Month: March 2022

Categories
United Kingdom

March 31, 1998 – another report about #climate and business in the UK

On this day in 1998 a report “Climate change : a strategic issue for business” was presented to British Prime Minister Tony Blair

An “Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment” had been asked to come up with the usual soothing words and blandishments and so it had delivered.

Blair had come to power with a promise to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 per cent by 2010. This at the time looked not too tricky because emissions were on a downward trend. But, oops, that was because of a) switching from coal to gas for some electricity generation and b) offshoring manufacturing.  And things got trickier and trickier. Turns out promises are easy, delivery not so much…

Why this matters

We should at least remember some of the past promises and glossy reports when looking at the new promises and glossy reports

What happened next

The emissions reduction target got pushed up to 60% by 2050 in 2003 or so (and then 80% b 2050 as part of the Climate Change Act 2008).

And the atmospheric concentrations continue to climb. Ha ha ha.

Categories
Cultural responses

March 30, 1992 – Thelma and Louise could teach humans a thing or three….

On this day in 1992 Thelma and Louise wins the Oscar for best original screenplay.

What on earth has this got to do with climate change?

Well, a throwaway line by Harvey Keitel’s cop character, Hal Slocumb,  sums up the human condition.

Another cop wonders aloud why these “girls” still haven’t been caught – are they really smart or just lucky? Hal Slocumb says “Don’t matter. Brains’ll only get  you so far, and luck always runs out…”

.

Our species, collectively, is very very “smart” – that is, technologically adept.  Opposable thumbs and a couple of millimiters of neocortex has been, well, wow. Sadly, we are also dumb as a rock, collectively, and it seems getting dumber.

We’ve been lucky so far, not to nuke ourselves on multiple occasions (probably more of them than the public knows about- “Imagine any mix up and the lot could go”). But if you load the dice against yourself for long enough, eventually your luck is gonna run out.  Here comes the 21st century.

FWIW, someone should do a re”-reading” of this film in the context of Carla Daggett’s “Petro-masculinities”

Categories
Australia

March 30, 2007 – Climate as “the great moral challenge of our generation” #auspol

On this day 15 years ago then-Opposition Leader Kevin “I’m from Queensland, I’m here to help” Rudd made a speech about “great moral challenge of our generation”  at the ALP climate summit at Parliament House, Canberra.

You can read more about this here, in a post by an incredibly intelligent, good-looking and kind individual who has given permission for linking. The conversation below the line is really really good…

Rudd was using the climate issue to make John Howard, Prime Minister and climate criminal since 1996, look outa touch. It was working, and kept working, all the way to the election. Australia cared about climate change.


Rudd then did fuck all as Prime Minister, using the climate issue to wedge the Liberals and Nationals, and then running scared after the failure of the Copenhagen conference and Tony Abbott’s arrival.

Labor folks still blame the Greens (for sake of clarity, I am not and never have been a member of ANY political party – Trot, Green Labour, Labor whatever). To admit that they chose and supported a wrong ‘un who has totally fucked Australian climate politics is just too much for them.

Categories
International processes Science Scientists UNFCCC

March 29, 1995- Kuwaiti scientist says if global warming happening, it’s not fossil fuels. #MRDA

On the 29th of March 1995, in Berlin at the first “Conference of the Parties” of the UNFCCC, Kuwait, put forward a scientist, who said that if global warming was happening, it wasn’t the fault of coal and oil. Of course, they would say that;  “Mandy Rice Davies applies.” You need to think about Kuwait, as a spoiler in all of this, along with Saudi in the US and Australia. And if you’re looking for the gory details, Jeremy Leggett’s book, The Carbon War is really good on this. 

What happened next?

COP1 ended with the Berlin Mandate – rich countries agree to cut emissions first.  Two years later, in Kyoto, the first agreement to reduce emissions was agreed for what that was worth (not much). Kyoto was not replaced, and eventually a laughable “pledge and review” system got implemented (Paris). And the emissions climb and climb.

Categories
Australia Coal

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

On March 28 2010, a flotilla of brave campaigners and citizens and protesters tried to stop the Newcastle coal port and briefly succeeded. This was a Rising Tide Australia action. 

Climate protest fleet attempts blockade of Newcastle coal port | Climate Citizen (takvera.blogspot.com)

The context is that Newcastle is a huge coal exporting port for both thermal coal and metallurgical coal. In 2010, while the Labour government had just abandoned its lame “carbon reduction pollution scheme” it was still talking about continuing to expand coal export infrastructure. 

And these human beings were trying to stop it. 

Why this matters. 

It’s easy to forget that there has been constant resistance to stupidity.  But there is that Schiller line, isn’t there – “against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.”

What happened next?

The protestors, of course failed, but that’s not their fault. And the exports have continued and are continuing against all common sense and care for future generations. 

Categories
Activism United States of America

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

On March 27th 1977 there was a major aviation disaster;  still the biggest loss of life in a single aviation accident. (Obviously, 911 cost more lives in toto). This was the collision by a KLM jumbo jet with a Pan Am jet in the Canary Islands. And there are various accounts of it and why it happened but the consensus is that the KLM chief pilot was an arrogant “my way or the highway” dick, and the inability of the co-pilot to challenge him [the co-pilot almost certainly understood that the control tower had NOT given them permission to take off, but wasn’t willing to challenge The Boss] led to hella lotta death. 

What are the lessons here?

Firstly that arrogant Dutch men are more trouble than they are worth. And the more we learn to tell them to shut up, the more we ignore them, the happier and safer everyone will be.

