Did I need to remind you to fly your flag today?
U.S. flag at George Washington's home, Mt. Vernon, cupola on the house in the background
You’re flying your flag, right?
November 24, 2011
2 Comments | 
Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patriotism, Thanksgiving | Tagged: Flag Code, Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, Patritotism, Thanksgiving, U.S. Flag | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Thomas Nast’s “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving”
November 24, 2011November 1869, in the first year of the Grant administration — and Nast put aside his own prejudices enough to invite the Irish guy to dinner, along with many others.
(Click for a larger image — it’s well worth it.)
Thomas Nast's "Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving," appearing in Harper's Weekly, November 20, 1869 - Ohio State University's cartoon collection
As described at the Ohio State site:
“Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” marks the highpoint of Nast’s Reconstruction-era idealism. By November 1869 the Fourteenth Amendment, which secures equal rights and citizenship to all Americans, was ratified. Congress had sent the Fifteenth Amendment, which forbade racial discrimination in voting rights, to the states and its ratification appeared certain. Although the Republican Party had absorbed a strong nativist element in the 1850s, its commitment to equality seemed to overshadow lingering nativism, a policy of protecting the interests of indigenous residents against immigrants. Two national symbols, Uncle Sam and Columbia, host all the peoples of the world who have been attracted to the United States by its promise of self-government and democracy. Germans, African Americans, Chinese, Native Americans, Germans, French, Spaniards: “Come one, come all,” Nast cheers at the lower left corner.
One of my Chinese students identified the Oriental woman as Japanese, saying it was “obvious.” The figure at the farthest right is a slightly cleaned-up version of the near-ape portrayal Nast typically gave Irishmen.
If Nast could put aside his biases to celebrate the potential of unbiased immigration to the U.S. and the society that emerges, maybe we can, too.
Hope your day is good; hope you have good company and good cheer, turkey or not. Happy Thanksgiving.
1 Comment | Cartoons, History, Holidays, Immigration, Political cartoons, Reconstruction, Thanksgiving, Thomas Nast, Uncle Sam | Tagged: 1869, History, Immigration, Political cartoons, Thanksgiving, Thomas Nast, Uncle Sam | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
6th Floor Museum, Dallas — go see it
November 23, 2011The 6th Floor Museum in Dallas presents in-depth studies of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, on November 22, 1963.
There’s a lot more to such a study than you might think. It’s a relatively quick tour — you can view the museum’s displays and films in about two hours, comfortably, stopping to read exhibit cards and really analyze objects on display. A couple of the films present a great deal of history quickly and well (Walter Cronkite narrates one).
One cannot avoid a great deal of history of the Civil Rights Movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, and the start of the Vietnam conflict. Kennedy’s administration covered only three years, but a very active and important three years in the 20th century.
Increasingly the 6th Floor Museum is a stop for researchers and scholars. The recent addition of a good reading room for scholars is a great asset.
Curator Gary Mack offers a quick introduction in this video:
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Plan to spend three or four hours. You’ll find the place very interesting. After the museum, most likely you’ll want to spend some time exploring Dealey Plaza, the road where Kennedy’s car was when he was shot, and the famous grassy knoll. It’s a part of downtown that is almost always filled with people in daylight in all but the absolute worst weather. (Check out the EarthCam at Dealey Plaza.)
Old Red, the old Dallas County Courthouse, with its own museum, is just a half block away.
