Month: March 2023

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Uncategorized United States of America

March 15, 1956 – scientist explains climate change to US senators

Sixty seven years ago, on this day, March 15, 1956, Roger Revelle laid out the facts while trying to assure senators that taxpayers’ money was being well spent.  It got reported the following day by the Los Angeles Times.

Anon, 1956. Gas fumes suspected as factor in climate. Los Angeles Times, March 16, p. 25.

AND 

 Norman, L. 1956. Fumes seen warming arctic seas, Washington Post and Times Herald , March 19, p.3.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that big science was getting big money. And congressmen wanted to show that they were keeping informed. Revelle’s was in preparation for the International Geophysical Year. And he enjoyed, I think, testifying about this sort of stuff. At this point, it wasn’t clear that carbon dioxide levels were definitely going up. There had been a publication in 1955 querying the accuracy of the various measurements.

What I think we can learn from this

Congressmen have been aware of the issue as has anyone reading a newspaper since 1956. Actually, you can go earlier, but I would say the pivotal years are from 56 to 59. Before that, it’s just not that clear. 

What happened next

Revelle would solve that uncertainty about atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by hiring Charles David Keeling.  And by 1959, it was clear that yes, co2 levels were definitely rising. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

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Uncategorized

Of Cliff Richard, a 60 year old #climate meeting and the grim meathook future…

On March 10 1963, “Summer Holiday” sung by Cliff Richard and the Shadows, reached the top of United Kingdom’s pop charts. The accompanying film, which had been released three weeks earlier, follows a group of friends retrofitting an iconic double-decker bus and driving it to Athens, so they can enjoy a holiday “where the sun shines brightly.”  

Two days after the song’s chart triumph, what was probably the first ever meeting given over to the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere took place across the Atlantic, in New York.  Although the science was far more than rudimentary than today, the basic message is unchanged – releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (which happens when you burn oil, coal and gas) would trap more heat on the earth’s surface, melt ice caps and change weather patterns. The intervening sixty years have not changed that.

While some want you to believe climate science is a figment of the imagination of George Soros, “the Chinese, Greta Thunberg or Al Gore, the origins of the carbon dioxide theory stretch back almost two hundred years. In 1824 the French scientist Joseph Fourier pointed out that, given the Earth’s distance from the sun, and the temperature being higher than you would otherwise expect, then something was trapping a certain amount of the sun’s heat. He even used the term “glasshouse.”  Thirty years later, an American feminist and scientist Eunice Foote proposed that carbonic acid (carbon dioxide in solution) might be one cause (her work was only rediscovered in 2010, but may have been read by John Tyndall, the Irish scientist whose 1861 paper made the carbon dioxide idea better known (Tyndall lives on in the naming of the Tyndall Centre). As many conversation readers will know, in 1895 Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist and later Nobel-prize winner suggested that, given the amount of carbon dioxide being released by the burning of oil coal and gas, over time (centuries, he thought) there could be an appreciable warming. This, thought Arrhenius, would be a good thing, opening up new areas for growing food.  Although some scientists (erroneously) said carbon dioxide could not cause such a build-up, there was a certain amount of popular acceptance.  

In 1938 a British steam engineer, Guy Callendar, ascribed the uncontroversial increase in the Earth’s temperature over the previous 50 years to a build up of carbon dioxide. His ideas were more ignored than rebutted.  After World War Two (in which he had helped devise fog-dispersal devices for returning RAF bombers), he continued to push his theory.  Crucially he caught the attention of an American physicist Gilbert Plass.  In May 1953 Plass’s warming warning went around  the world

C02 or not co2, that is the question

While it is easy to draw direct lines and argue “they should have known back then, straight away”, we must remember that carbon dioxide build-up was seen as only one of many possible influences on weather, alongside wobbles in the Earth’s orbit, changing intensity of the Sun and much else. It was not even, according to some, that carbon dioxide levels were climbing. A 1955 US Weather bureau paper pointed to the “noisiness” of the data, and the unreliability of some measurements.  Swedish scientists interested in carbon dioxide had gotten wildly differing measurements.

