On this day in 1989, Baroness Hooper (because the UK has unelected members of parliament making consequential decisions) appeared before the UK Energy Select Committee, which was investigating the “greenhouse effect” as we then all called it.
According to the Financial Times (14/3/1989, page 15) she told the MPs that the Government had no plans to introduce a special tax on fossil fuels such as coal.
The final paragraph of the article is as follows –
[Hooper] said the Government was “extremely sceptical” of the call from a meeting of scientists in Toronto last year for a reduction of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent by the year 2005. It was neither feasible nor necessary at this stage, she said.
Hunt, J. (1989) Science support group to be formed at Met Office. Financial Times, 14 March, p.15.
Why this matters.
We should remember that this was potentially fixable. It’s almost certainly not now. But then, it mighta been…. And here we are.
What happened next?
The following month Margaret Thatcher held a full-day cabinet meeting about climate mitigation options. Will blog about that too – bet you cannot wait, can you?
But thanks to the “dash for gas” – buying gas in to accelerate the demise of the hated coal mine(r)s, emissions went down a bit, and the UK Government stopped pretending to give a shit about carbon emissions for another decade. What a species we are.
On this day in 2001, George “Dubya” Bush, recently selected as President by the Supreme Court, backed away from a promise to cut emissions he had made on the campaign trail.
,He sends a letter to Senator Jesse Helms and other awful human beings saying that’s what he’s gonna do. This is part of Bush’s awful behaviour at the guidance of Dick Cheney and other turds in the Republican Party, and thanks to their perceived short term self interest, and they thought that the climate problem was illusory or whatever. Here’s stuff from Malto Mildenberger‘s “Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics“, which you should read if you’re into all this stuff…
Why this matters.
“We” coulda fixed this – or at least slowed things down to give our wisdom time to catch up with our knowledge. “We” didn’t.
What happened next?
Bush pulled out of Kyoto shortly after this, and Kyoto limped on, becoming law because the Russians wanted membership of the WTO. Kyoto was ultimately replaced by a “Pledge and Review”.
On this day in 1963, the first ever policymaker meeting – in the West at least(1) – specifically around carbon dioxide bonding happened in New York under the auspices of Laurence Rockefeller’s organisation, the Conservation Foundation, (not to be confused with the Conservation Society launched in the UK three years later, and not funded by Rockefeller.)
The account of the meeting, which you can read here, had the snappy title “Implications of rising carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere; a statement of trends and implications of carbon dioxide research reviewed at a conference of scientists.”
Present at the meeting were Roger Revelle, Gilbert Plasss, Charles Keeling, and an Englishman called Frank Fraser Darling – someone we will return to…
The context was that as of 1959, it has become clear that carbon dioxide was indeed building up in the atmosphere, and that eventually, this would lead to warming of the planet. And this would lead to ice caps melting in flooded cities, changing weather patterns, etc.
But at this stage, in early 1963 the assumption was, this would be a problem in a couple of 100 years as per Svante Arrhenius
Why this matters.
The Conservation Foundation report of this symposium was not a best-seller, but it DOES pop up in the reference list of various books and articles over the rest of the decade, before it starts to be supplanted by later events with more information.
What happened next?
Revelle worked on a report for Lyndon Johnson’s science subcommittee with Margaret Mead Frank Fraser Darling would talk about the build up of co2 as a problem and his reef lectures for the BBC in November of 1969
And the CO2 would continue to accumulate
For more about the Rockefellers role in postwar environmentalism this article “The Eco-Establishment “by Katherine Barkley and Steve WeissmanRamparts Magazine, May 1970, pp. 48-50
Footnotes
(1) “Fedorov and Budyko were both key instigators of a specially convened meeting on the transformation of climate which took place in Leningrad during April 1961.40 This meeting, together with a related workshop the following June, represented the first focussed Soviet discussions concerning anthropogenic climate change” (Oldfield, 2018: 45).
Oldfield, J. (2018) Imagining climates past, present and future: Soviet contributions to the science of anthropogenic climate change, 1953e1991. Journal of Historical Geography 60 41- 51.)
This was one of a flurry of meetings after the emergence of the climate issue in the summer of 1988. In the lead up to discussions about a climate convention Noordwijk, Bergen, Cairo, etc.
