Turns out “A group at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) has explored several possible C02 games. A framework built around impacts of climatic change, scientific uncertainty, external factors, and policy options of prevention, adaptation, and compensation is described in this article. The framework is designed to raise questions of what could happen to whom, when, and to what effect.”
On this day the atmospheric carbon dioxide level was 340.46 ppm Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
The game is the game, and the game is rigged.
What happened next?
We kept burning the fossil fuels, and building the infrastructure to burn ever more fossil fuels.
Sawyer, in four pages, summarised what was known and what could be reasonably expected in the short-term (up to the year 2000).
In September 2007, 35 years later, the Australian meteorologist Neville Nicholls had a letter in the same journal, argued that “Sawyer’s prediction of a reversal of this trend, and of the correct magnitude of the warming, is perhaps the most remarkable long-range forecast ever made.”
On this day the atmospheric CO2 level was 324.84 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters
It is unfair to blame politicians for not having acted in 1972. But they could/should have started paying attention then. By the late 1970s there really was enough certainty among scientists for real action to begin (to be clear, real action has still not – 40 years on from that putative deadline – begun. Oh well).
What happened next?
Sawyer kept working.
As Agar (2015) notes “In 1974, the Met Office had marked an expanding interest in climate by starting a working party on world climatology, ‘with specific emphasis on climatic change’, under J.S. Sawyer, the Met Office’s director of research.”
Sawyer was asked by the Cabinet Office in 1976 for his opinion of American climate scientist Reid Bryson (see All Our Yesterdays post about that here).
On this day, August 31, 2005 the “Stop Climate Chaos” coalition was launched in the UK – the usual suspect NGOs big and small.
“Up to 500 campaigners formed a giant human banner next to the London Eye to launch a major new alliance. Eighteen groups representing millions of supporters have created the UK’s biggest climate change coalition.
“The Stop Climate Chaos group wants to put pressure on the government to reduce gas emissions. At the G8 summit, the US and UK called for greater investment in clean technology to replace Kyoto-style curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. But others warn new technology will come too late and emissions targets are needed to tackle the problem. The group of volunteers lined up along London’s South Bank to form a giant “human banner” in Jubilee Gardens in the shape of the group’s logo.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 378.9 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
We’ve had coalitions of NGOs. They tend to be “lowest conman denominator”, with the most staid organisations vetoing anything at all useful, so that even a march comes to be seen as “edgy.”
FFS.
What happened next?
The terminally stupid “wave” march in December 2009 was the end of the road for “Stop Climate Chaos”, and, effectively, that particular “wave” of climate concern. It was avoidable, but would have required guts and brains that outfits like Stop Climate Chaos did not have. So it goes. There are other outfits now, I think there is one called the “Climate Coalition”. All failed, all useless. We’re toast.
“protesters besieged the Marrickville office of Labor MHR and minister, Anthony Albanese. News reports record that ‘angry’ demonstrators jeered and booed: one ‘female protester grabbed Mr Albanese by the tie and called him “gutless” and a “maggot”’ (AAP 2011). This was one of a series of anti-carbon tax protests held during 2011–12.”
(Ward, 2015: 225) See also – Lentini, R. 2011. Democracy-is-dead mob takes its anger to Anthony Albanese’s door. Daily Telegraph 2 September.
On this day the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was 390.33ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
We need to remember that this happened, that there are people who will scream blue murder at the smallest effort to do anything about climate change
What happened next?
The legislation got through. Then it was repealed by the Liberal-National Party government. Albanese… dunno what he did next..
On Monday 30 August 1971 I watched biologist Professor Paul R. Ehrlich from Stanford University on the ABC’s Monday Conference. I was twenty-three. Ehrlich was interviewed by Robert Moore and questioned by a studio audience. It was my first encounter with environmentalism as opposed to a single environmental concern. Here was someone describing things I had long suspected were true but which had lain unformed in my consciousness…
(Carr, 2008:354)
Reading the thirty-three pages of transcript today, my attention spikes when an unnamed audience member asks:
“There was a paper in the New Scientist a few months ago by a physicist who estimated that we could only afford to increase the temperature of the earth’s surface by 3.5 degrees or we would probably flood most of the earth with the water which is now in ice, and we’ve already increased it by one degree, and if we keep producing energy and power from any source, no matter how much the resources we have, you can’t just do it, surely this is relevant?”
