Forty seven years ago, on this day, July 21st, 1977, days before the “Energy and Climate” report was released, the Washington Post ran a story…
July 21, 1977, staff writer Paul Valentine wrote a page-one story for the Washington Post headlined “100-Year Trend: Warmer; Confirming What You Feel: Our Summers are Getting Warmer.”
(Sachsman, 2000: 3)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the National Academy of Sciences was about to release its Energy and Climate report. Two years in the making, it meant that all things climate-related were newsworthy. The weather had been playing silly buggers for the last few years, crop failures, heat waves in the UK.
What we learn is that if you’re reading a serious newspaper in 1977 you were aware of the climate issue. Yes, there were still people telling you it was wrong. If you understood 19th century physics though…
What happened next The Energy and Climate report was released a couple of days later. “Warning traffic lights at yellow” said scientist Thomas Malone. And then there was the push for the First World Climate Conference, which happened in Geneva in February of ‘79. We knew enough by then to start shitting ourselves. But we didn’t take action. And so now all we can do is shut ourselves because the emissions keep 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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 347ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that nine months earlier, WMO, UNEP and ICSU had organised and held ascientific meeting in the Austrian city of Villach at which scientists had come together, done the maths, shed some illusions, and realised that the shit was about to hit the fan, and if that the human species wanted a nice 21st century it needed to get its shit together. And scientists had started to alert politicians, some of whom are already of course well sensitised. Looking at you, Al Gore. Carl Sagan had given testimony to a Senate committee in December 1985. Drums were continuing to be beat. Articles were written. And I don’t know if anyone specifically briefed the Washington Post journo, but that’s the context.
What we learn is that I think even Joe Biden was in on the act talking about carbon protection or climate protection. 1988 was the icing on the cake of this issue that had been building in the problem stream for quite some time. Until politics stream and policy stream came together thanks to a series of focusing events such as the drought testimony the changing atmosphere conference, which was in essence another fruit of the Villach meeting.
It’s interesting to look at that three years from Villach to Toronto, institutionally who was doing what why how? Okay.
What happened next? The issue kept building in ‘87 and ‘88 until even George Bush and Margaret Thatcher had to talk about it. And then we all magically solved the problem. Oh yes.
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.
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
Fifty four years ago, on this day, January 11th, 1970, The Washington Post ran a story extrapolating from the previous decades and… well,
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 nobody was quite sure what the implications of industrialization might be. Yes, carbon dioxide would build up. But also dust and sulphur. And they had been reducing temperatures globally, or at least in the northern hemisphere for good 20 years. What if that process were to continue? Would it be possible to tip the incredibly complex, but possibly fragile and labile atmospheric system into a new ice age? We can look back now with hollow/grim laughter, but in 1969 1970, it wasn’t quite so clear cut.
What we can learn from this is that people were having these debates and the Washington Post and others were covering them.
What happened next? Well, although the Ice Age schtick continued for a few years, by the late 70s, it was pretty clear to everyone with the possible exception of Robert Jastrow that we were heading for warmer times (see here, in 1978).
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.
Sixty five years ago, on this day, June 21, 1958, the Washington Post (not then the paper it is now) reported on carbon dioxide build-up.
21 June 1958 – IGY findings – Price, B. (1958) World Seen Turning Into a ‘Greenhouse’. Washington Post and Times Herald ; Jun 21, pg. A1
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
That, even without Charles David Keeling measurements, it was clear that atmospheric CO2 was building up and would eventually cause the planet to overheat. This was thanks to the International Geophysical Year which was by this stage almost 12 months old. The previous December the Washington Post and run a front page story based on Edward Teller’s warning of a long-term climate apocalypse.
What I think we can learn from this
We can learn that there really wasn’t any secret about this in Washington or presumably London, it was just in the too hard and too far away basket
What happened next
The measurements started. The scientists continued to point out that there would be trouble ahead, especially people like Herman Flohn and David Keeling. But it would be 1988 before politicians were forced to take note.
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.
On this day, December 26 in 1997, the doubt and denial machine that was sharpening its talons and running tests on its deadly bullshit spreaders on December 25, 1989 had won a famous victory at Kyoto, lowering ambition, diverting policymaker attention into easily-scammed “emissions trading” and so on. This was no secret – the mainstream press were perfectly willing to publish articles that laid it out bare.
“With their protestations of dire economic catastrophe as a result of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, U.S. manufacturers are crying wolf for the second time. The first time was a decade ago in response to the Montreal Protocol, which required a 50 percent cut by 1998 in emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which deplete the earth’s protective ozone layer.”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 364ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Between 1989 and 1997, “our” fate was sealed – the final nail in the coffin. We’d ignored scientists warnings about carbon dioxide build-up from the 1950s until 1988 (there really was enough evidence by the late 1970s, as this site has tried to flag). From 1989 to 1992 the US – formal administration and informal government (the corporates) did all it could to stop a climate treaty from happening. Once they lost that battle they switched to making sure the treaty was toothless. In this they succeeded. At the first COP, in Berlin, in 1995, the rest of the world had tried to get some teeth, even if only molars, not incisors, back in the mouth. This was the “Berlin Mandate” which said rich countries should come to Kyoto (the third meeting, in late 1997) with a text to reduce their own emissions. Uncle Sam said nope, and again, “lost” but really won.