Initiated by “the Netherlands, France and Norway … the conference declaration called for a ‘new institutional authority’ to combat global warming (Hague Declaration 1989, p. 1309). Although a number of major states were not invited (including the US and the USSR) or did not attend (as in the case of the UK), the fact that 17 heads of state or government were present reflected the growing prominence of climate change as a political issue” [source].
At this stage the USA, USSR and Australia were still actively resisting the idea of a global treaty on reducing climate change emissions. Because that’s really how they roll..
Of course, the Hague is where the people who slowed/stopped climate action belong for crimes against humanity. They won’t go there, of course, because they are from the rich nations. And justice is only dished out to homicidal maniacs, leading weak nations.
If we ever do hold crimes against humanity for delaying climate action trials, then the 1989 meeting can be dredged up…
Why this matters.
This early history has shaped everything that has followed
What happened next?
A climate convention began to be negotiated in 1991. The word “negotiation” basically means everyone tries to get the American government administration to act as if there’s a problem. And the American administration, resist and resist and resist until the proposals are piss weak. And then they reluctantly sign – that’s what’s called negotiation.
On this day in 2012 the famed and Nobel-Prize-winning scientist Sherry Rowland died. Rowland had been instrumental in the 1970s in translating scientific concern around the ozone-depleting effects of chlorofluorocarbons into policy action. (Ozone depletion concerns and action were key to the development of awareness of climate issues and the ability to “do” something about them).
As Rowland said, “What is the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true.”
You can read a lovely “in memoriam” about him here.
On this day in 2005, Australian politician Anthony Albanese said the following in parliament.
At the beginning of this century, we are at a crossroad. The science is clear and compelling: ecological decline is accelerating and many of the world’s ecosystems are reaching dangerous thresholds. Overexploitation of our natural resources, habitat loss from urbanisation and the clearing of forests for farmland, competition from introduced animals and plants, and climate change induced by a 30 per cent increase in atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are threatening the world’s diversity. The facts are these: since the industrial revolution average global surface temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius, the most dramatic rise for over 1,000 years; the five hottest years on record have occurred in the last seven years, the 10 hottest in the last 14; snow cover has decreased 10 per cent since the 1960s; and glaciers that have not retreated since the last ice age 12,000 years ago are now doing so.
The Howard government’s most significant failure is its decision to pursue an isolationist position on climate change….
You can read the full whack here.
The context is this – Australian civil society was still not up on its hindlegs about climate change, despite the country’s exquisite vulnerability, shameful international record and largely derisory domestic response. By the end of the following year, that would change….
What happened next
Well, “Albo” is now leader of the opposition. And there is an election coming. Watch this space.
Manchester-based artist Jackie Haynes writes a guest post of her own reflections.
Marking International Women’s Day by tracing an intersectional one-hundred-year thread from Mary Greg’s collection of objects, through writers, artists and a group of climate justice activists, to arrive at ‘The Empty Space’ in Manchester Art Gallery’s new Climate Justice Gallery.
The Mary Greg Collection
The copper objects from the Mary Greg Collection currently displayed in Manchester Art Gallery’s new Climate Justice Gallery are amongst other copper-related items from the public collection. The items have been selected by the Climate Justice Group to draw attention to the implications of a photographic print from Nyaba Leon Oedraogo’s The Hell of Copper Series (2008). Also exhibiting at the Manchester city-wide We Face Forward Exhibition in 2012, Oedraogo described the disastrous working conditions resulting from electrical waste materials coming from Europe and the United States.
“The dump at the Aglobloshie Market spreads over 10 kilometres. From dawn to dusk, dozens of young Ghanaians, from 10 to 25 years of age, exhaust themselves doing this, seven days a week. Their mission is to disassemble the old computers and burn certain plastic or rubber components to cull the precious copper, which will then be resold. Everything is done by hand or with iron bars, makeshift tools found among the refuse. They have neither masks nor gloves. There are not even any functioning toilets.”
‘The precious copper’ is recyclable without loss of quality and the International Copper Association estimates that 80% of the copper that has ever been mined remains in use. The copper comb exhibit from the Mary Greg Collection was excavated from Holborn Viaduct, London in 1866. Writing extensively on the Mary Greg Collection, Platt Hall’s curator Liz Mitchell explains how Mary Greg’s belief in the personal and spiritual growth to be found in paying close attention to the small things of life adds another dimension to her varied gifts to Manchester City Art Galleries and beyond. Her collections may embody a certain nostalgia for the past, but her motivation seems to have been to inspire the present and the future.[1]
Injustices illuminated by the contrasting provenance and perception of value of the collected objects and the photograph point towards and away respectively, from caring for the planet’s people and resources. The Introduction to Climate Justice Gallery states the intentions of using Manchester Art Gallery’s publicly-owned collections:
We have chosen to call this gallery Climate Justice because tackling climate change involves tackling social injustice. Those who do the least damage are being harmed the most. Those who hold the power and wealth are responsible for global warming. “They have the least reason to change.”
