The lost history of what Americans knew about climate change in the 1960s

Recent Supreme Court decisions indicate that there was a lack of understanding about climate change fifty years ago. In 2007, the court determined that the Clean Air Act of 1970 allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, revealing how little was known about climate change at the time. Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in a 2022 case further emphasized that legislators in 1970 granted the EPA the flexibility to address unforeseen issues like climate change. Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, uncovered a forgotten history of early concerns about climate change. She found evidence of extensive discussions by scientists, members of Congress, and the executive branch prior to the adoption of the Clean Air Act. Oreskes’ research has shed light on the fact that Congress had intended to give the EPA broad authority to regulate pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions, something that has become increasingly relevant in light of recent Supreme Court decisions limiting the EPA’s regulatory power. The historical evidence presented in Oreskes’ paper challenges the myth that the Clean Air Act had nothing to do with addressing carbon dioxide emissions and aims to spark conversations among legal scholars and policymakers. The findings suggest that concerns about climate change were already on the federal government’s radar in the mid-1960s, with scientists and lawmakers recognizing the impact of human activities on the climate. Analyzing historical documents from the 1960s, Oreskes and her team discovered a wealth of information demonstrating that members of Congress were well-informed about the effects of carbon dioxide and the need for regulatory action. The research also uncovers the public awareness of climate change, with media outlets and public figures sounding alarms about the potential consequences of a warming planet. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented in the research, there are doubts about whether the Supreme Court will take this historical context into consideration in future climate cases. The paper’s goal is to provide the necessary historical and contextual background to strengthen legal arguments in climate-related litigation. Facilitating a better understanding of past knowledge about climate change may help guide future policy decisions and actions to address the urgent issue of climate change.