And here we are.
Why this matters.
It is not just bad luck that we are where we are. When something could have been done, it wasn’t, because a significant portion of the rich and powerful didn’t want it to, others who could have stopped them within the elites were quiescent and the social movements were outgunned.
What happened next?
The US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol (Australia only did in 2007). The COP circus has staggered on. So it goes…
On this day, August 12, 1970 a US Senator (Democratic, Texas) had a newspaper article about environment – and climate change – read into the Senate Record. This came a few days after Nixon was warned about climate change.
Richard Yarborough (interesting life – see here) had the late-July article in the Washington Post by Claire Sterling read into the Senate Record.
On this day the PPM was 324.69. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
We knew. People who were elected to, paid to, make decisions, were warned of potential trouble from the late 60s/early 70s. By the late 70s it was obvious enough that there was a problem, and something needed doing. Nothing was done.
On this day, July 28 1970 “[Journalist Claire] Sterling began an article in the Washington Post with an air of crisis, reporting breathlessly prior to the Stockholm meeting:
“Scientists still aren’t sure how much carbon dioxide we can inject into the atmosphere before heating it up enough to melt the polar icecaps, how much smog can cut off the sun’s rays without bringing a new Ice Age upon us, how many germs per cubic centimetre of water we can swallow and live, how much better or worse off the human race would actually be for using or banning DDT.”
Sterling, C. 1970. The UN and World Pollution, Washington Post, Times Herald, 28 July
.
I found this quote on page 200 of a rather excellent book called “Arming Mother Nature: The Birth of Catastrophic Environmentalism” by Jacob Darwin Hamblin
Why this matters.
Yes. 1970.
What happened next?
The 1972 Stockholm Conference did less than it might have for climate science, but the scientists kept going.
Sterling wrote a totally beserk book called “The Real Terror Network”, which influenced the senile Ronald Reagan and the professional paranoids around him –
As per Wikipedia
“The book was read and appreciated by Alexander Haig and William Casey, but its arguments were dismissed by the CIA’s Soviet analysts; Lincoln Gordon, one of three members of a senior review panel at the CIA charged, at Casey’s request, with bringing non-intelligence professional and academic review to the agency, discovered comparing CIA intelligence reports and the book that at least some of Sterling’s claims had come from stories that the CIA itself had planted in the Italian press.”
On this day 32 years ago, in the middle of the first big public and legislative wave around the issue, the Washington Post carried a report about what we now call “geo-engineering.”
IRONING OUT ‘GREENHOUSE EFFECT’ By William Booth Washington Post May 20, 1990 Scientists trying to battle the “greenhouse effect” have seriously proposed dumping hundreds of thousands of tons of iron into the ocean to create giant blooms of marine algae that could soak up much of the excess carbon dioxide believed to be responsible for global warming. If the massive scheme is carried out, researchers say, it would be among the greatest manipulations of nature ever attempted.
This image below, from a Guardian newspaper article from 2013, sums up the mechanism by which is is supposed to work..
Why this matters
Geo-engineering is still on the table – space mirrors, sulfur cannons, you name it. And we will do it because rich people will figure “hell, why not, nothing left to lose.”
What happened next
Big geo-engineering “solutions” kinda disappeared into their own niche, to get occasional media coverage (see here). They are slowly climbing into policymaker awareness. Expect some big publicity campaigns and action in the coming decade, when it is clear that everything else – ETS, BECCS etc, have failed…
On this day, 18th February 1978. readers of The Washington Post would have learned, via an article by a journalist called Thomas O’Toole titled “Climate Experts See a Warming Trend,” that the burning of coal and oil was causing so much carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere that by the year 2000, temperatures might begin to rise.
O’Toole was reporting
“… the opinions of 24 climate experts in seven countries polled by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects which yesterday released the poll’s results in a 100-page report published by the National Defense University.”
We need to remember that in the late 1970s the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a problem and as one that was going to get worse and cause serious difficulty had moved from the academic journals and the scientific periodicals to the quality press such as the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Canberra Times. If you go looking for these, you can find them. They usually come out of various National Academy of Science reports too. We knew. We really did.
Why this matters?
What it says is that we’ve had almost 50 years to sort this out and, pace Donald Trump,, this problem was not invented by Al Gore, or by the Chinese as a hoax.
What happened next?
Well in this specific case, Carter’s Science Advisor asked some top scientists to look into the problem. This is the so-called Charney report, which said in 1979, we find no reason to believe this warming won’t happen. You can read more about it in Nathaniel Rich, and to some extent in Alice Bell’s “Our Biggest Experiment”
