On this day, June 8, 1973, the Australian Treasury released a report on economics and growth that even mentioned… climate change. Here’s a newspaper report first.
“The other difficulty in assessing resources policy is that the term first appeared in Australian Government circles last year from the Department of Foreign Affairs and was based on the assumption that resources were finite and therefore somebody should be thinking about the implications for the future and producing policies on development, use and sales.
“The Treasury Economic Paper No 2, ‘Economic Growth: Is it Worth Having?’, published today, pours a bucket of cold water on that ‘assumption, arguing that resources are not finite, that they are dynamic, growing in line with technology and demand. As an example it points out that back in the ’30s the iron ore at Pilbara was known, but it was not a resource because there was not the technology to mine it economically.
Davidson, G. 1973. Planning ahead for wise use of Australia’s resources. Canberra Times, 8 June, p.2. [Trove]
On this day, 7th June 1971, South Australian John Coulter appeared on the ABC discussion programme “the Monday Conference.”
“It all started in 1970, when Dr John Coulter, later a Senator and leader of the Australian Democrats, met with eminent gynaecologist Derek Llewellyn Jones to establish ZPG in Australia. Over the next six months they met with leading scientists to formulate a full page open letter in the Australian newspaper in 1971 entitled “To Those Who Shape Australia’s Destiny”. It urged the Australian Government to investigate not only the population that Australia could support over the long term but also the details of a balanced economic system, that is, a system in which economic productivity is balanced against the capacity of the environment to maintain itself.”
“As a consequence of this open letter, John and others were invited to a debate on population on the new and influential ABC TV program Monday Conference in 1971. This led to Paul Ehrlich being invited to appear on a later program. Paul’s appearance there and subsequent lectures around Australia had a tremendous impact.”
Here’s a couple of grabs of what Coulter said, 51 years ago.
and
Why this matters.
There was knowledge for those who wanted it. Our problem has not been, since then, one of information, but ability to “maintain the rage” at an individual and collective level.
(“Maintain the rage” is a mid-70s slogan, that only decrepit Australians would know)
What happened next?
We ignored the warnings, went back to sleep. Woke periodically, as the house burned to the ground. So it goes.
On this day, 6th June 1977, German climate scientist Hermann Flohn gave a talk entitled “Whither the Atmosphere and Earth’s Climates?” At the “Growth without Ecodisasters?” conference, aka “the Second International Conference on Environmental Future (2nd ICEF), held in Reykjavik, Iceland, 5-11 June 1977.”
Among other gems, this –
“There is no question that the impact of Man on the climatic system has now reached a level near to that of natural climatic fluctuations, and that we are on the fringe of anthropogenic climatic fluctuations on a global or at least a hemispheric scale.” “
And this
“The present situation in the field of climate modelling, and the multitude of (mostly non-linear) feedback mechanisms within the climatic system preclude an early solution to problems concerning the prediction of climatic variations, even if we accept the above-mentioned assumptions without further discussion. In addition to this, the growth-rates of energy consumption,. and of the C02 content of the atmosphere and likewise of other trace-gases, depend on many social and economic developments and on political decisions: they are also largely unpredictable.”
You can get hold of a copy of Flohn’s talk here.
Meanwhile, here’s something he had had published a couple of months prior.
On this day, 5 June, 1993, Green Groups tried to keep the show on the road, despite the evident contempt of Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating for all matters green (because, well, what else can they do?)
Anon. 1993. Top Green Group plans March for the Future. Green Week, May 25, p.3.
The Australian Conservation Foundation public launch of Environment Week at Darling Harbour will feature a March for the Future through city streets on June 5, World Environment Day.
And 18 years later in 2011, on the same day of the year,, Green Groups try to keep the show on the road, because, well, what else can they do. Already sold down the river by one Labor Prime Minister, they try to get behind another minimalist technocratic approach (because, well, what else can they do?)
For more about this, see this news report, from which I grabbed the image above..
Why this matters.