Joining the dots between climate change, colonialism and capitalism can help us to understand the structural changes needed.
Art collections are often displayed to reflect the stories of the powerful. This is unjust. We need a more democratic approach to history, because we need radical change.
Manchester gets much credit for its ‘radical’ history, the industrial revolution and the cotton trade. Taking pride in our city’s history must come with the acknowledgement of the damage caused by industrialisation and its links to colonialism.
The gallery can be a starting point for reviewing this history. Over time, we will use the gallery and collection to encourage collective learning and action on climate justice through:
Learning from history
Activating a different future
Scrutiny of policy makers
Collective working and care
The injustices of climate change highlighted within this gallery do not end when you leave this space. You’ll find them throughout the art gallery, all over the city and beyond.
Our labels (next to the artworks) include the parts per million (PPM) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in the year each artwork was made. The “safe level” of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been assessed as 350ppm; we passed this level in 1987.[2]
The curation and grouping together of the artworks around a theme such as copper, is an example of efforts made by the group to stimulate debate needed to address accumulating and overlapping injustices.
Noah’s Ark
Cross-cutting themes are deliberately abundant in the exhibition, radiating from each artwork and waiting to be activated by the thoughts and conversations of whoever happens to be looking at it. Manchester Art Gallery has three Noah’s Arks in its collection, practically a flotilla.
One Ark and its animal and human residents, dating back to 1840 and by an unknown maker, is placed below Francisco de Goya y Lucientes’ Flying Folly from the Disparates (1816), an etching and aquatint on paper. Together these works suggest a sea, land and airborne narrative of climate catastrophe. They form an ‘embankment’ to ‘The Empty Space’, a deliberately curated gap in the exhibition.
The ‘embankment’ on the other side of The Empty Space includes A Beach In My Living Room (2010-11), a photographic print taken in Ghana by Nyani Quarmyne. In the interpretation panel, group member Rabia Begum describes how
“Numour Puplampo of Totope has been forced to abandon his home as it has been buried by the sea. This image shows the nature of Totope where Climate Change is very real. A Ghanian man standing behind a window looks directly at the camera, as the pink and red painted walls begin to peel. The man and room are half-submerged in the sand. Whilst the West looks at “mitigation”, Africa looks at “adaptation”. Quarymyne explores how the affluent find ways to remain comfortable and the less affluent must find ways to adapt to this. “How would you adapt to this?””
A Beach In My Living Roomspeaks across The Empty Space to the flood narrative of the Ark, but The Empty Space is like a parting of the waves, held back to make way for the arrival of more artwork by global majority female artists, currently and conspicuously lacking in Manchester City Art Gallery’s collections. Watch this space and check back next International Women’s Day for a just and representative cultural tidal wave addressing this injustice.
Jackie Haynes joined the Climate Justice Group to make climate emergency-related links between Manchester Art Gallery and Platt Hall’s collections. This came about as a result of Platt Hall commissioning TSAP (Terrace Square Artists Project, Moss Side) to respond to collections with new artwork to display in Platt Hall’s public-facing windows in Platt Fields Park.[3]
No! Ah!(dismay followed by ideas) (2020) tells the story of the 22 modern day cousins of the 19th Century Noah’s Ark animals from Platt Hall’s Mary Greg Collection. The animals end their year-long trek towards Platt Hall Climate Emergency Hub, which began following the announcement by Manchester City Council of the Manchester Climate Emergency Declaration on 10th July, 2019. On the way to sheltering in the hub, they walk and talk through how they’d like to emerge from the emergency into a better world. The following video is the first in an ongoing series of both generations of animals’ climate activism. The video is silent because the animals are speechless with dismay, but quietly determined.
