On this day, December 9 in 1974, in the United Kingdom
“The Department of Energy launched a new energy efficiency programme on December 9th 1974, timed to reduce winter fuel use, but also anticipating a review by the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee (Patterson 1978; Anderson 1993)”
We have been at this “Energy Efficiency” thing (whether to save money or ‘save the planet’) for a long long time, with not all that much to show for it, once you take Jevons Paradox into account. Oh well.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 330ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
The first Oil Shock was shocking people and governments into “action” (or, at least, hand-wringing)
Why this matters.
Energy efficiency – always the bridesmaid…
What happened next?
Stagflation, a second shock, neoliberalism and a collapse in the oil price – bye-bye renewables!!! See you in another 30 years or so…
“On the evening of Tuesday, 8 December, 1981, the UK’s only commercial TV channel, ITV, broadcast an hour-long documentary called “Warming Warning”.
It was among the earliest occasions – possibly the earliest – anywhere in the world where a major broadcaster aired a documentary dedicated solely to the topic of human-caused climate change.
The documentary, which was made by the now-defunct Thames Television, has sat in the archives largely unseen ever since. Until now. “
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 340ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
The IEA had held a meeting in about greenhouse gases in February. In September Tom Wigley gave a speech at a Uranium Institute seminar in London. Meanwhile, James Hansen et al. had published a paper in August, in Science (and the Reagan Administration had punished him by withdrawing already-agreed funds). Presumably these were a major push for the documentary…
Why this matters.
“We” “knew”. Our problem is not information. Our problem is power – who has it, in whose interests they wield it, how they are monitored, challenged etc.
What happened next?
It was only 7 years later, in 1988, that the issue “broke through”, and politicians had to take a position on it.
On this day, December 7 in 1928 – Noam Chomsky was born.
Happy 94th birthday, Noam.
Here’s a couple of quotes, for those of you who want a taste. The first is (obvs) on climate. The second is on… heroes…
“Take the Kyoto Protocol. Destruction of the environment is not only rational; it’s exactly what you’re taught to do in college. If you take an economics or a political science course, you’re taught that humans are supposed to be rational wealth accumulators, each acting as an individual to maximize his own wealth in the market. The market is regarded as democratic because everybody has a vote. Of course, some have more votes than others because your votes depend on the number of dollars you have, but everybody participates and therefore it’s called democratic. Well, suppose that we believe what we are taught. It follows that if there are dollars to be made, you destroy the environment. The reason is elementary. The people who are going to be harmed by this are your grandchildren, and they don’t have any votes in the market. Their interests are worth zero. Anybody that pays attention to their grandchildren’s interests is being irrational, because what you’re supposed to do is maximize your own interests, measured by wealth, right now. Nothing else matters. So destroying the environment and militarizing outer space are rational policies, but within a framework of institutional lunacy. If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.
Interview by Yifat Susskind, August 2001 [52]
And also, on heroes
I gather it’s your belief that when we focus on heroes in the movement, that’s a mistake, because it’s really the unsung heroes, the unsung seamstresses or whatever in this movement, who actually make a difference.
They’re the ones, yes. Take, say, the Civil Rights movement. When you think of the Civil Rights movement, the first thing you think of is Martin Luther King. King was an important figure. But he would have been the first to tell you, I’m sure, that he was riding the wave of activism, that people who were doing the work, who were in the lead in the Civil Rights movement, were young SNCC [Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee] workers, freedom riders, people out there in the streets every day getting beaten and sometimes killed, working constantly. They created the circumstances in which a Martin Luther King could come in and be a leader. His role was extremely important, I’m not denigrating it, it was very important to have done that. But the people who were really important are the ones whose names are forgotten. And that’s true of every movement that ever existed.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 307ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
On this day, December 6 in 2006, Australian journo Elizabeth Farrelly points out that, despite those grifters hiding behind the “only 0.x% of emissions” want you to believe, 0.x% is still a big deal.
Elizabeth Farrelly of the Sydney Morning Herald was alive to the same issue when she questioned whether the 0.1 per cent of global emissions which would come from Anvil Hill was ‘in fact so small when even 0.1 per cent of the Stern review’s estimated $9.1 trillion cost of climate change gives $9.1 billion.
(Bonyhady, 2007: 17)
Farrelly, E. 2006. Victories for the Environment Turn Up Heat. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 December.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 382ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
The coal mining boom was in full swing. Its defenders needed to find ways to avoid scrutiny.
On this day, December 5 in 2002 the Australian “Prime Ministers Science and Industry Council” released a report called “Beyond Kyoto- Innovation and Adaptation.”
This can be seen as the starting gun for Carbon Capture and Storage in Australia (it had already started moving in the UK).
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 373ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now, well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
John Howard had managed to get an absurdly sweet deal for Australia at the Kyoto conference in December 1997. Nonetheless, Australia had delayed ratifying, and on World Environment Day in June 2002 Howard finally did what people had long assumed – he copied George W. Bush in saying “nope.” That meant that he’d have to put forward some other”solutions” to a problem he did not believe (and still does not believe?) is a problem.
It didn’t hurt that the chair of the PMSEIC, his chief scientist, Robin Batterham, was only doing the job part-time, i.e. when he wasn’t working for … Rio Tinto.
Why this matters.
