50th Anniversary: LBJ's warning on carbon dioxide

[Oscar]

A 50th anniversary few remember: LBJ's warning on carbon dioxide

[ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroo ... te-warning ]

By Marianne Lavelle The Daily Climate Feb. 2, 2015

Fifty years ago this month President Johnson voiced concern over invisible fossil fuel emissions in a special message to Congress. It was the first time a U.S. president warned the nation about our carbon habit.

It is a key moment in climate change history that few remember: This week marks the 50th anniversary of the first presidential mention of the environmental risk of carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels.

This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. - President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965

President Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a February 8, 1965 special message to Congress warned about build-up of the invisible air pollutant that scientists recognize today as the primary contributor to global warming.

"Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places," said Johnson less than three weeks after his 1965 inauguration. "This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels."

The speech mainly focused on all-too-visible pollution of land and waterways, including roadside auto graveyards, strip mine sites, and soot pollution that had marred even the White House.

Within the year, Johnson would sign six new environmental laws [ http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/lb ... eline.shtm ] during a period better remembered for the strife that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the escalation of the Vietnam War. Johnson also that year established a dozen new national monuments, historic sites, and recreation areas; and submitted a draft nuclear non-proliferation treaty to the United Nations.

Carbon risk, of course, still stymies policymakers. But it was not ignored entirely in the wake of Johnson's" "Special Message to Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty. In fact, the warnings and predictions given to Johnson from his science team proved remarkably prescient. [ http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/ar ... 650208.asp ]

MORE:

[ http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroo ... te-warning ]