Fifty five years ago, on this day, January 28, 1969.
“Oil from an offshore rig had covered the Santa Barbara beaches, trapping and killing the shore birds. College students and other young people had been enlisted to try to save the birds, by hand, one at a time. So night after night, television carried pictures of crying young people with dying birds in their arms. The networks picked this up… and across the continent environmental pollution came to be viewed as a highly personal, deeply involving part of people’s lives. The television viewers identified with the young volunteers and felt their pain.” (Sachsman, 2000)
1969 Blow out leading to Santa Barbara Oil Spill http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Santa_Barbara_oil_spill
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that offshore oil drilling had been underway off the Santa Barbara coast for a number of years. There had been rising concerns about environmental pollution starting first in the cities and the air quality but also a river had caught fire or was to later in the same year, but it really caught fire before and generally a sense of fear about the consequences of industry.
What we learn – the Santa Barbara oil spill happening in a rich place managed to act as a kind of lightning rod for all of this stuff. It’s really the starting pistol for a lot. And it jolts people into awareness of the costs attached. The fact that it happened to rich people who were powerless to overcome the bureaucracy is kind of entertaining. So there’s some rather useful chapters in Wholly Round. There’s also “GOO” “get oil out”, which is akin to “Just Stop Oil.” And a sense that things were going tits up.
What happened next? There’s a three year flurry of concern. Earth Day happens in April of 1970. And then it kind of peters out by ‘72, after the Stockholm conference. You start to get other issues impinging especially stagflation economic crisis, the oil shock, etc.
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
SEE ALSO HARVEY MOLOTCH 1970 AND Raina Galaitas “Wholly Round” book
And Gordon MacDonald about The Environment
Also on this day:
January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK
January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick