Tag: Time Magazine

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, January 27th, 1967,

After the usual litany of localised issues, it ends with this remarkable set of paragraphs. 

Other scientists are concerned about the tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide released into the air by the burning of “fossil fuels” like coal and oil. Because it is being produced faster than it can be absorbed by the ocean or converted back into carbon and oxygen by plants, some scientists think that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 10% since the turn of the century. The gas produces a “greenhouse” effect in the atmosphere; it allows sunlight to penetrate it, but effectively blocks the heat generated on earth by the sun’s rays from escaping back into space.

No Apocalypse. 

There has already been a noticeable effect on earth—a gradual warming trend. As the carbon-dioxide buildup continues and even accelerates, scientists fear that average temperatures may, in the course of decades, rise enough to melt the polar ice caps. Since this would raise ocean levels more than 100 feet, it would effectively drown the smog problems of the world’s coastal cities.

The waters, however, need never rise. Within his grasp, man has the means to prevent any such apocalyptic end. Over the short run, fuels can be used that produce far less pollutant as they burn. Chimneys can be filtered so that particulate smoke is reduced. Automobile engines and anti-exhaust devices can be made far more efficient. What is needed is recognition of the danger by the individual citizen and his government, the establishment of sound standards, and the drafting of impartial rules to govern the producers of pollution. Over the long run, the development of such relatively nonpolluting power sources as nuclear energy and electric fuel cells can help guarantee mankind the right to breathe.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Time had first covered the possible problem of C02 build-up in 1953, in response to Gilbert Plass’s statements at the AGU meeting. The more immediate context was that questions of pollution, air, water, noise had been exercising American journalists and writers for several years. There’s the wonderful song Pollution by Tom Lehrer two years earlier. 

And the crucial context, perhaps, is not so much Lyndon Johnson’s message to Congress in February 1965 but Philip Abelson’s editorial in Science two weeks before Time published this 

What I think we can learn from this is that if you were reading either Science or Time magazine or both back then, the idea of carbon dioxide build up as a problem was there at the beginning of 1967 which is 58 years ago. This was not arcane. This was not bizarre. This was 1967. Alongside this, you also had, of course the book Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner, that had come out the previous year. 

What happened next

Time and Newsweek kept doing the sort of hand wringing, “What have we done?” reports As did US News and World Report. And then, really, by late 1969 the environment “took off” as an issue.

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: 

January 27, 1967 – James Lovelock told to keep schtum about climate change by Shell science boss

January 27, 1989 – UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27, 1986 – Engineers try to stop NASA launching the (doomed) Challenger Space Shuttle

Seventy-four years ago, on this day, May 15th, 1950, Time Magazine ran an article about, well, the world getting warmer. It begins as follows

Is the U.S. climate getting warmer? U.S. meteorologists, observing and charting the weather with growing exactitude over the past 20 years, are no closer to agreement on the question than their predecessors of a century ago. Last week a Washington convention of the American Meteorological Society heard strong evidence to favor the warmup theory.

“Getting Warmer?” Time Magazine (15 May 1950). 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 311ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is that it’s the postwar world. There’s always atom bombs going off. People are thinking it might heat things up/upset natural balances/humans now acting as Gods etc. Importantly, though, carbon dioxide is not mentioned in the story because it’s really 1953 that Gilbert Plass gives it plausibility or credibility. However, it should be noted that in 1948, the attendees of a seminar at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference heard from G. Evelyn Hutchinson that yes, there was more CO2 in the atmosphere. 

What we learned is that warming was acknowledged pretty early.

What happened next Three years later, Gilbert Plass named names (carbon dioxide).

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 15, 2006 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard spouting “nuclear to fix climate” nonsense

May 15, 2010 – another pointless overnight vigil.

Fifty five years ago, on this day, May 10th, 1968 Time magazine published an article on “The Age of Effluence.” It began thus –

WHAT ever happened to America the Beautiful? While quite a bit of it is still visible, the recurring question reflects rising and spreading frustration over the nation’s increasingly dirty air, filthy streets and malodorous rivers—the relentless degradations of a once virgin continent. This man-made pollution is bad enough in itself, but it reflects something even worse: a dangerous illusion that technological man can build bigger and bigger industrial societies with little regard for the iron laws of nature….

Under the sub-heading “The Systems Approach”

It seems undeniable that some disaster may be lurking in all this, but laymen hardly know which scientist to believe. As a result of fossil-fuel burning, for example, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen about 14% since 1860. According to Ecologist Lamont C. Cole, man is thus reducing the rate of oxygen regeneration, and Cole envisions a crisis in which the amount of oxygen on earth might disastrously decline. Other scientists fret that rising carbon dioxide will prevent heat from escaping into space. They foresee a hotter earth that could melt the polar icecaps, raise oceans as much as 400 ft., and drown many cities. Still other scientists forecast a colder earth (the recent trend) because man is blocking sunlight with ever more dust, smog and jet contrails. The cold promises more rain and hail, even a possible cut in world food. Whatever the theories may be, it is an established fact that three poisons now flood the landscapes: smog, pesticides, nuclear fallout.

There’s this too…

Man has tended to ignore the fact that he is utterly dependent on the biosphere: a vast web of interacting processes and organisms that form the rhythmic cycles and food chains in which one part of the living environment feeds on another. The biosphere is no immutable feature of the earth. Roughly 400 million years ago, terrestrial life consisted of some primitive organisms that consumed oxygen as fast as green plants manufactured it. Only by some primeval accident were the greedy organisms buried in sedimentary rock (as the source of crude oil, for example), thus permitting the atmosphere to become enriched to a life-sustaining mix of 20% oxygen, plus nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and water vapor. With miraculous precision, the mix was then maintained by plants, animals and bacteria, which used and returned the gases at equal rates. About 70% of the earth’s oxygen is thus produced by ocean phytoplankton: passively floating plants. All this modulated temperatures, curbed floods and nurtured man a mere 1,000,000 or so years ago.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was worrying about air pollution, especially smog in cities, and water pollution and noise and so forth. And Time Magazine, as was its want ran articles like the age of effluence, which has a glancing mention of CO2 buildup, which had really come to some I wouldn’t call it prominence, then at least awareness in 1965 with Lyndon Johnson’s special message to Congress.

Since then, it had been popping up here and there, especially in science publications, but also, Roger Revelle had mentioned it in the Saturday Evening Post. Barry Commoner mentioned it in his 1966 book Science and Survival.

What we learn is that we learned nothing, to go full Hegel. 

What happened next? The following year, the environment broke through in part because of the Santa Barbara oil spill as a focusing event. The time was right. The end of ‘69, you know, there was an Earth Day coming, lots of people talking about all these issues, and one of them was CO2 buildup. 

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 10, 1978 – Women told that by 2000 “we will be frantically searching for alternatives to coal.”

May 10, 1997 – Murdoch rag in denialist shocker