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Seventies

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">this is a node, see 1970's tag</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">tisch maine&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1970</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">President Richard Nixon establishes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 takes effect.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Richard Nixon’s Special Message to Congress in establishing the U.S. Environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Protection Agency (EPA) opens by noting that “[a]s concern with the condition of our physical</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environment has intensified, it has become increasingly clear that we need to know more about</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the total environment--land, water, and air. It also has become increasingly clear that only by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reorganizing our Federal efforts can we develop that knowledge, and effectively ensure the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">protection, development and enhancement of the total environment itself.” The President</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposes a “far more effective approach to pollution control [which] would: Identify pollutants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trace them through the entire ecological chain, observing and recording changes in form as they</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">occur. Determine the total exposure of man and his environment. Examine interactions among</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forms of pollution. Identify where in the ecological chain interdiction would be most</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">appropriate.” “In organizational terms,” the President concludes, “this requires pulling together</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">into one agency a variety of research, monitoring, standard-setting and enforcement activities</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">now scattered through several departments and agencies. It also requires that the new agency</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">include sufficient support elements--in research and in aids to State and local anti-pollution</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">programs, for example--to give it the needed strength and potential for carrying out its mission.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Coincident with the establishment of the EPA, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mandates, for the first time, that federal agencies “include in every recommendation or report on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on… the environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">impact of the proposed action…”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> President Richard Nixon, “Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1970” (Speech, Washington, D.C., July 9, 1970), EPA Web Archive,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/reorganization-plan-no-3-1970.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, Sec. 102, 42 USC 4332,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.fws.gov/r9esnepa/RelatedLegislativeAuthorities/nepa1969.PDF</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1970</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Congress enacts the Clean Air Act,</b> in a near-unanimous endorsement of strong</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environmental protections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a remarkable show of bipartisanship, the Senate vote for the Clean Air Act is unanimous, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House vote 374 to 1. The New York Times describes the legislation as “far broader in its reach,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">far tougher in its deadlines and penalties, than any of its three predecessors.”* The principal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">architect of this law is Maine’s Senator Edmund Muskie, a Democrat, chair of the Senate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Subcommittee on the Environment; he partners with Tennessee Senator James Baker, a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Republican, to develop and promote the legislation. The law gives broad powers to the new</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set national “ambient air quality standards,” for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">specific pollutants, and charges the states with writing “implementation plans” to achieve those</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">standards. It provides for regulation of both “mobile sources” – cars, trucks, aircraft – and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“stationary sources” – factories, refineries, power plants. Greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">methane are not among the “criteria pollutants” listed in the law for immediate regulatory</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">attention, but the law provides for periodic reassessment of and additions to the list of regulated</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">pollutants. If the EPA determines that new pollutants “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare," it must regulate them. The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">law’s definition of effects on “welfare” “includes, but is not limited to, effects on soils, water,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">crops, vegetation, manmade materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room, President Richard Nixon observes, "I would</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">only hope that as we go now from the year of the beginning, the year of proposing, the year 1970,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to the year of action, 1971, that all of us, Democrats, Republicans, the House, the Senate, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">executive branch, that all of us can look back upon this year as that time when we began to make</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a movement toward a goal that we all want, a goal that Theodore Roosevelt deeply believed in&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and a goal that he lived in his whole life. He loved the environment. He loved the clean air and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the open spaces, and he loved the western part of the United States particularly, which will be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">greatly affected by this kind of action."* The American Chemical Society Journal comments:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The new year 1971, the second in the seventies – the environmental decade – came in with a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new air pollution control law. Without question, the new law is tough. It is also</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">complicated…With more deadlines per square inch than any other piece of legislation, [it] is the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">best blueprint for clean air the nation has ever had.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">E.W. Kenworthy, “Tough New Clean-Air Bill Passed by Senate, 73-0,” New York Times, September 23, 1970,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/23/archives/tough-new-cleanair-bill-passed-by-senate-73-to-0-a-tough-cleanair.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clean Air Act of 1970, Pub. L. 91-604, 84 Stat 1676, December 31, 1970, 42 U.S.C.7401 et seq., 7409, 7521(a)(1), 7602(h),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-84/pdf/STATUTE-84-Pg1676.