“Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901–November 15, 1978) and James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) sat together on a stage in New York City for a remarkable public conversation about such enduring concerns as identity, power and privilege, race and gender, beauty, religion, justice, and the relationship between the intellect and the imagination.” https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/19/a-rap-on-race-margaret-mead-and-james-baldwin/
This only tangentially has much to do with climate change, but Mead and Baldwin are both stone-cold geniuses, so indulge me here.
Mead was part of Roger Revelle’s subgroup about the atmosphere for President Johnson’s science advisory committee in 1964.
Baldwin? Stone cold genius, on so many issues. Key quote – ”Not everything that is faced can be dealt with, but nothing can be dealt with until it is faced.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 324.69 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
If we don’t want to listen to the smartest among us, then what is the point?
What happened next?
Mead would go on to co-chair the 1975 ‘Endangered Atmosphere’ conference with Stephen Schneider, that has the denialists all aerated [see here].
On this day, August 24th, in 1994 the first signs of a split in the business opposition to climate action appeared.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 357.59 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“An additional factor was the splintering of industrial interests. The Global Climate Coalition and the Climate Council had been the main industry participants in the INC, representing mainly coal and oil interests. However, a development within INC 10 was the emergence of an industry lobby in favour of the convention’s further C02 reductions (ECO, 24 August 1994: 4; 26 August, 1994: 1). There was now a wide coalition of industrial interests favouring action on climate change. One consisted of parts of the insurance industry, scared of losses from freak weather (and whose interests have been forwarded, interestingly, by Greenpeace). Another was the ‘sunrise industries’ of renewables and energy efficiency. Yet another was the gas industry.
Matthew Paterson 1996 page 194
Why this matters.
Splits in the previously united church/state/business sector are part of ‘how things change’ if you believe all that dialectic stuff. It’s immaterial now though, given how the atmospheric concentrations have climbed, will climb…
What happened next?
A few re-insurers turned up for a day at the COP1 meeting in Berlin the following year, but were of course outnumbered, outgunned and outfought by the fossil lobbyists. (See Jeremy Leggett’s “The Carbon War” for an account of this).
Then, in 1997, BP became the first sizeable defector from the Global Climate Coalition. Now actual outright denial is relatively rare. But resistance to appropriate action continues…
On this day in 1856 American scientist and women’s rights campaigner Eunice Foote illustrated her findings in a paper entitled, “Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun’s rays,” which was accepted at the eighth annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting on August 23, 1856 in Albany, NY. Back in the day, what we now call carbon dioxide was known as carbonic acid…
On this day, August 22, 1981 the New York Times had a front page story about climate change. Written by its legendary science writer Walter Sullivan, it began
STUDY FINDS WARMING TREND THAT COULD RAISE SEA LEVELS
A team of Federal scientists says it has detected an overall warming trend in the earth’s atmosphere extending back to the year 1880. They regard this as evidence of the validity of the ”greenhouse” effect, in which increasing amounts of carbon dioxide cause steady temperature increases.
The seven atmospheric scientists predict a global warming of ”almost unprecedented magnitude” in the next century. It might even be sufficient to melt and dislodge the ice cover of West Antarctica, they say, eventually leading to a worldwide rise of 15 to 20 feet in the sea level. In that case, they say, it would ”flood 25 percent of Louisiana and Florida, 10 percent of New Jersey and many other lowlands throughout the world” within a century or less.
It was based on a study by James Hansen. Hansen’s unit was punished by having Department of Energy funding pulled – 5 people lose their jobs (See Bowen Censoring Science page 212)
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 338.48 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
Scientists getting punished for reporting the facts. Always a good look, eh? Never ever sends a chilling message.
What happened next?
Hansen and others kept going. That’s what good scientists do. By 1985, they realised shit was about to get real.
On this day, August 22, 1988, two Australian scientists warned that eventually Australia might need to take in Pacific islanders whose homes had disappeared under the waves.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 350.49 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
Australia may need to take in a wave of environmental refugees from coral atolls in the Pacific and Indian oceans, according to two scientists.
