I don’t know why I do this to myself. It’s a kind of masochism.
About the time Exxon researchers were warning their top executives and board members of the potential for “catastrophic” warming from global carbon emissions, CBS News, with a very young Dan Rather at the helm, broadcast this notice of emerging scientific concerns.
Aired 40 years ago, March 25, 1982.
At the time, the New York Times and other media had been reporting on NASA’s research in the area, lead by James Hansen, including
Notably, there is an appearance of Nobel prize winning chemist, Melvin Calvin, warning that “the trend is all in the direction of an impending catastrophe.”
HT to X account “All Our Yesterdays”.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that climate change was becoming a real cause of concern among scientists and a very small band of civil servants and elected politicians who were in close touch with these scientists. There had already been hearings in 1980, led by Senator Paul Tsongas, who was communicating with scientists like Wally Broecker. And here was another set of hearings, this time within Congress, with Al Gore in the mix too. It’s also happening just after the AAAS meeting in Washington, DC, with James Hansen and Herman Flohn expressing real concerns. It’s happening just as the Reagan administration, believe it or not, has got the “carbon dioxide science and consensus” meeting going. So the timing is good.
What we learn is that within the policy subsystems, people are building meetings, reports, seminars, networks, fighting to edge the issue closer and closer to being “on the agenda.” You can say what you like about Al Gore – I’m sure much of it is true. But he has persisted. It’d be interesting to know what Roger Revelle thought of Gore’s efforts in the 80s.
Nathaniel Rich in New York Times magazine:
Hansen flew to Washington to testify on March 25, 1982, performing before a gallery even more thinly populated than at Gore’s first hearing on the greenhouse effect. Gore began by attacking the Reagan administration for cutting funding for carbon-dioxide research despite the “broad consensus in the scientific community that the greenhouse effect is a reality.” William Carney, a Republican from New York, bemoaned the burning of fossil fuels and argued passionately that science should serve as the basis for legislative policy. Bob Shamansky, a Democrat from Ohio, objected to the use of the term “greenhouse effect” for such a horrifying phenomenon, because he had always enjoyed visiting greenhouses. “Everything,” he said, “seems to flourish in there.” He suggested that they call it the “microwave oven” effect, “because we are not flourishing too well under this; apparently, we are getting cooked.”
There emerged, despite the general comity, a partisan divide. Unlike the Democrats, the Republicans demanded action. “Today I have a sense of déjà vu,” said Robert Walker, a Republican from Pennsylvania. In each of the last five years, he said, “we have been told and told and told that there is a problem with the increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We all accept that fact, and we realize that the potential consequences are certainly major in their impact on mankind.” Yet they had failed to propose a single law. “Now is the time,” he said. “The research is clear. It is up to us now to summon the political will.”
Gore disagreed: A higher degree of certainty was required, he believed, in order to persuade a majority of Congress to restrict the use of fossil fuels. The reforms required were of such magnitude and sweep that they “would challenge the political will of our civilization.”
Yet the experts invited by Gore agreed with the Republicans: The science was certain enough. Melvin Calvin, a Berkeley chemist who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the carbon cycle, said that it was useless to wait for stronger evidence of warming. “You cannot do a thing about it when the signals are so big that they come out of the noise,” he said. “You have to look for early warning signs.”
An earlier hearing in 1980 on the issue was chaired by the late Senator Paul Tsongas, also reported by CBS, April 3, 1980.
Thanks, Peter. I don’t remember these broadcasts but I do know they had the effect in me of knowing this was the trajectory we were on and, in my more innocent younger years, I couldn’t understand why everyone wasn’t taking this seriously. I still can’t.
1982ish I was in the “news shadow” of holding my first job after graduation in an economy that was running at ~10% inflation. We were also in the Cold War with the Soviet Union with a perpetual question mark about global thermonuclear war.