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Richard Nixon, “Remarks on Signing the Clean Air Amendments of 1970,” December 31, 1970, Cited in; “40th</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Anniversary of the Clean Air Act,” United States Environmental Protection Agency, last updated November 1, 2017,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/40th-anniversary-clean-air-act</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American Chemical Society Journal, Environmental Science & Technology 5, no. 2 (1971): 106</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1971</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Development of supersonic transport</b> raises concerns about impacts on climate, and the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate Impact Assessment Program is created under the Department of Transportation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Described as the “the first major project in integrated assessment of an environmental issue,” the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mission statement of the Climate Impact Assessment Program (CIAP) states that "in order to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">determine regulatory constraints on flight in the stratosphere such that no adverse environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">effects result, CIAP will assess ... the impact on man, plants, and animals of climatic changes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which may occur from the operation of a worldwide stratospheric fleet as projected to 1990." The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">project has a $20 million budget and a three year deadline, and involves hundreds of researchers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The impact on climate is part of their charge, but concerns focused on the effect of supersonic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">transport on depletion of the ozone layer. The final report of the project clearly endorses</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">international regulation of supersonic transport, but refrains from specific recommendations on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the form of regulation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Thematic Guide to Integrated Assessment Modeling,” NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, last updated 1995,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/mva/iamcc.tg/TGsec2-1.html; Karen Fisher-Vanden, “International Policy Instrument Prominence in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the Climate Change Debate: A Case Study of the United States,” ENRP Discussion Paper E-97-06, Kennedy School of Government,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harvard University, August 1997, 2, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/51e2/55ee1e32368df19d41ab1ac5d34a04e7a6e5.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1972</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment is the first global meeting of</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>nations to consider environmental concerns.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conference, held in Stockholm, is attended by 113 nations. The Conference Declaration opens</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">with the finding that “The protection and improvement of the human environment is a major issue</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which affects the well-being of peoples and economic development throughout the world; it is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the urgent desire of the peoples of the whole world and the duty of all Governments….In our&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">time, man's capability to transform his surroundings, if used wisely, can bring to all peoples the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">benefits of development and the opportunity to enhance the quality of life. Wrongly or heedlessly</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">applied, the same power can do incalculable harm to human beings and the human environment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We see around us growing evidence of man-made harm in many regions of the earth: dangerous</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">levels of pollution in water, air, earth and living beings; major and undesirable disturbances to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the ecological balance of the biosphere; destruction and depletion of irreplaceable resources; and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">gross deficiencies, harmful to the physical, mental and social health of man, in the man-made</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">environment, particularly in the living and working environment.” Participant nations agree to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">26 general principles, including Principle 6: “The discharge of toxic substances or of other</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">substances and the release of heat, in such quantities or concentrations as to exceed the capacity</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of the environment to render them harmless, must be halted in order to ensure that serious or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">irreversible damage is not inflicted upon ecosystems,” and Principle 12: “Resources should be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">made available to preserve and improve the environment, taking into account the circumstances</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and particular requirements of developing countries and any costs which may emanate from their</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">incorporating environmental safeguards into their development planning and the need for making</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">available to them, upon their request, additional international technical and financial assistance</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">for this purpose.” The very first recommendation under the Conference’s “Action Plan,” under</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Identification and Control of Pollutants of Broad International Significance,” is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recommendation 70, targeting climate change: “It is recommended that Governments be mindful</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">of activities in which there is an appreciable risk of effects on climate, and to this end: (a)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Carefully evaluate the likelihood and magnitude of climatic effects and disseminate their findings</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to the maximum extent feasible before embarking on such activities; (b) Consult fully other</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">interested States when activities carrying a risk of such effects are being contemplated or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">implemented.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United Nations, Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, (Stockholm: United Nations, 5-16 June, 1972),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1, http://www.un-documents.net/aconf48-14r1.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1972</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The report Limits to Growth </b>predicts that if current growth trends continue unchanged, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">limits to growth on the planet will be reached within the next 100 years</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Club of Rome report Limits to Growth, making unprecedented use of computer modeling,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">summarizes its findings as follows: “1. If the present growth trends in world population,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next one hundred years. The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">industrial capacity. 