1 Comment | Dallas, History, History museums, JFK assassination, John F. Kennedy, Presidents | Tagged: 6th Floor Museum, Assassination, Dallas, History, Museums, President John F. Kennedy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Gettysburg Address – again, “No casino, please”
November 21, 2011Yet another version of readings of the Gettysburg Address — this time by actors, historians, and a winner of the Medal of Honor, in a campaign to prevent the construction of a casino next door to the battlefield monuments:
1 Comment | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous Battles, Famous quotes, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, famous speeches, Gettysburg, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Springfield, Illinois area residents recite Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
November 20, 2011A short feature put together by the Springfield State Journal-Register:
Leave a Comment » | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous quotes, Gettysburg, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Gettysburg Address, History, Springfield State Journal-Register | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Documentary film worth seeing: “The Other ‘F’ Word” at the Texas Theatre
November 20, 2011Here’s the trailer:
Kathryn and I caught it last night at the renovated, historic Texas Theatre on Jefferson Avenue in Oak Cliff (formerly an independent town, now a sprawling neighborhood of Dallas). The audience enthusiasm didn’t overpower the movie — the audience was much smaller than the film deserves.
It’s showing again this afternoon and Wednesday night at the Texas.
Advantages of seeing this at the Texas:
- Parking is easy and free after 4:00 p.m. on Jefferson Avenue.
- The bar has Mothership beer on tap (and a variety of other good libations).
- Popcorn is cheaper than at most megaplexes, plus it doesn’t taste as if made from petroleum by-product (which is not to say it is healthy, but that it may be less unhealthy).
- History point 1: This is a near-Art Deco theatre built originally by Howard Hughes.
- History point 2: This is the theatre in which Lee Harvey Oswald was captured in his flight from the scene of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
- It’s a great film.
- It’s a great theatre to view great films in.
Punk never made a great impression on me. But at length, years later, I think I understand part of the angst and noise of the punkers, thanks to this film. The description at the YouTube trailer:
THE OTHER F WORD
directed by Andrea Blaugrund Nevins
produced by Cristan Reilly and Andrea Blaugrund NevinsIN THEATERS NOVEMBER 2ND, 2011
http://www.theotherfwordmovie.com/This revealing and touching film asks what happens when a generation’s ultimate anti-authoritarians — punk rockers — become society’s ultimate authorities — dads. With a large chorus of punk rock’s leading men – Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath – THE OTHER F WORD follows Jim Lindberg, a 20-year veteran of the skate punk band Pennywise, on his hysterical and moving journey from belting his band’s anthem “F–k Authority,” to embracing his ultimately authoritarian role in mid-life: fatherhood.
Other dads featured in the film include skater Tony Hawk, Art Alexakis (Everclear), Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo), Tony Adolescent (The Adolescents), Fat Mike (NOFX), Lars Frederiksen (Rancid), and many others.
These are Tea Partiers with a cause and a brain, and a sense of social responsibility. Lindberg said, near the end of the movie:
That’s what I want to hold on to, is that feeling that we can make a change out there. Maybe the way we change the world is by raising better kids.
Readers of this blog may note the great irony in one of the chief profiles of the film being of Ron Reyes, a member of early West Coast punk band Black Flag, who quit the band in the middle of a set to protest the violence that afflicted the Los Angeles punk scene, and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to raise his kids well.
Heck, it’s probably a great film to see even if you can’t see it at the Texas.
(You know, I’ve got some shots of our tour of the Texas Theatre in August . . . hmm . . . where are those pictures? Other computer?)
Leave a Comment » | Dallas, Historic Buildings, History, Movies, Music, Parents, Texas, Texas history, Video and film | Tagged: Dallas, Documentary Film, Historic Buildings, History, Music, Parenting, Punk Rock, Texas Theatre, The Other F Word | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 19th, 1863: Mr. Lincoln at Gettysburg
November 19, 2011A mostly encore post about today’s anniversary of Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg.
148 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln redefined the Declaration of Independence and the goals of the American Civil War, in a less-than-two-minute speech dedicating part of the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, as a cemetery and final resting place for soldiers who died in the fierce battle fought there the previous July 1 through 3.
Now in 2011, we’re in the “150th anniversary” years of the Civil War. Maybe some will look back to the time our nation worked hard to tear itself asunder, and learn lessons that might help us keep from doing that in the 21st century. Some might find inspiration, or aspiration, in Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg.