The islands’ inhabitants face being displaced by a likely rise in sea level due to the greenhouse effect, they say.
The prospect was raised yesterday at the 26th Congress of International Geographical Union in Sydney by Dr Peter Roy, of the NSW Department of Mineral Resources, and Dr John Connell, of the University of Sydney.
Quiddington, P. 1988. Scientists warn of islands’ peril. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August
Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Gareth Evans mentioned this sort of thing. Did nowt significant, but it came up in at least one of his speeches, iirc.
Why this matters.
The levels of injustice, the harm caused to future generations. It’s just mind-boggling.
What happened next?
Australia has basically continued to shit on everyone’s future.
On this day, 21 August, 1972, the editor of Nature, John Maddox, was on the ABC’s “Monday Conference” (a high brow TV show). And he dismissed climate change as a problem, as he had in his recent book “The Doomsday Syndrome.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 326.3 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
ABC, 1974. Saving our small world: Monday Conference on population, ecology and resources. Sydney: ABC Books
Why this matters.
We knew a lot earlier than 1988. Sure, you can’t really blame anyone in the early 70s – but by the late 70s, “we” knew enough.
On this day, August 20, 1997, a mining trade industry figure, Dick Wells of the Minerals Council of Australia totally misrepresents what the IPCC was by this time saying about climate change.”
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362.4 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“In an interview on ABC television, 7.30 Report on 20.8.97, Dick Wells stated that industry did not support the assertion that most scientists believe a build up of gases will cause climate change. Instead, industry supports the IPCC results which, he asserts, conclude that there is doubt about the science. Mr Wells goes on to say industry takes the issue seriously, that there is a “need for caution and we like good science … we’re a science based industry …” and concludes “there are a wide range of scientific opinions about what the impacts are going to be of any global warming and what we’re saying is it’s still prudent to do cost effective measures now and that’s what we’re embarking on with government but to go beyond those measures which deliver economic benefits, we think it would not be prudent to do so at this stage.””
(Duncan, 1997:84)
Yes, this would be the same IPCC whose second assessment report had – to howls of confected outrage from the Global Climate Coalition – concluded that the “balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate.”
Why this matters.
Industry gets to seem reasonable. Australians don’t get up out of their armchairs and demand much much more of their elected leaders. Result!
What happened next?
The mining industry kept on keeping on. Who do you think supplied that lacquered lump of coal to Scott Morrison to brandish in parliament? Who do you think his inner circle was made up of?
On this day, August 19 1997, a denialist conference took place in Canberra, in the run up to the Kyoto Conference of the Parties
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362.4 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
There had been various acts of collaboration between the American and Australian denialists (Ray Evans, Hugh Morgan’s henchman, had been in Washington the year before, and various US scientists and activists had visited Australia for speaking tours, but this was ‘next level’.)
John Howard was trying to get Australia off the hook – as a developed country with high per capita emissions (all that coal-burning!) and huge coal exports, it could be expected to be in the firing line. He’d launched a diplomatic assault on this, and it suited the corporate interests in the United States to have Australia as an ally.
The Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a conservative corporate funded US think tank organised a conference in Canberra in conjunction with the Australian APEC Study Centre. The conference, entitled Countdown to Kyoto, was organised, according to the Australian, to “bolster support” for the Government’s increasingly isolated position on global warming in preparation for the Kyoto conference. US Senator Chuck Hagel, who co-sponsored the Senate resolution on a treaty agreement in Kyoto, was a speaker as was US Congressman John Dingell. Other speakers included the Chairman of Australian multinational BHP and the Director of the think tank, the Tasman Institute.