2. It is possible to alter these growth trends and to establish a condition of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ecological and economic stability that is sustainable far into the future. The state of global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">equilibrium could be designed so that the basic material needs of each person on earth are satisfied</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and each person has an equal opportunity to realize his individual human potential. 3. If the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">world’s people decide to strive for this second outcome rather than the first, the sooner they begin&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">working to attain it, the greater will be there chances of success.”* The study is translated into</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thirty languages and sells 30 million copies, more than any other environmental book.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Donella Meadows et al., Limits to Growth (New York: Signet, 1972), 1,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://collections.dartmouth.edu/teitexts/meadows/diplomatic/meadows_ltg-diplomatic.html#pg-17</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill McKibben, Eaarth (New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 90-92.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1975</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the first peer-reviewed reference to “global warming,” Wallace Broecker publishes the</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>paper “Climatic Change: Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Columbia University professor of Geological Sciences Wallace Broecker’s paper concludes:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If man-made dust is unimportant as a major cause of climatic change, then a strong case can be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">made that the present cooling trend will, within a decade or so, give way to a pronounced warming</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">induced by carbon dioxide. By analogy with similar events in the past, the natural climatic cooling</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">which, since 1940, has more than compensated for the carbon dioxide effect, will soon bottom</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">out. Once this happens, the exponential rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide content will tend</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to become a significant factor and by early in the next century will have driven the mean planetary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperature beyond the limits experienced during the last 1000 years.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wallace Broecker, “Climatic Change: Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?”, Science 189, no. 4201 (August 8,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1975): 460-463, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1740491</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1975</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>California nuclear physicist Howard Wilcox predicts melting polar ice caps and flooded</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>populous areas of the earth in 80 to 180 years</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilcox’s theory, detailed in his book Hothouse Earth, focuses on the heat generated by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">combustion of fossil fuels, not the atmospheric impact of greenhouse gases, and is characterized</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by the New York Times as the “most provocative theory to attract attention of weather experts.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilcox’s time frame is far shorter than the centuries or millennia of previous warming estimates.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He anticipates not only the impact of polar melting on sea level rise but other positive feedback</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mechanisms. As summarized in the Times, “a one-degree temperature change would mean that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a greater portion of the ice cap would melt. There would then be less ice to reflect heat back into</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the atmosphere (known as the albedo effect) and more water to absorb the sun's warming rays.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This, in turn, would lead to an accelerating temperature rise for the whole region, causing an ever-</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">faster melting rate, according to the Wilcox theory.” The Times quotes NOAA senior research</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climatologist Murray Mitchell’s comment “that the more immediate danger will come from the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">increasing amounts of carbon dioxide that are thrown off into the atmosphere along with the heat</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">that Dr. Wilcox talks about,” and quotes William Kellogg, senior scientist at the National Center</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">for Atmospheric Research, as offering a comforting perspective: “I don't agree that we will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">continue to have an exponential energy growth rate. I think the world will begin to be aware of&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the problem and start to conserve energy and slow down growth before it gets to the point Dr.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wilcox proposes.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Baynard Webster, “Scientist Warns of Great Floods if Earth's Heat Rises,” New York Times, December 22, 1975,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nytimes.com/1975/12/22/archives/scientist-warns-of-great-floods-if-earths-heat-rises.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1976</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Charles D. Keeling creates the “Keeling Curve,”</b> a simple visualization of the longest</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">continuous record of CO2 concentration in the world</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A paper published by Charles D. Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">coauthors in the journal Tellus, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations at Mauna Loa</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Observatory, Hawaii,” tracks increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide measured at the Mauna</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loa Observatory, finding that “the annual average CO2 concentration rose 3.4% between 1959</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and 1971…Similar changes in rate have been observed at the South Pole and are evidently a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global phenomenon.” The Keeling Curve shows measurements dating back to 1958 at Mauna</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loa and as it later develops incorporates ice core records to show CO2 measurements dating back</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to 1700. As CarbonBrief comments: “With the Mauna Loa measurements continuing today, the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">so-called ‘Keeling curve’ is the longest continuous record of carbon dioxide concentration in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">world. Its historical significance and striking simplicity has made it one of the most iconic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">visualizations of climate change.