Well, sort of. We didn’t know, for sure, much of anything about CO2. But we did know, for sure about smog. And that is what everyone was focused on back then. Clean air rules, cleaner burning of oil, less emissions and a bit of higher mpg. But higher mpg was more about lower gasoline costs.
https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/about/history
On August 30, 1967, California’s elected leaders came together to unify statewide efforts to address severe air pollution. Governor Ronald Reagan approved the Mulford-Carrell Air Resources Act to create the State Air Resources Board, committing California to a unified, statewide approach to aggressively address the serious issue of air pollution in the state.
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) was a merger of the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the California Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board. That same year, the Federal Air Quality Act of 1967 was enacted, giving California the ability to set its own more stringent air quality rules due to California’s unique geography, weather and expanding number of people and vehicles.
In fact, the history of California’s pioneering efforts to reduce air pollutants dates back even further. The first recognized episodes of ‘smog’ occurred in Los Angeles in the summer of 1943.
Mike