Malcolm Wallop, who heads the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, chaired the conference with Hugh Morgan, the head of Western Mining. Wallop was a US Senator for 18 years who boasts of his achievements in promoting SDI and opposing welfare, progressive taxation, Social Security, and government funding for higher education. Wallop said in a letter to US conservative groups: “This conference in Australia is the first shot across the bow of those who expect to champion the Kyoto Treaty.” He also stated that the conference would “offer world leaders the tools to break with the Kyoto Treaty.” The conference was opened by Australian Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer who argued that tough emission reduction targets could put 90,000 jobs at risk in Australia and cost more than $150 million.
Patrick Michaels argued at the Countdown to Kyoto conference that the science to support “expensive and potentially disruptive policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions…is sorely lacking.” Michaels also gave the good news about global warming to a global warming seminar organised by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia, when he recently visited Australia. He has travelled the world on behalf of anti-climate treaty interests. In October he attended a conference similar to Canberra’s Countdown on Kyoto in Vancouver organised by the conservative think tank, The Fraser Institute. Also attending this conference was Robert Balling.
See also
Scorcher, Hamilton, 2007; p. 67
The Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson
And tomorrow’s blog post too…
Why this matters.
It’s not just “progressives” who can do international cooperation… And when it really mattered, when there was still the outside chance of doing something meaningful on climate change, the “carbon club” was properly transnational…
What happened next?
Australia got a super-sweet deal at Kyoto. But then, the next President, selected by the Supreme Court, pulled the US out of the Kyoto process, and a year later, in 2002, Australia followed suit.
Kyoto was not “all that” – see the solid article on “The Veil of Kyoto”…
On this day, August 18 in 1996, Brian Tucker, who had headed up the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, and attended some important scientific meetings, reveals himself incapable of understanding that the world does not conform to how you would wish it to be.
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 361.55 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“Brian Tucker, previous Chief of the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research, is now a Senior Fellow at the IPA where he trades on his scientific credentials to push an ideological agenda. In 1996 in a talk on ABC’s Ockham’s Razor he stated that ‘unchallenged climatic disaster hyperbole has induced something akin to a panic reaction from policy makers both national and international”
Tucker, B. 1996. A Rational Consideration of Global Warming. Ockham’s Razor, ABC Radio National, 18 August.
Tucker was also busy writing screeds in the IPA’s magazine that, looking back, were frankly an embarrassment
Why this matters.
Beder notes that
Tucker’s article The Greenhouse Panic was reprinted in Engineering World a magazine aimed at engineers. The article, introduced by the magazine editor as “a balanced assessment,” argues that “alarmist prejudices of insecure people have been boosted by those who have something to gain from widespread public concern.”[42] This article, which would have been more easily dismissed as an IPA publication, has been quoted by Australian engineers at conferences as if it was an authoritative source.”
And thus is a counter-common sense “engineered.” Once bullshit is republished in other venues, it gains a halo effect from those other places, and gets repeated again, until finally it seems a solid piece of fact.
The CIA used to call it ‘surfacing’ (maybe still do?). Plant stories in local newspapers in the countries you’re trying to subvert, then quote those as “evidence” when trying to get more money out of the US government…
What happened next?
We kept digging up and exporting coal. Of course we did.
On this day, August 17, 2002, the fifteen other members of the Pacific Leaders’ Forum urge Australia (led by John Howard) to sign the Kyoto Protocol
[The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 372.03 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.]
“New Zealand’s Prime Minister Helen Clark says Pacific nations will continue to lobby Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
The final communique of this year’s Pacific Leaders’ Forum urges countries to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions.
Australia is the only state of the 16-member Forum not to have agreed to the protocol.”
Pacific states urge Australia to sign Kyoto Protocol. 17 August 2002 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific – Text of report by Radio Australia on 17 August
Why this matters.
There’s a certain amount of work Penny Wong is going to have to do, yes?
Btw Kyoto was not going to Save The World – see the Veil of Kyoto.article by Howarth and Foxall.
What happened next?
Australia DID in fact ratify the Kyoto Protocol – once Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister. He then refused to do much of anything about setting Australia a real, ambitious target. And it all went very tits up on the domestic front…