We’re caught in some traps, that are not entirely “our fault,” but we don’t even recognise them as traps. We just see them as normal, inevitable, like a goldfish (is capable of) seeing water…
What happened next?
The people who had to Say Yes – MPs, said yes later in 2011. Then a new bunch of MPs said “No,” and the Emissions Trading Scheme was ended.
So, a slightly different take on “All Our Yesterdays” – I will look at three events that occurred on June 4, but, as per the title, across seven years. These nicely summarise the arc of concern, hedging to effective resistance to action.
First up – in the first flush of newfound concern about The Environment, a “get together” when such satellite link-ups were relatively rare (but by no means unheard of).
Anon, 1989. Environment focus of global TV show. Canberra Times, 4 June p. 3.
SYDNEY: Australians play a part in a television program on the environment to be seen live in almost 100 countries today. Our Common Future, based in New York, will bring celebrities and world leaders together to spearhead the push towards environmental awareness.
The New York Times was lukewarm at best –
The oddest, most incoherent global television broadcast since the 1989 Academy Awards took place on Saturday afternoon. ”Our Common Future,” a five-hour program relayed to about 100 countries, was intended to create awareness of environmental problems and to urge global cooperation. For five hours, broadcast live from Avery Fisher Hall with material from the Soviet Union, England, Australia, Poland, Norway and Brazil, the program mixed musical performances with pro-environmental statements, a format akin to Live Aid, with which it shared a producer (Hal Uplinger) and director (Tony Verna).
Unlike Live Aid, the program was not a benefit, and it was less a live concert than a staged event; the audience was largely an invited one, and many of the performances were on tape. It was also considerably lower in star power than Live Aid, with Sting, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Diana Ross, Joni Mitchell, R.E.M. and Kenny Loggins as its best-known names – although an African tawny eagle stole the show when it flew from the stage to roost on the second balcony.
And three years later, after a global treaty was “negotiated”, we have this –
“Australian signs the UNFCCC Roz Kelly (Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories), Australia signs UNCED climate change convention, media release, 4 June 1992.
Australia’s new Prime Minister, Paul Keating couldn’t be arsed to go (almost all other world leaders attended). Meanwhile, the Liberal National Party were already throwing shade –
“The opposition’s delegate to UNCED in 1992, for example, had criticized the Labor Government’s willingness to give away Australia’s sovereign rights and had emphasized the debilitative economic costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions”.48
CPD, Senate, 4 June 1992, p. 3350.Matt McDonald, 2005 Fair Weather Friend
And, sure enough, once they were in charge again, this –
Australian industry has applauded the Federal Cabinet’s decision yesterday to oppose a targets and timetables approach to international climate change negotiations, made on the eve of World Environment Day today.
The Howard Government’s position effectively reaffirms that taken by the Keating government and its minister for the Environment, Senator John Faulkner.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Alexander Downer, the Minister for the Environment, Senator Robert Hill, and the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Warwick Parer, said in a joint statement: “Australia will insist that the outcome of current international negotiations on climate change safeguards Australia’s particular economic and trade interests.”
Mr John Hannagan, chairman of the Australian Aluminium Council’s major policy group, said industry welcomed this statement, “reinforcing its no-regrets position as its negotiating stand at the forthcoming Geneva talks”.
Callick, R. 1996. Coalition backs industry on climate change. The Australian Financial Review, 5 June, p.2.
Why this matters.
These things follow a pattern – excited/exuberant “we can fix this,” (1989) then some sort of legislation (usually quite weak – 1992), then the pushback even from that…
What happened next?
We went through more waves of excitement, legislation, pushback. On a couple of occasions (2006-2009, 2018-2021). It is connected to what I call “the emotaycle.”
On this day, June 3 1989 the Australian Liberal Party’s environment spokesman told reporters about their ambitious environmental policies for the upcoming Federal election.
THE Federal Opposition is preparing a separate “climate policy” bringing together all issues relating to world climate change.
