in and out while the witnesses testified. There were few people left by the time the Brookings Institution economist Lester Lave warned that humankind’s profligate exploitation of fossil fuels posed an existential test to human nature. “Carbon dioxide stands as a symbol now of our willingness to confront the future,” he said. “It will be a sad day when we decide that we just don’t have the time or thoughtfulness to address those issues.” That night, the news programs featured the resolution of the baseball strike, the ongoing budgetary debate and the national surplus of butter.

Why this matters. 

If you know you’re history…

What happened next?

Reagan

Categories
Technophilia United States of America

 July 18, 1979 – US Senators ask for synthetic fuel implications for greenhouse warming. Told.

On this day, July 18, in 1979, Senator Abraham Ribicoff asked for some advice about “synfuels.”

The context was, the Carter Administration, desperate to reduce US dependency on problematic Middle Eastern Oil (not the dictatorships – that’s fine – it’s the interruptions to supply that’s the problem) was proposing an expensive crash program to develop synthetic fuels (synfuels).  These would be incredibly energy intensive to produce… Not everyone was convinced this was a good idea…

“In 1979  [Gordon] MacDonald wrote an article for the Washington Post arguing that subsidizing synthetic fuels, as proposed by the Carter administration, would be a mistake. He pointed out that synthetic fuels would produce even more CO2 than the current U.S. mix of fossil fuels. The article drew the attention of U.S. Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D-CT), who had recently been warned about the issue by West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt” (Nierenberg et al. 2010: 324)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/07/11/synthetic-fuels-danger-to-climate-scientists-say/bdbb20d2-a374-4b1c-bc82-10fb0feaf512/

MacDonald is quoted as saying

“Although many complex factors affect the climate, it is generally thought that the result of continued carbon dioxide production will be a warming of the atmosphere “that will probably be conspicuous within the next 20 years,” the report said. “If the trend is allowed to continue, climatic zones will shift and agriculture will be displaced.”

Gordon J. MacDonald, environmental studies professor ad Dartmouth College, who is one of the authors said in an interview that large-scale use of synthetic fuels — made from coal or oil shale — could cut the time involved by half.

“We should start seeing the effect in 1990 without synthetic fuels. . . . but if you use them, the effect would be much more pronounced by 1990,” he said.

[See also New York Times, also 11 July 1979]

Actually, unless I am missing something, Nierenberg et al. have got this wrong – and they don’t actually cite the “article in the Washington Post,” which is pretty poor form.

What Ribicoff appears to be responding to are articles in the Post and the Times about an actual report. This was to the Council on Environmental Quality. And it isn’t just Macdonald – “ the other authors of the report were George M. Woodwell, director of the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory; Roger Revelle, a member of the National Academy of Sciences; and Charles David Keeling, professor of Oceanography of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography” (Shabecoff, 1979).

ANYWAY, that was the 11th, and this blog post is about the 18th.  And here we are – 

“One incident provides a small example of the work that the Academy does outside the formal structure of reports and out of public view. On July 18, 1979, even as the Charney panel was gathering at Woods Hole, the Academy’s president, Philip Handler, got a call from Senator Abraham Ribicoff. The Senator was cosponsoring a bill on synfuels, and he wanted to know the implications of greenhouse warming. Handler went to the National Research Council’s Climate Research Board, and the very next day, it produced a statement on carbon dioxide and energy policy. The statement confirmed that global warming could be a problem. The statement told Senator Ribicoff that the massive expenditures required to create a national synthetic fuels capability should not commit the nation to large-scale dependence on coal for the indefinite future. This is the first time that an Academy group issued a specific policy recommendation, ambiguous although it may be, related to global warming. Olson 2014 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077050/

Why this matters. 

We. Knew. Never forget, we knew.

What happened next?

Synfuels got killed off by Reagan, along with a lot of good stuff. And we had to wait until 1988 to wake up. A decade lost (but then, we would have pissed it against the wall, I guess).

References:

Nierenberg, N. Tshinkel, W. and Tshinkel, V. (2010)  Early Climate Change Consensus at the National Academy: The Origins and Making of Changing Climate. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, Vol. 40, Number 3, pps. 318–349. [online here]

Olson, S. (2014) The National Academy of Sciences at 150. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jun 24; 111(Suppl 2): 9327–9364.
Published online 2014 Jun 23. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1406109111
Omang, J. (1979) Synthetic Fuels Danger To Climate, Scientists Say. Washington Post, 11 July.[online here]

Shabecoff, P. (1979) Scientists Warn U.S. Of Carbon Dioxide Peril. New York Times, 11 July