On a serious note we could learn a lot from the aviation industry, which is safer than ever (give or take some 787 Max disasters). In terms of notechs for social movement organisations, I think that would be really handy.

You can have the technical systems, but the human factor will still get you all killed. 


For more on “notechs”- 

Nobody really likes it when planes drop out of the sky full of passengers.
Categories
Science Scientists

March 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

On this day in 1979, a few weeks after the end of the First World Climate Conference, Wally Broecker, the oceanographer met with Exxon scientists who were studying climate change and fossil fuels.

Broecker, to his apparent dismay, had coined the had been the first to use the term global warming in an academic context. (According to Alice Bell’s book “Our Biggest Experiment”, he  offered 200 bucks to anyone who could find an earlier example so he wouldn’t be lumbered with the unwanted title. 

Broecker also famously later compared the climate system to a sleeping beast and suggested that we stop poking it with a sharp stick.

What’s Exxon in all this? Well, “Exxon knew”. Exxon was doing its own studies of the climate problem, the carbon dioxide problem in the late 70s, early 80s. And this involved talking to scientists who knew what they were talking about. And Broecker most certainly was one of the scientists who really knew what he was talking about 

You can read more about this at the truly excellent “Inside Climate News”

Wallace Broecker

See also the page on Inside Climate News about “Exxon: The Road not taken.”

Exxon: The Road Not Taken

Why this matters

We need to remember that Exxon knew, and that scientists, quite rightly will talk to different constituencies they are paid out of taxpayer funding, and they should talk to not just the grassroots groups, but the biggies. And we need to know that in 1979, there were people seriously worried about climate. And these weren’t just hippies living in communes. This was the elite and it would be another 9 or 10 years before the issue would successfully break through and the co2 concentration had gone up and more kit had been built, and more norms around production and consumption had been established. And yes, yes, the population had gone up too;  we have two problems. The one that we in the West really need to do something about is overconsumption, exploitation, imperialism, hyper-extractivism, murder, you name it. And once we’ve done all of that, and paid reparations, then we can start to lecture other people about having too many babies.

Categories
International processes IPCC Science

March 25, 1988- World Meteorological Organisation sends IPCC invites.

On this day in 1988 the World Meteorological Organisation, (the clue is in the name) sent out invites to be part of what is now known as the IPCC

“In the absence of an official US initiative, WMO took the lead and held discussions with UNEP on this proposal. Eventually, a slightly modified version was sent out by the Secretary General of WMO on March 25, 1988 to member governments inquiring whether their country would like to be represented on a proposed ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ (Obasi, 1988).”

Agrawala, S. (1998a, p 615)

The context is this

The discovery of the ozone “hole” gave atmospheric scientists a high profile and trust.  Atmospheric scientists had finally decided at a meeting hosted by WMO, UNEP and ICSCU,, in Villach, Austria, in October 1985, that the carbon dioxide problem they had been studying and talking about in-depth for roughly 15 years, needed proper policy responses

The right-wing administration of the US “President” Ronald Reagan was split, but mostly opposed to this. They DEFINITELY did not want independent scientists pushing them around.  So, we get an intergovernmental panel rather than an international one.  They key sources – but by no means the only ones –  for this, are

Agrawala, S. Context and Early Origins of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climatic Change 39, 605–620 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005315532386

Agrawala, S. Structural and Process History of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climatic Change 39, 621–642 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005312331477


What happened next

The IPCC first met in November 1988, in Geneva. Within a year and a half its first assessment report was ready. It was, of course, attacked and enormous attempts were made to water it down.  Things really got heated (ho ho) when the second assessment report came out.  That was very very nasty indeed…

Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates

Categories
Fossil fuels Greenwash United States of America

March 24, 1989 – Exxon Valdez vs Alaska. (EV wins)

On the March 24 1989, the Exxon Valdez, ran aground in Alaska. Another of the consequential oil spills like the Torrey Canyon (1967) , and the one in the March 1978 (the Amoco Cadiz).

 And that was followed, of course, by Deepwater Horizon. 

And the thing to remember is that it’s not the accidents that are the problem, itt’s the normal operating of the system. So here Imma point you at the Onion article about “Millions Of Barrels Of Oil Safely Reach Port In Major Environmental Catastrophe”

What’s interesting about the Valdez is it was probably the last time we thought things could be better. It spurred in the short term, Exxon to run a very effective publicity campaign about people scrubbing individual rocks and birds. And there was more loose talk about double hold oil tankers. In the longer term, they fought a successful ish rearguard action via the legal system and academia. And here we are. 

Then in 1997, one of my favourite references to this disaster is the Exxon is the movie Good Will Hunting where as part of his monologue about the dots between the National Security Agency and everyone getting fucked over, Matt Damon makes reference to a drunk captain who wants to slalom with the icebergs.

Check out the post for the 26th March, btw

Categories
Energy Science Scientists United States of America

March 23, 1989 – cold fusion!!

On March 23 1989, cold fusion was announced by a couple of overexcited scientists. (the gory details of why they came to be releasing this when they did can be found here).

The implication in fusion (hot or cold, but especially cold) is of limitless energy, which sounds like a good idea until you start thinking about how infantile human societies would actually use that limitless energy: we would just intensify our exploitation/exploration. [Comedy fact, the Portuguese have one word that covers both of those]. 

And limitless energy would accelerate our doom in all probability without some serious wisdom in our institutions. And I see no evidence of any wisdom in our institutions. (There may have been some, but we have moron-ified ourselves over the last 40 years or more.)

But anyway, this particular bout of cold fusion was quickly debunked, and there were many articles and books about what it all “meant.” Science and Technology Studies was then a relatively new thing.

And the following day…