The document, compiled by a climate policy task force, is expected to be released within a fortnight after endorsement by shadow cabinet.
The Opposition Environment spokesman, Senator Chris Puplick, said yesterday: “The policy will take in the greenhouse effect, the ozone layer, industrial pollution, recycling, tree-planting and climate research.
“At the moment these issues are scattered over a number of policies and it’s an attempt to integrate them and find out where there might be any gaps. Obviously, it will also update things in the light of new standards being set and new technology being introduced.”
Senator Puplick criticised the proposal by the Federal Environment Minister, Senator Graham Richardson, for a referendum to increase the Commonwealth’s powers to override the States on environmental issues.
“I think it is just a bit of very silly kite-flying in the sense that firstly you would have enormous problems in actually drawing up a piece of legislation to amend the Constitution,” he said.
Jones, B. 1989. Libs endorse ‘Climate Policy’. Sun Herald, 4 June, p.5.
The context was that ozone hole/the greenhouse effect had exploded onto the scene the year before. The European elections – and the Tasmanian state elections – of May 1989 had made politicians think that votes were to be had in the green… It did not last very long, of course.
Why this matters.
We need to remember that there was a brief moment of “competitive consensus” way back at the beginning of the climate issue, but it did not last. The pressures pulling apart “right-wing” parties are still there – the need for votes, and the need also to protect continued capital accumulation in the same vein…
What happened next?
The incumbent Australian Labor Party squeaked home at the March 1990 Federal Election, thanks to small-g green voters (the Green Party did not exist yet) preferencing them over the Liberals, despite the Liberal Party’s more ambitious targets. Puplick’s career was toast, and the Liberals decided they had been stitched up by the Australian Conservation Foundation (the largest green group), leading to decades of suspicion and animosity.
(For an account, see Paul Kelly’s “The End of Certainty”)
See also (and thanks to the person who tweeted it! this I wrote for The Conversation.
On this day, June 2nd, 1989 a good article with a bad title was published, summarising then current stances on “the greenhouse threat”.
Hansen, via his testimony almost a year previously, had become one target for those who were seeking to dismiss long-standing ‘greenhouse’ concerns.
Hansen had already been on the receiving end of an attempt to silence him by the Bush Administrations OMB, which had been revealed in May by Senator Al Gore. Hansen had been on the receiving end of this sort of pressure in 1981, and it would continue throughout the rest of his career. That is what happens when you have some inconvenient truths to tell…
Why this matters.
We need to remember that titles are rarely chosen by the author, and that just as you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, an article might be more than what is suggested or (oftentimes) less – the so-called ‘bait and switch’.
What happened next?
Hansen kept doing what a decent scientist should do – researching, reporting on their findings, refusing to be shut up.
On this day, June 1, 1992, President George H.W. Bush, says that a habitable planet is an extremist demand.
“We cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the United States. We cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going extreme on the environment.”
George Bush at UNCED, quoted in the Guardian, 1 June 1992 –
Q Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?
MR. FLEISCHER: That’s a big no. The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.
Why this matters.
What is sacred is beyond discussion. It’s a classic “de-agendaising” technique, where if you push the issue, you cast yourself into the outer darkness.
What happened next?
The USA government ratified the UNFCCC at the Rio Earth Summit, and has spent the last 30 years rendering it meaningless, and basically doing the bidding of various fossil fuel lobbies (yes, it is more complicated than that, but not MUCH more complicated).
On this day, June 1st 1965, Tom Lehrer sang his song “Pollution” at the hungry i nightclub in San Francisco, as part of his “That was the week that was” gig.
Lehrer had basically “retired” from his tours, when asked to write topical songs for a weekly satirical TV show called “That was the week that was” (the songs were brought together in an album called “That Was The Year That Was”).
The song, picking up on growing concerns about air, water, noise and – well – everything – pollution, contains priceless lyrics such as
If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air!
YEAR: 1965 Lehrer singing “Pollution” at the hungry i