[1] Mitchell, Elizabeth Sarah (2018) ‘Believe me, I remain…’: the Mary Greg collection at Manchester city galleries. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University p.265
[2] The Manchester Art Gallery Climate Justice Group started meeting online in July 2020. We are gallery staff, artists and activists based in Manchester:
Rabia Begum: Artist, activist and member of Manchester Climate Change Youth Board
Janet Boston: Curator: Craft and Design, Manchester Art Gallery
Kooj Chuhan: Digital artist, filmmaker, activist and director of Crossing Footprints
Ana Lucia Cuevas: Artist and filmmaker
Clare Gannaway: Curator: Contemporary Art, Manchester Art Gallery
Jackie Haynes: Artist, art practice-based researcher.
Bev Hogg: Collections and Assets Assistant, Manchester Art Gallery
Jane Lawson: Artist and fungus grower
Adam Peirce: Core member of Climate Emergency Manchester
Hannah Williamson: Curator: Fine Art, Manchester Art Gallery
Emmanuela Yogolelo: Singer-songwriter, storyteller, music facilitator, cultural leader and producer
On this day in 1996 at a meeting of the “Ad Hoc group, for the Berlin Mandate” – I will explain – Trinidad and Tobago threw shade at Australia for its definitions of equity.
So in 1995, at the first “Conference of the Parties” (COP), the Berlin Mandate had been agreed, and it said that rich countries would have to come up with a deal for the third COP which was to be held in Kyoto. The rich countries would agree to some preliminary emissions cuts.
The word “equity” was then fought over, and Trinidad and Tobago members of AOSIS, were not impressed with the Australian Government’s attempt to define equity in ways that would suit them.
To quote from the Earth Negotiation Bulletin –
“TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO said Brazil’s proposal on QELROs provided a logical way forward and Germany’s proposal provided impetus to the work of the AGBM. He said the gas-by-gas approach is the simplest and most effective, and expressed surprise at Australia’s idea of equity. Each country could propose an idea of equity that suits its own needs.”
Why this matters.
We need to remember that poor countries have been calling for justice, and rich countries have been telling them to go fuck themselves for a very long time. Indeed, a lot earlier than 1996.
What happened next?
The Berlin Mandate got to Kyoto. And a very weak deal was made, that both United States and Australia then pulled out of. The Kyoto Protocol finally became law without those two countries. In 2005. Negotiations then began to replace it, which led to the so-called Bali Roadmap to Copenhagen. And Copenhagen failed. And here we are 13 years later, having reverted to the Japanese concept of “pledge and review,” which is all we’re going to do. And those small island states are completely fucked.
On this day in 2009. Peter Mandelson, then Secretary of State for business, launched the very brief, glossy, “low carbon industrial strategy” of the United Kingdom.
The context is the global financial crisis had made it possible to talk about industrial strategy again. For the previous 20 plus years, to do so, in the UK, was to put a target on your back and to write a career suicide note, because you were clearly an interventionist communist “beer sandwiches at number 10” kind of person.
Why this matters.
We need to remember that what is “possible” (even just to talk about) is most often shaped by events that have nothing to do, in particular, with the issue at hand. So, the GFC opened up a discursive space, which has kinda-sorta been occupied and maintained – whether that discursive space has made policy implementation as opposed to announcements is a question for another day or for a research fellowship.
What happened next?
The industrial strategy went nowhere, because everyone knew the Brown Government was toast. The Coalition Government that replaced it came up with “The Carbon Plan”, then another one, then another one. And here we are.
On this day in March 5 1950, Jule Charney and Jonny von Neumann produced the first computer simulation of the weather. Who were these people? Jules Charney was, according to Wikipedia considered “the father of modern dynamical meteorology, Charney is credited with having “guided the postwar evolution of modern meteorology more than any other living figure.”
And in 1979, he helmed what’s now known as the Charney report, which told the politicians that yes, there was no reason to doubt that a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would lead to a three degree temperature rise.
Jonny von Neumann was Hungarian, possibly the smartest person who’s ever lived. And in 1955 he would warn Fortune magazine of the buildup of carbon dioxide shortly before his death in early 1957.
Why this matters.
The work Neumann and Charney did was foundational for the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, set up in 1963 under NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to model the atmosphere.
Computer simulations, computer models of the climate have been extremely important for creating the understanding (and global awareness) of weather and climate. And there is a book by Paul Edwards called A Vast Machine which will tell you a lot more.
What happened next?
It would be another five or six years before the buildup of carbon dioxide started to impinge properly on people’s consciousness.