However, already by the mid-1950s important scientists were saying carbon dioxide build-up might be an influence. 

The Hungarian polymath Jonny Von Neumann told Fortune readers in December 1955

“The carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by industry’s burning of coal and oil-—more than half of it during the last generation—may have changed the atmosphere’s composition sufficiently to account for a general warming of the world by about one degree Fahrenheit”

Speaking to lawmakers (about getting more funding for science) Roger Revelle said in 1956…

“We may actually, for example, find that the Arctic Ocean will become navigable and the coasts become a place where people can live, then the Russian Arctic coastline will be really quite free for shipping, as will our Alaskan coastline, if this possible increase in temperature really happens. . . .”  (source)

To solve the empirical questions, Revelle hired Charles “Dave” Keeling, with Pentagon funding made available for the International Geophysical Year (a global stock-taking effort) to investigate. In March 1958 Keeling started taking careful measurements at an extinct volcano in Hawaii, Mauna Loa, (the site was chosen to be far from sources of error such as forests and factories). By May 1960 Keeling was able to confirm that not only could reliable carbon dioxide measures be compared (he was also collecting in Antarctica) but aht carbon dioxide levels were reports co2 is indeed climbing. A 1961 New York Academy of Sciences meeting responded to this and other work,, and presumably was part of the impetus for the March 1963 conservation foundation meeting.

Conservation foundation meeting

It was in this context that the Conservation Foundation meeting, snappily titled “Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere” took place. It was attended by a small number of scientists, including the aforementioned Plass and Keeling, and an Englishman, Frank Fraser Darling. The meeting resulted in a short report.

On page 6: “many life forms would be annihilated” [in the tropics] if emissions continued unchecked in the upcoming centuries.”  It also  also projected that carbon dioxide emissions could raise the average surface temperature of the earth by as much as 4°C during the next century (1963-2063)”

We should not imagine this led to immediate acceptance. Revelle worked on various panels, including the President’s Science Advisory Committee. In February 1965 president Lyndon Johnson gave an address to Congress about environmental issues, mentioning that 

“Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places. This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels”

However a big Conservation Foundation meeting two months later, on “Future Environments of North America” saw only one brief mention (by Fraser Darling) which was met with bland dismissal –    “So far the increase in carbon dioxide with time in the open country is still so small that there are people who don’t believe there has been one.  This is reassuring.”

However, the carbon dioxide issue did not go away, appearing in a reports about weather modification (then a military dream) and the books about environmental crisis that began to crop up in the second half of the 1960s.

Carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere began to mentioned in US congress (see 1966 and 1969) and when Frank Fraser Darling gave the Reith lectures in November 1969 he mentioned carbon dioxide

“There’s a carbon dioxide cycle which naturally keeps levels right. It’s a system of great age and stability which we are now taxing with the immense amounts of carbon dioxide which we’re adding from the fuel we burn.”

Dave Keeling, who measured carbon dioxide till he died, was similarly speaking out.

What’s happened since (“how our understanding has changed since then?”)

By the late 1960s conferences on climate change (ice age or hothouse?!) were being held, especially in the United States and UK. The upcoming Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, to be held in June 1972, provided added impetus, and in June 1971 scientists met for three weeks in Sweden for a workshop on “Man’’s Impact on Climate”. One outcome of the Stockholm conference was the creation of the United Nations Environment Program, which together with the pre-existing World Meteorological Organisation began collecting data and holding conferences.

By late 1970s, scientists were  pretty sure there was serious trouble ahead because of carbon dioxide build-up.. UK chief scientific advisory tried to use an interdepartmental committee’s findings to brief Margaret Thatcher, who had referenced carbon dioxide build-up in mid-1979 in a pro-nuclear comment at the G7 meeting in Tokyo. She responded with incredulity – “you want me to worry about the weather?”

[Source – John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher. Vol. 2: The Iron Lady (London, 2003), 642-643.]

In 1981 Warming Warning, the first documentary solely focused on Carbon Dioxide as a climate changer appeared, directed by Richard Broad, who  had made other crucial  films.