Ehrlich’s reply deserves to be weighed word by word, because here was the first emergence in mass media – and I did not see its significance – of the notion of global warming. Remember, this is 1971 and we were looking at this issue ‘through a glass darkly’. Let me quote Ehrlich’s reply – and emphasise the key phrases that pointed to catastrophe.
“The whole question of atmospheric dynamics and what’s happening to the climate is a very difficult one, and certainly it’s absolutely correct. If we continue on the long-range energy course we’re on, sooner or later we’ll melt the polar icecaps and we’ll all be swimming around at least in the coastal area. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple though because you see a great deal of material is being added to the atmosphere in the form of smog which tends to cool the planet, and unfortunately even beyond this we don’t understand enough about atmospheric dynamics though for instance the general warming trend in the planet may very well make Sydney colder, ad the disaster of all this is that when you change the climate you hurt agriculture. It doesn’t even matter [page break] if you change it for the better because agriculturalists like everybody else are conservative. You look around in New South Wales, you know, when you have one of these once in a million year droughts that you have every nine years […] So the whole question of atmospheric dynamics is under detailed study now by large groups of people – everybody’s scared – the recent study from MIT said we haven’t ruined the biosphere yet (it just came out about three weeks ago) but we’re right on the verge and we had better be very careful, but unfortunately we don’t have enough scientific evidence yet to know exactly what’s going to happen first.”
(Carr, 2008:354-5)
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 325.43 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
We knew. We know we knew.
What happened next?
Australia kept digging up and exporting fossil fuels. Some people did very nicely indeed out of it, thank you. Future generations? Not so much.
On this day August 30 1990, the IPCC’s meeting in Sundsvall, Sweden featured attempts by the USA and Australia to water down policy findings.
The IPCC had been set up in 1988, in part to stop climate scientists being too independent and making a repeat of what happened over ozone less likely (The Reagan Administration had felt ‘bounced’). It had delivered its first report ahead of the Second World Climate Conference (which had been pushed back a few months so that it could also serve as the starting point for international negotiations for the impending climate treaty).
Some nations (but not – at this point – Australia) had said, with varying degrees of sincerity/seriousness, that they would try to cut their emissions by 20 per cent by 2005. This target had been agreed at a conference in June 1988, and so was known as the “Toronto Target” (Some NGOs at Toronto had been pitching even higher, btw).
The Australian Federal Labor Government was wrestling over this – The previous Environment Minister, Graham Richardson, had lost a Cabinet battle over it in May 1989. HIs successor, Roz Kelly, was still trying to get it through, in the face of opposition – e..g. A “Labor Party’s caucus primary industries and resources committee report, [chaired by] Brian Courtice (Qld). The report said the Government had been conned by green groups and would risk future electoral success if it continued to “appease” them.”
So, anyway, against that backdrop, this is entertaining –
“Mrs Kelly said reports last week that the Australian delegation to the International Panel on Climate Change in Sweden [IPCC 4th Session SUNDSVALL 27-30 August 1990] had supported moves by the United States to water down its policy findings were being investigated. The delegates had been told before leaving for the meeting to support the Toronto targets.”
My Conversation piece about the Sundsvall meeting here.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
There are no “pure” processes from which we fall. Everything is messy, contested. Organisations (states, corporations etc) defend their interests, try to shape narratives.
What happened next?
A weak weak treaty was agreed in 1992.
Since 1990, human emissions have gone up by about 67% per cent. The age of consequences is here for some (ironically mostly those least to blame) and is imminent for everyone.