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charles D. Keeling et al., “Atmospheric carbon dioxide variations at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii,” Tellus 28, no. 6, December,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1976, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2153-3490.1976.tb00701.x ; Rob Monroe, “How are ice-core data and Mauna Loa atmospheric data</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">made comparable?” Scripps Institution of Oceanography, March 20, 2014,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2014/03/20/how-are-ice-core-data-and-mauna-loa-atmospheric-data-made-comparable</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Roz Pidcock, “The Most Influential Climate Change Papers of All Time,” CarbonBrief, June 7, 2015,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.carbonbrief.org/the-most-influential-climate-change-papers-of-all-time</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1977</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The U.S. National Academy of Sciences releases a report that identifies a global warming</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>trend caused by increased use of fossil fuels</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report, “Energy and Climate: Studies in Geophysics,”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">predicts that global temperatures could rise by 6 degrees Celsius by 2150 due to fossil fuel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">emissions, and observes, “Examination of the possible long-term effects of energy use is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">particularly timely. With the end of the oil age in sight, we must make long-term decisions as to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">future energy policies. One lesson we have been learning is that the time required for transition</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">from one major source to another is several decades.” The findings, the NAS notes, “should lead</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">neither to panic nor to complacency.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">National Research Council, Energy and Climate: Studies in Geophysics, (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), vii-viii,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12024&page=1</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1977</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>President Jimmy Carter sends Congress a comprehensive National Energy Plan</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The plan has 113 legislative proposals, including new taxes on automobiles, on utilities that burn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oil or natural gas instead of coal, and a gasoline tax intended to create a floor on gasoline prices.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is described as “as ambitious and complex as any legislative proposal a president has ever sent</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to Congress.” Plan architect James Schlesinger describes the Carter Administration’s goals: to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">transition away from “cheap and abundant energy used wastefully without regard to national and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">international imperatives to an era of more expansive energy with concomitant regard for</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">efficiency, conservation, international and environmental concerns.” The proposal includes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dramatically expanding federal regulatory power over energy producers, suppliers, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">consumers. President Carter describes his energy initiative as “the moral equivalent of war.” The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">American people, however, continue to regard cheap gasoline, inexpensive electricity, and low</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">heating prices as an entitlement. The legislation finally enacted includes virtually none of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">President Carter’s proposed taxes to stimulate conservation and the production of alternative</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fuels. Schlesinger: “The basic constituency for this problem is in the future.” President Carter:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no shortterm solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: MIT Press,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2011), 106, 110, 141.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1977</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Senior Exxon Corporation scientist advises that CO2 from the world’s use of fossil fuels</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>would warm the planet</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At a meeting at Exxon Corporation’s headquarters, senior Exxon scientist James F. Black</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">advises Exxon’s Management Committee that “…there is general scientific agreement that the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.” In an updated report to a broader range of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon executives and scientists in 1978, Black states that “Present thinking holds that man has</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a time window of five to ten years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy strategies might become critical.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Neela Banerjee, Lisa Song and David Hasemyer, “Exxon: The Road Not Taken”, InsideClimate News, Sept. 15, 2015,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1978</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The National Climate Program Act increases federal funding for climate research</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Funds are directed to the National Climate Program Office of the National Oceanic and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Atmospheric Administration. <b>The law includes a Congressional finding that:</b> “(1)Weather and&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate change affect food production, energy use, land use, water resources and other factors</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">vital to national security and human welfare. (2) An ability to anticipate natural and man-induced</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">changes in climate would contribute to the soundness of policy decisions in the public and private</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sectors. (3) Significant improvements in the ability to forecast climate on an intermediate and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">long-term basis are possible. (4) Information regarding climate is not being fully disseminated or</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">used, and Federal efforts have given insufficient attention to assessing and applying this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">information.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>It directs the President to develop a five-year plan</b> for, among other actions, “basic</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and applied research to improve the understanding of climate processes, natural and man induced,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and the social, economic, and political implications of climate change;” “global data collection,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and monitoring and analysis activities to provide reliable, useful and readily available information</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">on a continuing basis;” and “measures for increasing international cooperation in climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">research, monitoring, analysis and data dissemination.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> National Climate Program Act of 1978, Pub. L. 95-367, https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">24 cosponsors, any mandates? Rep&nbsp;</font></div><table class="standard01" style="margin: -5px 0px 1.25rem; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><tbody><tr><td style="padding: 5px 10px 5px 0px; vertical-align: top;"><a target="_blank" href="https://www.congress.gov/member/george-brown/B000918" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 204); word-break: break-word;">Brown, George E., Jr. [D-CA-36]</a>&nbsp;(Introduced 04/27/1977)</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" style="text-align: left; white-space: nowrap; padding: 5px 10px 5px 0px; vertical-align: top;">Committees:</th><td style="padding: 5px 10px 5px 0px; vertical-align: top;">House - Science and Technology | Senate - Commerce, Science, and Transportation</td></tr></tbody></table><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/house-bill/6669">