Interesting news for 2007: More photos from the Library of Congress collection may contain images of Lincoln. The photo above, detail from a much larger photo, had been thought for years to be the only image of Lincoln from that day. The lore is that photographers, taking a break from former Massachusetts Sen. Edward Everett’ s more than two-hour oration, had expected Lincoln to go on for at least an hour. His short speech caught them totally off-guard, focusing their cameras or taking a break. Lincoln finished before any photographer got a lens open to capture images.
Images of people in these photos are very small, and difficult to identify. Lincoln was not identified at all until 1952:
The plate lay unidentified in the Archives for some fifty-five years until in 1952, Josephine Cobb, Chief of the Still Pictures Branch, recognized Lincoln in the center of the detail, head bared and probably seated. To the immediate left (Lincoln’s right) is Lincoln’s bodyguard, Ward Hill Lamon, and to the far right (beyond the limits of the detail) is Governor Andrew G. Curtin of Pennsylvania. Cobb estimated that the photograph was taken about noontime, just after Lincoln arrived at the site and before Edward Everett’s arrival, and some three hours before Lincoln gave his now famous address.
On-line, the Abraham Lincoln Blog covered the discovery that two more photographic plates from the 1863 speech at Gettysburg may contain images of Lincoln in his trademark stove-pipe hat. Wander over to the story at the USA Today site, and you can see just how tiny are these detail images in relation to the photographs themselves. These images are tiny parts of photos of the crowd at Gettysburg. (The story ran in USA Today last Thursday or Friday — you may be able to find a copy of that paper buried in the returns pile at your local Kwikee Mart.) Digital technologies, and these suspected finds of Lincoln, should prompt a review of every image from Gettysburg that day.
To the complaints of students, I have required my junior U.S. history students to memorize the Gettysburg Address (though, not yet in this school year). In Irving I found a couple of students who had memorized it for an elementary teacher years earlier, and who still could recite it. Others protested, until they learned the speech. This little act of memorization appears to me to instill confidence in the students that they can master history, once they get it done.
To that end, I discovered a good, ten-minute piece on the address in Ken Burns’ “Civil War” (in Episode 5). On DVD, it’s a good piece for classroom use, short enough for a bell ringer or warm-up, detailed enough for a deeper study, and well done, including the full text of the address itself performed by Sam Waterson.
Embedded video from CNN VideoIn 1863 Edward Everett, the former Massachusetts senator and U.S. secretary of state, was regarded as the greatest orator of the time. A man of infinite grace, and a historian with some sense of events and what the nation was going through, Everett wrote to Lincoln the next day after their speeches:
“I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central idea of the occasion in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”
Interesting note: P. Z. Myers at Pharyngula notes that the Gettysburg Address was delivered “seven score and four years ago.” Of course, that will never happen again. I’ll wager he was the first to notice that odd juxtaposition on the opening line.
Do you have a favorite performance of this address you’d commend for internet bloggers? Let us know where to find it, in comments.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Chamblee54 for reminding us about the anniversary, today.
Resources for students and teachers:
- Today in History, November 19, from the Library of Congress’s American Memory Collections
- Ken Burns’ “Civil War” on PBS
- AmericanRhetoric.com, four audio versions of the Gettysburg Address, including Sam Waterston, and Johnny Cash
- Abraham Lincoln On-line, with extensive list of sites relating to the Gettysburg Address
- Gettysburg College, Civil War Institute and Civil War Programs (annual program commemorating the Gettysburg Address)
- Walk with Lincoln in Gettysburg, an interestingly complete stroll through the history of the battle and the creation of the cemetery, and Lincoln’s address
- Full text of Edward Everett’s two-hour oration at Gettysburg, November 19, 1863
- Sam Waterson performs the Gettysburg Address, at NPR (2003)
- An account from an eyewitness of the speech, via the Library of Congress
- Gettysburg Address exhibit at Library of Congress on-line
- “273 Words to a New America” at the Library of Congress; Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub repost of that item
- Chamblee 54 wins the best blog post title award: “Seven score and seven years ago”
- 2011 – Chamblee 54 features a nice gallery of photos from the Gettysburg area and the Gettysburg campaigns, from 1862 and 1863
10 Comments | 1861-1865, Abraham Lincoln, Civil War, Famous quotes, Gettysburg, History | Tagged: 1861-1865, Civil War, Gettysburg Address, History, Lincoln, November 19 1863 | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Kids Bill of Rights
November 18, 2011Kids write and sing about the Bill of Rights — captured on video by the folks at EmergentOrder.com (the producers of the second Keynes/Hayek video).
