A Voice for Our Earth: The President of the United States (in 1965)

“This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through . . . a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.”

-President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, in a Special Message to the U.S. Congress, February 8, 1965.

President Johnson was concerned about the dangers of CO2 emissions, enough to address Congress about it, having been briefed by two scientists, Charles Keeling and Roger Revelle. If you’ve followed my Brief History of Climate Science, you’ll recognize their names from Episodes 3 and 4. This is what Charles Keeling’s curve of his direct measurements of global atmospheric CO2 concentration looked like back then:

Keeling 1965

It was a subtle rise, but I have no doubt Keeling and Revelle explained to the President that it was statistically significant, consistent with calculated fossil fuel usage, and linked to measured increases in global temperature that had long been theoretically predicted to result from such CO2 increases. Apparently, President Johnson was convinced.

As a result of Johnson and other presidents believing scientists — both Republicans and Democrats — we have done a lot of constructive things over the past 5 decades. We’ve conducted research and development to create more sustainable ways of harvesting the sun’s energy. These sustainable methods are now developed to the point of economical viability. We (the United States) have led the world in inadvertently causing this challenge, recognizing this challenge, and moving to develop superior technologies to address this challenge.

Now, the evidence looks like this:

Keeling 2018
Keeling Curve,” a plot of weekly atmospheric CO2 measurements made by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at Mauna Loa, Hawaii from 1958 to present. The curve was plotted by me using Scripps weekly data from the Mauna Loa observatory, downloaded here.

We also know it’s even worse, because data from ice cores shows the CO2 increases were already well underway before Keeling started his direct measurements. And the matching temperature record looks like this:

Temp Anom 2017
All data publicly available, downloaded and plotted by me. Green and blue circles: atmospheric CO2 concentration from Law Dome ice cores (green) and direct atmospheric sampling (blue) from Scripps (see figure captions in Episode 5 for detailed references). Orange line: Temperature anomaly, 1880-2017, according to U.S. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (public datareference). Pink line: Temperature anomaly, 1880-2017, according to U.S. NOAA National Climatic Data Center (public datareference). Red line: Temperature anomaly, 1850-2017, according to U.K. Hadley Centre/Climate Research Unit (public datareference). Purple line: Temperature anomaly, 1891-2017, according to Japan Meteorological Agency (public datareference). All temperature anomalies re-scaled by me to be relative to a common reference baseline of the 1891-2010 average temperature.

And our 2018 President says global climate change is a hoax, and has pulled us from the Paris climate agreement, in which we should be playing a leading role. And, somehow, roughly half of our Congress and half of us agree. Even though the effects are readily observable and figuring significantly in many of our lives.

The President in 1965, on this issue, was speaking from a position of knowledge, responsibility, and strength.

The President in 2018, on this issue, is speaking from a position of willful ignorance, amorality, and provincial weakness.

We must find ourselves again. Our children, and their children, depend on it.

Consider Again That Dot
Video credit: GoBlue. Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot.

#rescuethatfrog

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