Month: April 2022

Categories
International processes

April 11th, 1987 – A matter of… Primo Levi’s death

On the 11th of April 1987. Two things happen worthy of note. 

One, the World Resources Institute released its report “A Matter of Degrees: The Potential for Limiting the Greenhouse Effect”

Second. Primo Levi died either by suicide or accident

So let’s deal with those in turn. The World Resources Institute had been set up in 1982 by Gus Speth, ater his time in the Carter Administration, and the Council on Environmental Quality. WRI had been producing reports and hosting conferences and briefings and so forth. And this report coming in the aftermath of Villach 1985 and before another meeting in Villach and then Bellagio, was intended to throw more for once of a better expression, firewood on the fire, to increase the likelihood of international negotiations. In that, it was a success, and the failure of the negotiations is hardly the fault of people like Irving Mintzer (author of the WRI report). 

Primo Levi was an Italian chemist, and thinker and writer who had survived the concentration camp, Auschwitz and he had famously written “If Not Now, When”, et cetera. Hs body was found at the bottom of the stairwell in his apartment building in Milan. And it’s unclear whether he killed himself or toppled over by accident.

Three months earlier he had written a poem Almanac, which includes the lines 

“The glaciers will continue to grate, smoothing what’s under them” and 

“Earth too will fear the immutable Laws of the universe. Not us. We, rebellious progeny With great brainpower, little sense, Will destroy, defile…” 

It ends 

“Very soon we’ll extend the desert Into the Amazon forests, Into the living heart of our cities, Into our very hearts.”

See this rather excellent blog post by Bridget Mckenzie, @bridgetmck

Categories
Uncategorized

April 10th, 2010 – activists hold “party at the pumps”

On this day, April 10, in 2010, there was an attempt at a “party at the pumps” by Rising Tide. This was in the UK this was an attempt to use the reclaim the streets, street party blockade protesting that had worked so well in the late 90s, and arguably in the early noughties at point sources of carbon, ie petrol sates stations, (but they’re not actually point sources of carbon production, like power stations, they’re far more local.)

This did not “work”.  (Though for the counter view, see this – 

And it will continue probably not to work. This is an attempt at modifying an existing repertoire, and that’s praiseworthy. But on the whole, we don’t have the numbers for that. So what if they gave a party and nobody came? The cops also turned out in numbers. 

https://risingtide.org.uk/content/april-10th-party-pumps

Why this matters. 

Modifying a repertoire can work. Or it can fail.

What happened next?

Rising Tide and Climate Camp both gave up the ghost. For the following decade, there was “Reclaim the Power”. Now we’ve had Extinction Rebellion and “Just Stop Oil”.  And soon???

Categories
United States of America

April 9, 2019- brutal book review “a script for a West Wing episode about climate change, only with less repartee.”

On this day, on the 9th of April 2019,, a scathing review of the planning of Rich’s “Losing Earth” was published. The review, which you can read here, included this priceless observation

“Other than Sununu’s vindictiveness and human shortsightedness, we have very little sense of the forces arrayed against Hansen and Pomerance. The inattention to the fossil-fuel industry is most glaring, but Rich also fails to address the consolidation of business interests more broadly against efforts to decarbonize. Nor do we get a glimpse of the movements that might have responded otherwise—say, those outside DC organizing against Reaganomics. So reading Losing Earth often feels like reading a script for a West Wing episode about climate change, only with less repartee.”

FWIW IMO. Nathaniel Rich has told an interesting human scale story of a few individuals in the second crucial decade, the 1980s. But the reviewer is largely correct in what they’ve said. 

Why this matters. 

Mustn’t get bogged down in the he said/she said, the minutiae. Gotta see the big picture, but it can be tricky, especially when you’ve dug up fascinating factoids.

Categories
Australia UNFCCC

April 8, 1995 – Australian environment minister says happy with “Berlin Mandate”

On April 8 1995, Australian environment minister John Faulkner declared himself happy with the Berlin mandate that had emerged from the first COP..

Faulkner had just failed to get a carbon tax proposal through the cabinet of Labor. Prime Minister Paul Keating this was supposed to be a signal of Australia’s intent at the first Conference of the Parties of the UNFFFC held in Berlin in March, April.

The COP had finished despite the best efforts of Australia and other parties with a mandate that said industrialised countries of which Australia was one should turn up two years later at the third COP in order with concrete proposals and agreement for emissions reductions. 

1995  Noack, K. 1995 Faulkner sees way forward from Berlin. Canberra Times, 9 April.  

LONDON, Saturday: Australian Environment Minister John Faulkner said yesterday he was satisfied with the outcome of the Berlin climate change conference, saying it offered a way forward for all countries to combat global warming.

On the final day of the 11-day meeting, agreement was reached on a mandate for further negotiations on greenhouse gas emission reduction measures by developed countries.