How close to right are they? Can you use this in class?
Can your kids improve on this, or do something like it?
1 Comment | Bill of Rights, History, Law, U.S. Constitution | Tagged: Bill of Rights, Constitution, History, Law | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Poet Devona Wyant, “On the difference between 1 and 99”
November 14, 2011On the difference between 1 and 99
1% is when you spend the winters at your house on Fiji.
99% is when you heat your living quarters
with a single space heater.
1% is when your prescription is automatically
in your medicine cabinet and you don’t have to think about it.
99% is when you count the remaining pills of your
prescription and know you’ll run out before your SS check comes.
1% is when you tell your driver which car to drive today.
99% is when you walk everywhere you go
if your town doesn’t have buses.
1% is when you walk into the trendiest restaurant in town
and you don’t even need a reservation.
99% is when you buy outdated meat and produce
or stand in line at a soup kitchen.
1% is when you turn on the news and nod at the politician
who says if you can’t work, you shouldn’t eat.
99% is when you don’t know what the politician said
because you couldn’t pay the electric bill.
1% doesn’t have to go to work.
99% can’t even apply for a job because you’re unemployed
and they aren’t accepting applications from the unemployed.
1% turns away from the bottom 99% because if they don’t work
or pay taxes, they have no value.
99% may be buried in a Potter’s Field before the expected life span
because
. .you were malnourished, sick, numb from cold and depression,
. .and told you have to get off the sidewalk.
One will die acclaimed.
One will die unclaimed
. .because America can’t have street beggars.
But it does have an invisible army of the poor…unarmed,
under-housed, under-fed, under-educated, out of hope, out of time,
and out of social uniform.
Just so much cannon fodder for our Class Warfare.
Devona Wyant
I subscribe to Poem-a-Day and a couple of other services that deliver poetry to my mailbox. I subscribe to a couple of list-servs that feature poets. A precious few favor me with e-mails, somehow listing me among their friends.
I got this one today, probably unpublished elsewhere. Watch for it.
[This poem above is not quoted, though it is the work of Ms. Wyant, because the quote formatting changed the formatting of the poem itself. Please be sure to attribute the poem correctly to Ms. Wyant, who holds the copyright.]
![Poet Devona Wyant, center. Caption from Lincolnton, North Carolina, Times-News: Poets Morgan DiStefano, Shane Manier and Devona Wyant and their group, Poetry Lincolnton, released their first anthology in June [2013].](https://timpanogos.blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/poetry_7-8-13.jpg?w=715&h=435)
Poet Devona Wyant, center. Caption from Lincolnton, North Carolina, Times-News: Poets Morgan DiStefano, Shane Manier and Devona Wyant and their group, Poetry Lincolnton, released their first anthology in June [2013].
98 Comments | History, Literature, Poetry | Tagged: History, Literature, Poetry | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Art historians do better than conservatives on the history of DDT
November 11, 2011The art historians at least get the facts right — why can’t conservatives and erstwhile scientists like Steven Milloy get it right? This is from “The War Against Bugs,” by Steven Heller at imprint:
The War Against Bugs, by Print Magazine — a Neocide ad from European media.