CCS for energy systems is absurd (CCS might have a role to play for industry, if the business models can be made to work).
What happened next?
A really good critique of the PMSEIC report was released shortly afterwards – see here.
Large sums of public money in Australia got wasted on CCS, with really nothing to show for it. But it’s too useful a rhetorical move to ever be finally killed off… And so here we are, twenty years later…
On this day, December 4 in 1989, the first anti-climate action “economics modelling” in Australia came out, and was reported by the business press. Oddly, they neglected to mention that the funding for this “research” came from… a company that was digging up and selling coal. Can only have been space constraints that stopped them mentioning it, oh yes….
Australia will have to suffer the consequences of reduced economic growth to achieve the proposed international goal of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 15 years, according to a group of leading economists.
A paper to be presented to a conference entitled Greenhouse and Energy, which starts at Macquarie University in Sydney today, states that, among other effects, the fight against the greenhouse effect will result in increased electricity bills and reduced increases in real wages.
Lawson, M. 1989. Fighting Greenhouse has an economic cost. Australian Financial Review, 4 December.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Everyone was talking about emissions cuts and how much (earlier in the year the Thatcher government had shat all over the Toronto Target (see here).
Why this matters.
The “models” do not “reflect” reality. They are just made up bullshit.
John Kenneth Galbraith said it best – “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
What happened next?
Those who want to stop climate action – because it would cut their profits and/or power, because it offends them, will always find some shonky “modellers” to give them the answers they want. Then equally shonky “journalists” will uncritically run the crap on page 1, and it will get picked up by shonky politicians… and presto, “common sense” is created.
On this day, December 3 in 1972, some climate scientists wrote a “give us money to study climate” letter to President Nixon.
“After the conference the conference organizers, (the late G. J. Kukla and R. K. Mathews) wrote to President Nixon (December 3, 1972) calling for federal action on possible climate change. At that time, with no consensus on climate change, their letter was an important impetus to expanding research. The letter noted that the “main conclusion of the meeting was that a global deterioration of climate, by order of magnitude larger than any hitherto experience by civilized mankind, is a very real possibility and indeed may be due very soon.” On the question of “artificial heating” of the atmosphere, as opposed to orbital changes for ice ages, the letter concluded that “knowledge necessary for understanding the mechanism of climate change is lamentably inadequate and the ultimate causes remain unknown” (Kukla and Mitchell, 1972) [4]
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 327ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Everyone knew there’d be new money for this sort of science, and wanted a piece of the action. Not to be cynical or anything.
Why this matters.
Kulka and Mitchell were wrong. We need to remember that there isn’t this “straight narrow line” from ignorance to knowledge. The real world is messy af.
What happened next?
Iirc, they got some dosh, but within a couple of years it became obvious they were wrong
On this day, December 2 in 1964 Mario Savio, American activist, gave his famous “Bodies on the Gears” speech on the Berkeley campus of University of California.
What to do with climate change? Well, the Black Civil Rights movement, (Savio’s speech came at the end of the Freedom Summer), was an “initiator movement” for women’s liberation, gay rights and what we used to call the ecology movement. We could learn something by studying the history. And the rhetoric is first rate.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 319ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
On December 2 1991, the Australian policy experiment of “Ecologically Sustainable Development” basically ended, just over a year after it began. It had been set up because the ALP’s Bob Hawke needed small-g green (the Greens didn’t exist yet) votes to win the 1990 election. The ESD process had rattled along,and there’s lots of interesting stories (see AOY posts here and here).
Well, with Hawke mortally wounded (politically), and the Fight Back! by fossil interests (including right-wing Labour and Federal bureaucrats – this isn’t just Those Evil Capitalists Over There), the ESD’s days were numbered.
“The Ecologically Sustainable Development Working Groups final report received a “cautious welcome” yesterday, although there were fears the Government might not act to implement the report’s recommendations.
Union, conservation, business and political groups were generally pleased with the 272-page report which contains more than 300 recommendations for measures to achieve development which is consistent with preservation of the environment. The report was issued yesterday by the heads of the working group, Professor Stuart Harris and Professor David Throsby. However, some groups believed the report had “not gone far enough.”
The president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Martin Ferguson, said the working group process had been “very useful” for setting an agenda but not for “developing solutions to Australia’s economic and environmental problems.” [THAT? Martin Ferguson??? Yes, that one… ]”
“When the chairmen released their work on Monday [2nd December], they took the opportunity to say the Opposition’s plan to cut the price of petrol would make it harder for the Government to meet its targets on reduction of greenhouse gases. Reducing the price of petrol by up to 19 cents a litre, as proposed by Dr John Hewson, could lead to greater use of petrol, in contrast to the theme of the Ecologically Sustainable Development taskforce of reducing energy use.”
Peake, R. 1991. A Tapestry That Weaves The Green With The Gold. The Age, 4 December, p.13.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 355ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Why this matters.
There was a time ‘rational’ (or at least sane and understanding of limits) policymaking could be cosplayed. Now, not so much. We should remember where we failed for the last consequential time. It will soothe us so much as everything falls apart.
What happened next?
The next Prime Minister, Paul Keating, buried the ESD. The next Prime Minister after him, Honest John Howard, buried Australia’s chance of responding to climate change in ways that could have saved something from the wreckage. And here we are.