Senator Faulkner, who was part of the group of ministers who hammered out the final agreement, said it was ultimately a successful conference given the wide range of interests represented.

“Australia’s very satisfied with the outcome of the group of ministers and the achievement of a mandate to negotiate a protocol,” he said from Berlin.

Why this matters. 

We have been failing to do more than agree to keep talking about climate change for a very very long time…

What happened next?

Faulkner was no longer environment minister after March of 96, when the Howard government took over the Berlin Mandate was agreed it took us to Kyoto in 97. And was useless and the carbon dioxide accumulates.

Categories
Ignored Warnings United States of America

April 7, 1980 – C02 problem is most important issue…”another decade will slip by” warns Wally Broecker to Senator Tsongas

On this day in 1980, the climate scientist Wally Broecker, the father of oceanography wrote to Democratic senator and future presidential hopeful Senator Paul TsongasPaul Tsongas. 

As historian Spencer Weart,( AIP.org:) “In 1980, the prominent geophysicist Wallace Broecker, who had spoken out repeatedly about the dangers of climate change, vented his frustration in a letter to a Senator. Declaring that ‘the CO2 problem is the single most important and the single most complex environmental issue facing the world,’ and that ‘the clock is ticking away,’ Broecker insisted that a better research program was needed. ‘Otherwise, another decade will slip by, and we will find that we can do little better than repeat the rather wishy washy image we now have as to what our planet will be like…'”

– Broecker to Sen. Paul Tsongas, 7 April 1980, “CO2 history” file, office files of Wallace Broecker, LDEO.

Why this matters. 

Scientists have been trying to get policymakers concerned about climate change for a very long time. Broker, as we saw earlier, had also engaged with Exxon.

This sort of lobbying is part of the effort to get elite policymakers sensitised to what’s going on and this is part of what Hart and Victor write about in their wonderful 1993 article.

What happened next?

Broecker kept trying to warn humanity, which kept ignoring him. Tsongas stood for President in ’92, but lost the nomination to Bill Clinton and died not long after of cancer

Categories
Australia

April 6, 2006 – the anti-climate dam of John Howard begins to crack…

On this day, sixth of April 2006, the “Australian Business Roundtable on Climate Change” released its first and I think only report, “The business case for early action,” a 25 page extravaganza of nice pictures and nice rhetoric..

The ABRCC was made up of insurance, banking and service sector outfits. (The manufacturing and extractive industries were conspicuously absent).

They were trying to combat the impression that John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia since March 1996, had been able to give of business was against climate action because it would destroy the economy.

It was not the first attempt to create a business pressure around climate action; WWF had been trying in 2003 or so. And of course, there were open letters and surveys and all sorts of other efforts before 2006.

Why it matters

Well, it doesn’t, but it reminds us that service sector (esp banking and insurance types, and sometimes “gas rather than coal” outfits are keen to seek out business opportunities, and to undermine the pro-coal/anti-carbon trading outfits. And that one of the ways they do that is via these sorts of gaudy one-offs…

What happened next

In retrospect, this report can be seen as one of the opening salvo softening up for what would happen later that year, which is one of these periodic explosions of concern about climate change that swept Kevin Rudd bless his cotton socks to power.

The ABCC to my knowledge to do much more. It had served its purpose. And once these loose coalitions have said their piece, it’s hard and “not worth it” to most of the members to start saying what they DON’T agree with – too much cost in co-ordinating, negotiating, reputation-managing for very little return. There are other ways to make their point, so these outfits tend to fold… 

Fun fact, the guy in charge of Westpac (big bank, and one of the signatories) at the time, David Morgan, is married to Ros Kelly, who was the third Australian was the the Australian Minister for the Environment back in 1990 when Australia made its first empty promise on emissions reductions. The Australian business elite have known about this issue for a very very long time.

Categories
Cultural responses United States of America

April 5, 2008 – Charlton Heston dies, star of first movie to mention the greenhouse effect

On this dayApril 5  2008 Charlton Heston died. What the hell has this got to do with climate change? 

Well, two things. One, superficially, Heston was the star of the first Hollywood movie to mention the greenhouse effect.  Soylent Green, released in April of 1973, has the following exchange

More deeply Charlton Heston is a good example of one of the problems that environmentalists face from a demographic and gender perspective. Namely, this Heston was a small-l liberal as a younger man and made the right noises about desegregation and racial justice. But as he aged, he became steadily more right wing, especially on the issue of gun control. And he became a spokesperson for the National Rifle Association (which is not a social movement organisation but is a lobby group disguised as a social movement organisation). “You’ll pry my gun from my cold dead fingers.” 

And this move is one that men often make. Especially men as they age, and it means that it’s really hard to sustain the concern for the environment, which becomes framed as a woman’s issue.

Why this matters. 

People take their cues from those they admire. We are very very social animals. And when a “macho” man’s man like Charlton Heston goes all anti-reflexive, it matters…

What happened next?