With all due respect to entomologists, there is nothing aesthetically pleasing about bugs (insects by any other name). These little monsters certainly have ecological significance, but don’t tell me they are fun to have crawling around. Hence, chemical manufacturers have made it their business to find he most efficient means of ridding the pests while retaining the fine upstanding species. Too bad that anything designed to kill will doubtless have ill effects on he eco-system. In he 50s DDT was the magic bullet against such varieties as various potato beetles, coddling moth, corn earworm, cotton bollworm and tobacco budworms (eeeecccchhhh!). Then in 1972, the US Environmental Protection Agency curtailed all use of DDT on crops. The ban did not take hold in other countries until much later, and DDT was vociferously promoted through eerie calls to arms like this poster by Savignac.
Read more: The War Against Bugs — Imprint-The Online Community for Graphic Designers
For great design products, visit our online store: MyDesignShop.com
Nota bene Mr. Heller does not claim DDT use against malaria-causing mosquitoes was ever banned. He focuses instead on the promotion of DDT.
Truth in art.
Leave a Comment » | Art, DDT, History, History and art, Science | Tagged: Art, DDT, Design, History, imprint blog, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Fly your flag today, Veterans Day, November 11, 2011
November 11, 2011
Iwo Jima Memorial, near Washington, D.C.
Fly your flag today.
We honor all veterans on November 11 of each year. The Flag Code designates Veterans Day for flag flying, to honor veterans. (See more on the Flag Code, here.)
More, and other resources
- Even Google offered a tribute to veterans last year:
Google's Veterans Day logo
- Department of Veterans Affairs site on Veterans Day
3 Comments | History, veterans, veterans day | Tagged: Fly your flag today, History, Veterans Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Veterans Day coming November 11 — remember to fly your flag
November 8, 2011Friday is Veterans Day, one of the score of “fly your flag” dates recommended in law.
Are you ready? Here’s this year’s poster, from the Veterans Administration (click to get a link for a high resolution version):
Veterans Day poster for 2011 - Veterans Administration; click image to go to VA site for high resolution version to print
Get your flag out, ready to fly. Check your local newspaper for times of your local Veterans Day Parades. Take a look at the VA’s video on the day, below, and make plans to help a vet throughout the year.
35 Comments | Flag etiquette, Fly your flag today, History, veterans, veterans day | Tagged: Flag etiquette, Fly your flag, History, November 11, veterans, Veterans Day | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
American Education Week, November 7-13 (1943) – locked up in Manzanar
November 8, 2011
"A woman prepares a sign promoting American Education Week by attaching it to the wall of the Education Department office." Photo by Ansel Adams, 1943, at Manzanar War Relocation Center - Library of Congress collections
Just an ironic blast from the past, an Ansel Adams photograph of an interned American citizen of Japanese descent, putting up a poster celebrating “American Education Week,” at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, California. Photo details:
- Title: Education week sign / photograph by Ansel Adams.
- Creator(s): Adams, Ansel, 1902-1984, photographer
- Date Created/Published: [1943]
- Medium: 1 photographic print : gelatin silver.
1 negative : nitrate.- Summary: A woman prepares a sign promoting American Education Week by attaching it to the wall of the Education Department office.
- Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppprs-00417 (b&w digital file from original print) LC-DIG-ppprs-00158 (b&w digital file from original neg.) LC-A35-T01-6-M-6 (b&w film dup. neg.)
- Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
- Call Number: LOT 10479-7, no. 20 [P&P]
- Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA
- Notes:
- Title transcribed from Ansel Adams’ caption on verso of print.
- Original neg. no.: LC-A35-6-M-6.
- Gift; Ansel Adams; 1965-1968.
- Forms part of: Manzanar War Relocation Center photographs.
Leave a Comment » | Education, History, History images, Japanese American internment, World War II | Tagged: Education, Executive Order 9066, History, Japanese Internment, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
November 7, Elijah Lovejoy and the cause of abolition
November 7, 2011Many key events on November 7. November 17, 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution replaced the Kerensky government in Russia, for example. The Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of World War I, and set the nation on a course towards soviet government whose advocacy of soviet communism would be one of the major issues of the 20th century.