</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/house-bill/6669">https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/house-bill/6669</a></font></div><div>----</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1979 (February)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The first World Climate Conference is organized by the United Nations and the World</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Health Organization</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conference held in Geneva includes 350 specialists from 53 countries and 24 international</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">organizations and from a wide range of disciplines including agriculture, water resources,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">fisheries, energy, environment, ecology, biology, medicine, sociology and economics. After two</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">weeks of deliberations, the organizers issue a World Climate Conference Declaration: “Having</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">regard to the all-pervading influence of climate on human society and on many fields of human</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">activities and endeavour, the Conference finds that it is now urgently necessary for the nations of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the world: (a) To take full advantage of man’s present knowledge of climate; (b) To take steps</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to improve significantly that knowledge; (c) To foresee and prevent potential man-made changes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.”* </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John W. Zillman, “A History of Climate Activities,” World Meteorological Association Bulletin 58, no. 3, 2009, 1,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://public.wmo.int/en/bulletin/history-climate-activities</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For an excellent narrative and graphic review of the decade following this conference, “the decisive decade when humankind first</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change,” see Nathaniel Rich and George Steinmetz, “Losing Earth:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,” New York Times, August 1, 2018. As noted by the editor, “It will come as a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">came to solving it.” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1979 (April)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A technical report for the Department of Energy predicts a doubling of CO 2 concentration</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>in the atmosphere by 2035 and an increase of surface temperatures by 2.4 degrees Celsius</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Written by geophysicist Gordon MacDonald </b>and other members of an elite group of scientists</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">called the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Jasons</span>,” the “Jason report,” titled Long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">climate, is based on analytic modeling, and concludes its abstract with the statement that “The&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming of climate will not necessarily lead to improved living conditions everywhere. Changes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in sea level, in agricultural productivity, and in water availability can be anticipated, but the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">dimensions of their economic, political, or social consequences can not.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gordon MacDonald et al., Long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate. Technical report JSR-78-07, [Calculations</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">using JASON Climate Model], (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information 1979), 1,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.osti.gov/biblio/5851500-long-term-impact-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-climate-technical-report-jsr-calculations-usingjason-climate-model</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1979</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rafe Pomerance joins forces with Gordon Macdonald to engage with policymakers on the</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>understated but startling conclusions of the “Jason report”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pomerance, a historian by training working as the deputy legislative director of the Friends of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earth, joins with MacDonald to conduct informal briefings with the E.P.A., the National Security</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Council, The New York Times, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Energy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Department, and the senior staff of the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(OSTP). As a result of the meeting with the OSTP, President Jimmy Carter’s chief science advisor</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Frank Press requests the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">prepare a full assessment of the carbon-dioxide issue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Nathaniel Rich and George Steinmetz, “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change,” New York Times, August</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1979 (June)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>President Jimmy Carter climbs to the roof of the White House to mark the installation of</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>32 solar panels to heat water for the White House</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the dedication ceremony for the White House solar panels on June 20, 1979, President Carter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">announces a “new solar strategy,” to reach a goal to obtain 20% of the nation’s energy from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">renewables by 2000. He observes, “In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by the American people.”* [see 1986]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Michael J. Graetz, The End of Energy: The Unmaking of America's Environment, Security, and Independence (Cambridge: MIT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press, 2011), 118; David Biello, “Where Did Carter’s White House’s Solar Panels Go?” Scientific American, August 6, 2010,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1979 (July)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A National Research Council report estimates “the most probable global warming for a</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>doubling of CO2 to be near 3°C with a probable error of ± 1.5°C.