On this day, August 29, 1990, the Australian mining and forestry industries – so long accustomed to freezing the greenies out of policymaking forums, had a tantrum.
“The mining and forestry industries last night threatened to pull out of the Government’s sustainable development consultations unless the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, repudiated highly critical comments by the Minister for the Environment, Mrs Kelly.
In a speech to the Fabian Society last night, Mrs Kelly attacked the Australian Mining Industry Council and the National Association of Forest Industries for their views on sustainable development.
Mrs Kelly said AMIC’s idea of a sustainable industry was “one in which miners can mine where they like, for however long they want. It is about, for them, sustaining profits and increasing access to all parts of Australia they feel could be minerally profitable even if it is of environmental or cultural significance”.”
Garran, R. 1990. Mining, forestry groups threaten to leave talks. Australian Financial Review, 30 August.
On this day the ppm was 353 ppm. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Sometimes, for reasons to do with public pressure, the normally closed shop of government (politicians and civil servants) and industry is prised open, briefly… It doesn’t last, and it rarely ends well…
What happened next?
The Ecologically Sustainable Development Process ended up happening, and some decent suggestions got put forward by various green groups, especially folks from the Australian Conservation Foundation. And it all got filed in the “circular file” thanks to the next Prime Minister, Paul Keating, and Federal bureaucrats (see earlier post this month!). Turns out the state is not a wise neutral arbiter. Who knew…
On this day , August 28, 1971, a snarky opinion piece appeared in the New York Times, written by an oil lobbyist called Eugene Guccione (not the Penthouse guy!). It ran with the now-all-too-familiar sneers and (deliberate?) misunderstandings of what was being said.
A few days later, scientist Stephen Schneider wrote a good rebuttal, his first ever letter to a newspaper.
UPDATE – Drake was not the beginning. Two years previously, some Romaninans had been at it in the city of Ploiesti (h/t to Jonathan Schofield – @schofield).
Meanwhile, as @AmitavGhosh has pointed out
This is actually not true. In Yenangyaung, Burma, commercial oil wells had existed long before the 19th century.
Wikipedia here – “home to one of the world’s oldest petroleum industries, with its first crude oil exports dating back to 1853”
But that’s only crude oil exports. You’ve also got this.
Yenangyaung (or Yenan Chaung) can be translated as ‘creek of stinking water’ and the fact that ‘yenan’ became the Burmese word for ‘oil’ gives a clue to what those early travellers witnessed. In 1755 George Baker and John North en route to King Alaungpaya’s capital, Shwebo, found “about 200 families who are chiefly employed in getting Earth-oil out of Pitts (sic)”. Forty years later, in 1795-96, Major Michael Symes was leading a delegation from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava at Amarapura and gave a more detailed account of the Yenangyaung riverside export point:
“…the celebrated wells of Petroleum which supply the whole empire (of Ava) and many parts of India, with that useful product were five miles to the east of this place….The mouth of the creek was crowded with large boats waiting to receive a lading of oil, and immense pyramids of earthen jars were raised in and around the village… The smell of oil was extremely offensive. We saw several thousand jars filled with it ranged along the bank. Some of these were continually breaking, and the contents mingling with the sand…”
When (not if) I get things wrong
a) please tell me
b) I will correct the record, without pretending I didn’t make the mitake.
On this day, August 27 in 1859 “Colonel” Drake hit oil
On this day, 26 August 2006, after many months of planning the first “Camp for Climate Action” begins, near Drax Power Station, in Yorkshire.
However, we now know that the police let it happen as a “wave through”. Given how many undercovers there were (just the ones we know about!) they could have stopped this if they’d wanted to. They didn’t, because they didn’t want to. Too many opportunities to track who got involved. A honey pot. And here we are.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 380.6 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
We mustn’t forget previous resistance, or what happened to it. Hell, we might even learn something from it, and not make exactly the same mistakes, over and over again.
What happened next?
Climate Camp kept having annual camps for a few years, and then imploded.
Climate camps happened in other countries, for a whiile.
