Abstract
There was a much broader response to post-war development than Enewetak. Education, especially scientific education, was rapidly expanded and democratized; computers became more available to researchers, and finally made their way onto every desk, enabling almost instant sharing of ideas worldwide; and scientific societies and their resultant publications blossomed and were internationalized. As evidence of a degraded environment grew, and its causes were exposed, the international community came together initially at the Stockholm Conference in 1972, and then at the World Climate Conference in 1979. The accumulating shared evidence finally identified global warming as a reality and built up a picture of the consequences of carbon emissions on climate change.
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Notes
- 1.
Described exhaustively by Bowen (2002, pp. 317–343). Similar disasters have continued, e.g. the Exxon Valdez tanker wreck in Prince William Sound, Alaska, in March 1989 that spilled up to 119,000 m3 of crude oil, and the BP drilling explosion in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 that allowed oil to gush out at some 9900 m3 per day until it was finally brought under control three months later.
- 2.
Throughout the post-war years of urgency for reconstruction and industrial development, the need to protect the global environment had prompted the UN in the same year as its foundation in 1945 to create two specialized agencies: UNESCO and the FAO. The WMO followed in 1951.
- 3.
See Meadows et al. (2004) for an account of the ozone disaster.
- 4.
Preamble to the Proceedings of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer.
- 5.
Annex I of the Proceedings of the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer.
- 6.
Introduction to the Villach Statement.
- 7.
The pollutants specified in the Montreal Protocol were halo-carbons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, hydrofluorocarbons, hydrobromofluorocarbons, methyl bromide and bromochloromethane. Halogen, from Gk halys, “the sea”, so “salt generating”.
- 8.
Greenpeace Position Paper, prepared for the 9th meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol, September 1997.
- 9.
K for German Kreidzeit (Cretaceous, Lat. creta, “chalk”) because C designates the Cambrian Period, and T for the ensuing Tertiary Period. Cenozoic derives from the Latin recens: “recent”. An alternative term seen is “Cainozoic” from the Greek kainos, also meaning “recent”. The impact on reefs is discussed in Veron (2008a, pp. 81–88).
- 10.
Payne et al. 2010. The symbols δ13C and δ44/40Ca, known as “delta values”, indicate the ratios of normal carbon and calcium to their particular isotopes. During violent earth movements, isotope proportions change, and the resulting delta (δ) ratios which indicate abnormal conditions are expressed as parts per thousand (‰). See next chapter.
- 11.
Described by Veron (2008a, pp. 214–216), as a “giant antacid tablet”.
- 12.
NRC Report to Congress, 22 April 2010.
- 13.
Ben Cubby, News Review, Sydney Morning Herald, 14–15 July 2012, p. 5.
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Bowen, J. (2015). A Changing Global Environment: International Response. In: The Coral Reef Era: From Discovery to Decline. Humanity and the Sea. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07479-5_11
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