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Ad Hoc Study Group on carbon dioxide and climate is chaired by MIT meteorologist Jule</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charney. The 22 page “Charney report” estimates that based on then current trends in fossil fuel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">combustion, these temperatures will be reached some time in the first half of the 21st century. The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">forward to the report by Verner Suomi, Chairman of the Climate Research Board of the National</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research Council, notes that “For more than a century, we have been aware that changes in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">composition of the atmosphere could affect its ability to trap the sun's energy for our benefit. We</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">now have incontrovertible evidence that the atmosphere is indeed changing and that we ourselves</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">contribute to that change. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are steadily increasing,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">and these changes are linked with man's use of fossil fuels and exploitation of the land. Since</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">carbon dioxide plays a significant role in the heat budget of the atmosphere, it is reasonable to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">suppose that continued increases would affect climate.” Suomi directs a cautionary warning to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">policymakers: “The conclusions of this brief but intense investigation may be comforting to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">scientists but disturbing to policymakers. If carbon dioxide continues to increase, the study group</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">finds no reason to doubt that climate changes will result and no reason to believe that these</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">changes will be negligible. The conclusions of prior studies have been generally reaffirmed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, the study group points out that the ocean, the great and ponderous flywheel of the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">global climate system, may be expected to slow the course of observable climatic change. A waitand-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.” In addition to characterizing the impact of</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the oceans in delaying observable atmospheric warming, the study explores the impact of both</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">positive and negative feedback mechanisms: “A strong positive feedback mechanism is the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">accompanying increase of moisture, which is an even more powerful absorber of terrestrial</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">radiation. We have examined with care all known negative feedback mechanisms, such as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">increase in low or middle cloud amount, and have concluded that the oversimplifications and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">inaccuracies in the models are not likely to have vitiated the principal conclusion that there will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">be appreciable warming. The known negative feedback mechanisms can reduce the warming, but</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">they do not appear to be so strong as the positive moisture feedback.”* Forty years later, Marcia</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McNutt, President of the National Academy of Sciences, will write in an editorial in the journal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Science that the Charney report’s calculations “have proven to be remarkably on target:” “The</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Charney report demonstrates the power of scientific prediction. Since its release, scientists have</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">built a formidable evidence base on climate change. At no time since 1979 has the science backed</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">down from its dire predictions for the prospects of human civilization to prosper in a world</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">warming well beyond limits encountered in all of human history.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jule G. Charney et al., Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment (Washington: The National Academic Press, 1979),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12181/carbon-dioxide-and-climate-a-scientific-assessment</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Marcia McNutt, “Time’s Up, CO2,” Science 365, no. 6452 (August 2, 2019): 411, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6452/411</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1980</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Three years after its first climate report, a second National Academy of Sciences report on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anthropogenic warming stresses uncertainty about the extent and timing of climate changes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In response to the Charney Report in 1979, the White House Office of Science and Technology</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">asks the National Academy of Sciences to opine on the likely timing of increases in global</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">temperature. The study is chaired by economist Thomas Schelling. According to the report (a&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">letter, not a full assessment), “In view of the uncertainties, controversies, and complex linkages</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">surrounding the carbon dioxide issue, and the possibility that some of the greatest uncertainties</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">will be reduced within the decade, it seems to most of us that the near-term emphasis should be</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">on research, with as low a political profile as possible [emphasis in original document]…We do</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not know enough to address most of these questions right now. We believe that we can learn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">faster than the problem can develop.”* John Perry, a meteorologist and chief staff officer for the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Academy’s Climate Research Board, will criticize this assessment in a guest editorial in the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Journal Climatic Change entitled “Energy and Climate: Today’s Problem, not Tomorrow’s,” by</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">arguing: “If we have good reason to believe that a 100 percent increase in carbon dioxide will</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">produce significant impacts on climate, then we must have equally good reason to suspect that</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">even the small increase we have already produced may have subtly altered our climate…. Climate</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">change is not a matter for the next century; we are most probably doing it right now.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">* Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2010) ,175-6.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Perry, “Energy and Climate: Today’s Problem, not Tomorrow’s,” Climatic Change, September 1981 3, no. 3 (1981): 223-</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">225, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02423215</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>1980’s</b></font></div></div>