Let us not forget the death of Elijah Lovejoy on November 7, 1837. Lovejoy edited an abolitionist newspaper in Alton, Illinois — then a rival of St. Louis and larger than Chicago.
A pro-slavery mob murdered Lovejoy on November 7, 1837. Details from the American Memory project at the Library of Congress; all links go to the Library of Congress sources:
Elijah Lovejoy
1891.
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog
On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed by a pro-slavery mob while defending the site of his anti-slavery newspaper The Saint Louis Observer. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition.
“Sacramental Scene in a Western Forest,”
Lithograph by P. S. Duval, ca. 1801,
from Joseph Smith, Old Redstone,
Copyprint. Philadelphia: 1854,
General Collections, Library of Congress.
Section VII: Religion and the New Republic,
Religion and the Founding of the American RepublicLovejoy, who was born on November 9, 1802, in Albion, Maine, decided to seek his fortune in the Midwest after graduating from college. Short on funds, he walked to St. Louis, Missouri, where, over time, he became editor and part-owner of The St. Louis Times. His name appeared in the Times for the first time on August 14, 1830, and for the last time—as editor—on February 18, 1832.
In 1832, caught up in the powerful religious revival movement sweeping the U.S. and its frontier territories, Lovejoy experienced a conversion, which led him to sell his interests in the paper and enroll in Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey. Two years later, a group of St. Louis businessmen, who sought to start a newspaper to promote religious and moral education, recruited Lovejoy to return to the city as editor of The St. Louis Observer.
Lovejoy, supported by abolitionist friends such as Edward Beecher (the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin), became ever more radical in his anti-slavery editorials. He first supported African recolonization then endorsed gradual emancipation. By 1835, he sanctioned abolition in the District of Columbia, and, by 1837, championed immediate universal emancipation.
Lovejoy’s editorials raised local ire while they increased national circulation. A group of local citizens, including the future Senator Thomas Hart Benton, declared that freedom of speech did not include the right to speak against slavery. As mob violence increased over the issue, Lovejoy, now a husband and father, decided to move his family to Alton, across the Mississippi River in the free state of Illinois.
1908.
Taking the Long View: Panoramic Photographs, 1851-1991
At the time Elijah Lovejoy moved to Alton it was “a booming town.” Alton had some 2,500 residents and was considered both the rival of St. Louis and a far more important Illinois city than Chicago.
Mobs had destroyed Lovejoy’s presses on a number of occasions, but when a new press arrived in November 1837, the violence escalated. No sooner was the new press offloaded from the steamboat Missouri Fulton than a drunken mob formed and tried to set fire to the warehouse where it was stored. When Lovejoy ran out to push away a would-be-arsonist, he was shot.
Throughout the North and West, membership in anti-slavery societies increased sharply following Lovejoy’s death. Yet officials in Illinois, with one exception, made little comment. Twenty-eight year old State Representative Abraham Lincoln stated publicly:
Let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own, and his children’s liberty…Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother…in short let it become the political religion of the nation…1
- Search the collection Slaves and the Courts, 1740-1860 on Elijah P. Lovejoy and Alton Trials to find items pertaining to the progression of the Alton riots and the death of Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy.
- Learn more about the Second Great Awakening, the religious movement that swept the U.S. between the inaugurations of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. See Section VII of the online exhibition Religion and the Founding of the American Republic.
- Search across the American Memory “Photos, Prints” collections on the terms Missouri and Illinois for more images. Search on the term press for images of a wide variety of printing presses more modern than those in use during the life of Elijah Lovejoy.
- Search across all collections on the term press for images of a wide variety of printing presses more modern than those used during the life of Elijah Lovejoy.
- See the Abolition section of the online exhibition The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship which discusses anti-slavery movements in the nation, and the rise of the sectional controversy.