Well, last time I checked, Heston was still dead and the C02 was still accumulating.

Categories
Science Uncategorized United Kingdom

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

Okay, fourth of April 1978, the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government Sir John Ashworth writes a letter in which he says – well, here is Janet Martin-Nielsen (2018) Computing the Climate: When Models Became Political  Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2018) 48 (2): 223–245.

“The Meteorological Office’s ‘‘important and very helpful’’ work on Concorde, Ashworth wrote in a secret letter to Berrill, proved the value of climate modeling to U.K. interests—and since ‘‘the real worry is now the CO2 level in the atmosphere’’ he continued, the Meteorological Office needed to focus its energy in that direction   . J. M. Ashworth to K. Berrill, re: ‘‘Meteorological Research,’’ 4 Apr 1978, secret KEW, CAB 184/567W01211, 

The context for this is that the UK Government had started looking via its World Trends Study Group at the climate issue, also paying attention to what was happening in the United States. Also you have to factor in the the aftermath of the very hot summer of 1976, and the very cold winter in the US and Canada of 1977. 

And it’s clear that they were trying to get their head around the problem. But not everyone in the UK scientific establishment was at all sold on this. And it would require other entrepreneurs as well, like Solly Zuckerman and Herman Bondi to push further. Unfortunately, all of this culminated in 1980 with Ashworth trying to brief the new Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and her response was an incredulous “you want me to worry about the weather?”

And it would be another eight years before that she would do one of her turns because it turns out the lady was frequently for turning 

Why this matters. 

We need to puncture the myth that Thatcher deserves any credit whatsoever. She was warned a decade earlier,did nowt.

What happened next?

The problem stream entrepreneurs tried to get the issue paid attention to, but everything was against them.  And it had to wait until 1988 for attention to be paid….

Categories
Ignored Warnings United States of America

April 3, 1980 – US news anchorman Walter Cronkite on the greenhouse effect

On this day, third of April 1980, CBS News, anchored by Walter Cronkite had a two and a half minute story on climate change (by reporter Nelson Benton), hooked on some Senate hearings on the subject. 

Cronkite was a vastly respected news anchor. And famously, President Lyndon Johnson had said to Robert McNamara, “if we’ve lost Cronkite, we’ve lost the war.” 

Long before 1980, Cronkite already done stuff about the natural world – he threw CBS’s considerable weight behind “Earth Day” in 1970 – see this fascinating piece  

The Senate hearings were the work of people like X, Y, and they included a young Al Gore. 

“The CBS Evening News for April 3, 1980 carried a two minute 40 second story by Nelson Benton on the greenhouse effect based on a Senate Energy & Natural Resources committee hearing.

Why this matters. 

We need to remember that people, elites and everyone knew about this issue as early as 1980 in public and it was getting news coverage. For the love of Gaia, the problem is not information, the problem is sustaining attention, political and cultural pressure. That doesn’t come from ever more clever messaging, it comes from effective social movements and real democracy. But that is beyond our grasp now… But I digress…

What happened next?

Cronkite kept doing stuff he’d already done stuff about the natural world. And Gore famously kept hold of the issue and after the Villach meeting in 1985. Senators Republican, Democrat and Republican, stepped up the pressure. And that period between 93 That’s right. 85 and 88 is fascinating. 

Categories
Coal Fossil fuels Industry Associations United Kingdom

April 3, 1991- Does coal have a future?

On this day, third of April 1991, the World Coal Institute was holding a conference in London

Rubin, E. 1991. Environmental constraints: Threat to Coal’s Future? Keynote Session Presentation to the World Coal Institute Conference on Coal In the Environment London, England April 3, 1991

The question of coal’s longevity was because of environmental constraints was a hot topic, because negotiations were underway (or rather, Uncle Sam was busy slowing down attempted negotiations) for a global climate treaty.

The World Coal Institute had formed in the late 70s as a global body for the coal production industry. It has emerged out of a smaller group as these things are wont to do. And of course, by 1991, everyone  and their dog was still kind of talking about climate change if they weren’t talking about the war in Iraq. 

And what we learned is that there have been various technological options (not solutions – and eye-wateringly expensive) sitting alongside a certain amount of, so-called scepticism, leaning over into outright denial. 

Why this matters. 

We need to know that the industry lobbies are always active, always watching who is trying to figure out how to turn an issue  back into a problem and a problem into a non problem. And often they succeed at least in the short-term. That’s predatory delay for you.

What happened next?

The World Coal Institute would become the World Coal Association. And it would fight the “good” fight on resistance to regulations, and spouting hopey-changey nonsense about new technologies (CCS, HELE – the acronyms change, but the siren song of delay and putative technosalvation remains the same).. That is what these types of outfits do, and they generally do it quite well, if you’re a politician looking for cover to not do the right thing by future generations…