They’ve been telling us for quite a while.
Below, my video from years ago reviewing a straight-to-vinyl audio episode of General Electric’s “Excursions in Science”, precursor to modern podcasts. That episode reviewed Gilbert Plass’s research on “The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change”.
The science moved on.
What really lit a fire under me on climate was when James Hansen testified to the US Senate on June 23, 1988 (my birthday), that climate warming had been detected, and was affecting the planet already at that time.
I did a video for Yale Climate Connections on the 30th anniversary of the testimony in 2018. Inexplicably, Yale has made that entire series inaccessible, so I will be gradually re-uploading here.
What’s impressive is the degree to which Hansen’s crude by current standards model has held up. I spoke to a modern who’s who of climate experts.
Naomi Oreskes did a deep dive into the 1960s-era Congressional discussions surrounding the creation of the Clean Air Act. What she found was that, yes, they DID know that CO2 was a ‘pollutant’ that was warming the planet. Oreskes: “So if anyone tries to claim that there’s no way Congress could have intended this statute to apply to carbon dioxide, it’s just wrong and we’ve now shown that it’s wrong.”
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/04/the-drafters-of-the-clean-air-act-saw-co2-as-a-pollutant/
Yeah – and LBJ got a warning in 1965 about impacts from CO2 and also the resulting warming.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/document/31937-document-2-white-house-report-restoring-quality-our-environment-report-environmental
And I’ve pointed out to people in the past who object to climate science as “liberal” – Gilbert Plass’ 1955 paper was based on research conducted with funding from the Pentagon in the midst of the Cold War – they needed better understanding of the infrared absorption and re-emissions from atmospheric greenhouse gases in order to make infrared guidance systems more accurate. Plass contributed a chapter to the 1964 McGraw-Hill “Infrared Physics and Engineering” text book I got from my uncle, who was an engineer in the aerospace industry. Sidewinder missiles are generally not regarded as operating on ‘woke, liberal’ principles, but they embody understanding of the greenhouse effect.
Trump II EPA: “La-la-la-la…I can’t hear you!”
Again, heard about it in primary school circa 1956. A NY Times piece, around that time, about CO2 causing global warming was (?) the genesis.
Hidden in the fine print this year:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/04/22/climate/noaa-co2-record
As horrible as Trump’s positions on fossil fuel and climate change, I think worse damage was done by Bush 2, letting his oil and gas cronies decide a lot of policy, and editing the current federal government reports on global warming.