1 Paul Simon, Freedom’s Champion: Elijah Lovejoy (Southern Illinois University Press: 1994), 163.
3 Comments | History, Newspapers, Slavery, Violence | Tagged: Abolitionist, Alton Illinois, Elijah Lovejoy, History, Newspapers, Slavery, Violence | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
What were scientists saying about global warming in 1971?
November 3, 2011What did scientists know and say about climate change and global warming in the 1970s? I keep running into claims by modern climate change denialists that scientists in the 1970s firmly predicted a pending ice age. This is usually posited to establish that scientists are fools, and that concerns about warming now are probably displaced because the same scientists were in error 40 years ago.
I worked in air pollution studies way back then. That’s not how I remember it at all. I remember great, good-natured debates between Ph.Ds in the Department of Biology at the University of Utah, and other scientists from other institutions passing through and working in the field with us. Greenhouse effect was very well understood even back then, and the discussions were on the nature of just how much human pollution would affect climate, and in which way.
Savvy scientists then well understood that there were two competing trends in air pollution: Greenhouse gases and particulates and aerosols. Greenhouse gases would warm the climate, but they were offset by particulates and aerosols that reflect solar radiation back into space before warming can occur. At least, back then, the particulates and aerosols counteracted the greenhouse gases.
EPA collection, Manhattan skyline enveloped in heavy smog, May 1973: Chester Higgins/NARA. via Mother Jones
Looking for something else, I took off my shelf a book we used as a text in air pollution courses at the University of Utah in the 1970s, Whatever Happened to Fresh Air? by Michael Treshow. Treshow taught at Utah. He was deeply involved in several research projects on air pollution. He was also a great conversationalist and competitive tennis player. His book was a good text, but he intended it to be read by lay people, especially policy makers, also. It’s easy to fathom, intentionally so.
Here, below, is what Treshow wrote in the early pages about carbon dioxide as an air pollutant, in sketching the global problems of air pollution. Notice that, while he makes note of the predictions of what would happen with uncontrolled particulate and aerosol pollution, he gives the science straight up, telling what pollution can do, depending on local circumstances and global circumstances. Treshow notes the research that the denialists cite now, but he explains enough of the science so that any reasonable person should be able to see that, if one form of pollution is controlled and another is not, the effects might be different.
Michael Treshow:
Over the past several million years, the earth’s animal and plant life have reached a workable equilibrium in sharing this atmosphere and keeping the oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in balance. But man, by burning fossil fuels (particularly coal) at an accelerated rate and by removing vegetation at the prodigious rate of 11 acres per second in the U.S., may be upsetting this equilibrium. Many scientists believe this carbon dioxide build-up is one of the major threats to man’s environment.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is occasionally regarded as an air pollutant for this reason, even though it is a natural and essential component of the atmosphere. Certainly the present concentrations are not dangerous; but what would happen if the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should increase appreciably? What hazards would be imposed?
An increase in carbon dioxide would benefit the green plants since they need it for photosynthesis. But what effect would it have on man and animals? Or on the physical environment? The main hazard lies in the effect that carbon dioxide has in absorbing the infrared radiation which normally radiates from the earth back to the atmosphere. If the carbon dioxide content of the lower atmosphere were to increase, it would prevent the infrared heat absorbed by the earth from the sun from reradiating into the atmosphere. Heat energy would accumulate and cause a general increase in the earth’s temperature. Such an increase in temperature, often called the “greenhouse effect,” could cause the ice caps to melt, raising the level of the oceans and flooding most of the world’s major cities.
It is awesome to realize that sea level is actually rising. It is now 300 feet above what it was 18,000 years ago, and is reportedly rising nearly nine inches higher each century. Beaches are being wasted away and tides lap ever closer to the steps of coastal homes. But is the displacement of our beaches more closely related to increasing carbon dioxide concentrations or to the normal warming process between ice ages?
Not everyone agrees that carbon dioxide is to blame. Concentrations vary greatly around the world. Near urban areas, where fossil fuels are burned, concentrations are high; over forested areas, where plants are rapidly removing the gas, they are low. Concentrations also vary with the height above the ground, the latitude, whether over the ocean or land and even with the time of day and season of the year. All of these variables make it difficult to agree on a reasonable average carbon dioxide concentration.
