‘My kind of American’
In this extract from his new book, atmospheric researcher remembers a lifechanging visit from an American scientist in the 1970s. The long-haired visitor tells Lowe the carbon dioxide monitoring programme he is running is for a pioneering US climate scien
In March 1971, I had a phone call from Athol Rafter. ‘‘Dave, there’s an American from Scripps coming to look at the CO2 programme out at Makara. He works for Dave Keeling.’’
Finally, someone who might have some answers. The American’s name was Peter Guenther, and Athol told me to pick him up from the airport. But I had no idea what he looked like!
The Alarmist, Dave Lowe
‘‘No problem,’’ said Rosemary (Lowe’s wife at the time). ‘‘Almost all young American men have crew-cuts.’’
The next day I waited as the passengers came off the flight. None of them had a crewcut. After all the other passengers had gone, I was left standing by the baggage claim beside him. a tall young man with shoulder-length hair, squarecut John Lennon glasses and carrying a cloth bag embroidered with coloured beads. In his shirt pocket I could see a pipe and a packet of tobacco. This was Peter Guenther.
Straight away he was asking me questions about New Zealand and our way of life, and seemed genuinely interested in everything I told him – I instantly warmed to
We drove out to the Hutt Valley in my old Austin A40, which he told me was the smallest car he’d ever been in. Communication was difficult – I had to repeat myself often because it was the first time he’d heard a strong New Zealand accent.
I discovered that Peter was on a kind of spy mission for Dave Keeling. He wanted to find out what was going on with the Makara data and what Arnold Bainbridge [Lowe’s American former boss in Wellington] had been up to. And also, what was this Dave Lowe character like?
This was the first time that I had learned anything in depth about Keeling. Up until this point, I had not even known that it was Keeling’s programme that I was running at Makara. Just 30 minutes with Peter explained things that had puzzled me all year. I had literally been in a communications blackout.
I found Peter a really cool dude. He had a master’s degree in chemistry and really understood atmospheric CO2, calibration and how the measurements were made. He’d trained under Dave Keeling for two years and was fully aware of the potential significance of the Makara data.
‘‘I assume you’d like me to book you into a hotel?’’ I asked Peter when we arrived in the Hutt Valley, not far from the INS.
‘‘Uh, no – if it’s OK with you, I’d rather stay at your place,’’ he said.
Rosemary and I were still living in the tworoom shack that was around 100 years old,
one of the original shepherd’s huts in the Hutt Valley. There was peeling paint and mould on the walls, and the plumbing and hot water system were highly erratic and ancient.
How was I going to put up a high-profile American scientist in such a place? Later I discovered that Peter lived in a rural commune and was not fazed at all. In fact, he welcomed the chance to live with New Zealanders rather than
stay in a hotel.
‘‘Well, if you don’t mind sleeping on the couch, that’s OK with me,’’ I said.
‘‘That’ll be great. I’m used to camping and sleeping rough.’’
When we arrived, the first thing Peter looked at was my record collection. ‘‘You like Eric Clapton?’’ He held up an early Cream album.
‘‘Hell yes!’’
We hit it off right away. Here was someone who enjoyed the Who, the Rolling Stones and most of the bands I liked – he’d even seen some of them live in concert. Where Bob and Skip [the other US scientists working on the project in Wellington]
had told me how primitive things seemed in New Zealand, Peter was interested in everything,
especially the environment. He’d already read a lot about New Zealand birds and knew about the walking tracks around the country. ‘‘This is my kind of American!’’ I thought.
The Alarmist, the full story of Dave Lowe’s decades-long struggle to track people’s impact on the climate, is available from Victoria University Press for $40.