Despite some disagreement, it is generally conceded that carbon dioxide has been added to the atmosphere at an alarming rate during the past century. Actual measurements show that between 1857 and 1956, carbon dioxide concentrations increased from an average of 0.0293 to 0.0319 percent; 360 X [10 to the 9th] tons of carbon dioxide have been added to the atmosphere by man during this period. Upwards of a trillion tons will be added by the year 2000. Such a tremendous release of carbon dioxide would increase the atmospheric concentrations appreciably unless some mechanism is available to absorb the surplus and to maintain equilibrium.
Extensive measurements suggest that carbon dioxide concentrations near the earth’s surface have increased about 10 percent since 1900. During this same time, fossil fuel consumption increased about 15 percent. This is a remarkably, close, meaningful relationship. The 5 percent difference is readily accounted for, since this much would be absorbed by the ocean or by rocks and living organisms, particularly plants, which absorb much of the surplus carbon dioxide. In fact, green plants probably have the capacity to absorb and utilize far more carbon dioxide than man is likely to release.
Calculations presented by Gordon MacDonald of the University of California at Santa Barbara show that a 10 percent increase in the total carbon dioxide content theoretically should cause an increase of 0.4° F in the average temperature of the earth. Although the carbon dioxide content is being increased about 0.06 percent each year by the combustion of fossil fuels, no temperature increase has been demonstrated. Rather, the average temperature appears to be decreasing. During the past 25 years, when the addition of carbon dioxide has been most rapid, the average temperature has dropped half a degree.
This temperature drop has been thought to result from the increase in the amount of submicron sized particulates which remain suspended in the atmosphere. These aerosols obstruct the entrance of the sun’s heat and light rays, thereby disrupting the earth’s energy balance. The effect is one of less heat and lower temperatures. Dr. William E. Cobb of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency predicts the possibility of another ice age.
Whatever Happened to Fresh Air, Michael Treshow, University of Utah Press, 1971, pp. 3-6.
What changed since then? The Clean Air Act provided the legal drive to clean particulates and aerosols out of the air. Alas, we did not then have good controls for greenhouse gases. The success of the Clean Air Act, and similar laws worldwide, rather left the pollution field open for greenhouse gases. Without pollution to offset the effects of GHG, warming became the stronger trend.
I think Treshow was quite prescient back then. His work is still accurate, when we adjust for the events of history that came after he wrote the book.
Time Magazine cover for January 27, 1967, photo by Larry Lee. The photo shows a typical Los Angeles day at 3:30 p.m., with photochemical smog restricting visibility dramatically. Particulate pollution and sulfates added to the visibility problems, and made air pollution a greater health hazard. An accompanying story was titled, “Ecology: The Menace in the Skies.”
It’s popular among those opposed to the science of climate change to claim scientists don’t know what they’re talking about, because ‘back in the 1970s they predicted a new ice age, and they were wrong.’
Dr. Treshow’s book presents the state of the science of air pollution in the early 1970s. He didn’t “predict” an ice age. He noted that particulate pollution was a major problem, and that particulates and other pollution created a cooling effect that could offset and perhaps overpower the warming effects of CO2, as he discusses in the passage above. In lay terms, in a few brief passages, Treshow notes the conflicting results of different types of pollution.
CO2’s warming effects were well known, and acknowledged. If particulates and other aerosols won the battle to pollute the skies, the Earth would cool. If GHGs won the battle, the Earth would warm.
Claiming scientists “predicted” an ice age tells only half the story, and thereby becomes a grossly misleading, whole lie.
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77 Comments | air pollution, Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, climate_change, CO2, Global warming, History, Science | Tagged: 1971, air pollution, Carbon Dioxide, Climate change, CO2, Global warming, History, Michael Treshow, Science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 