Only in 1988, after another decade of dotting the is and crossing the tees did it become an unavoidable issue. Thatcher famously changed her mind (and changed it back  later).

As of 2023, we now developed sophisticated “integrated assessment models” and all manner of ways of charting the collapse of the Antarctic sea ice, sea level rise etc.  But there’s a simple test for all our fine words about (future) fine actions. – are we bringing emissions down rapidly (no)?

The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide that day in New York,  60 years ago, was about 319 parts per million (ppm). Today, it’s 420ppm, and its terrible cousin methane is also booming.

In 1963 if Cliff Richard and pals wanted warm weather they had to retrofit a double-decker bus and drive all the way to Greece. Last summer the UK hit 40 degrees for the first time ever. Summer has come here. What else is coming may be no holiday…

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Australia Denial Uncategorized

 March 14, 1997 – Australian senator predicts climate issue will be gone in ten years…

Twenty six years ago, on this day, March 14, 1997, a Liberal senator spews his usual nonsense.

Senator Parer seems to be an exception. For instance, at the Australasian Institute of Minerals and Metallurgy Annual Conference at Ballarat Senator Warwick Parer said: “I don’t have any figures to back this up, but I think people will say in 10 years that it [greenhouse] was the Club of Rome” and “The attitude of this government is to look for ways to allow projects to go ahead.” The SMH (14.3.97 ‘Greenhouse effect? No worries says Parer’.).

(Duncan, 1997:83)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Warwick Parer – and I can say this because he’s dead – was a shonk and he caused political problems for Howard. He was the kind of old white man who wants to believe that physics doesn’t exist. And so he came out with that idiotic line about in 10 years, dot, dot dot. And Howard was busy, by this time, trying to do nothing or commit Australia to nothing around the Kyoto Protocol.

What I think we can learn from this

Old white men who don’t like the consequences of industrialization will try to wish it away. And they will predict that the whole fad will die. And it hasn’t, and it won’t

The basic question of how we’re supposed to survive the 21st century behaving as we do, has not yet been answered. 

What happened next

Parer was sacked as Minister in 1998. He produced an anti renewables report in 2002. He died in 2014. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

References

Transcript of Kerry  O’Brien and John Howard –https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-10644

Categories
Australia Energy

March 13, 1992 – Australian climate advocates try to get government to see sense… (fail, obvs).

Thirty one years ago, on this day, March 13, 1992, advocates of climate action made one last plea to the (Labor) government to take climate change seriously as both a threat and an opportunity. 

A study [“Energy Futures: Efficient Energy Scenarios to 2020” ] by the Commission for the Future to examine the cost of reducing greenhouse gases found that Australia can break even if it enters the market for energy-efficiency equipment.

Announcing the findings last Friday [13th], commission director Archbishop Peter Hollingworth said, “The report highlights the urgent need for Australia to find a way through the difficult problem of maintaining economic growth and protecting the environment.

Anon, 1992.  How Australia can break even on greenhouse. Greenweek, March 17,  p.3.

The report is online, on Googlebooks.

Also, see here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context

This one of the last desperate attempts by the pro climate action people in Australia to influence Australian Government thinking before the Rio Earth Summit.

The Commission for the Future had been set up when Barry Jones was still Science Minister. It had played a blinder in the late 1980s, relatively speaking, but by now was a shadow of its former self.  It released a report that said energy efficiency would at least allow a breakeven on hitting the Toronto target.  Paul Keating had become prime minister in December 1991, and had made sure that all of the previous (Hawke) administration’s environment policies were buried in 17 committees and left to rot. And this was among them. 

If you were even more of a geek than me (not possible) you could do a comparison of the rhetoric and argument in the Feb 4 1990 document I wrote about here [LINK] 

I suspect that it was commissioned before the end of 1991. Because otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted their breath.

What I think we can learn from this

Policy Windows close. Not necessarily because there’s been an election, just because there are new people at the top saying what is and what is not important.

What happened next

The Tasman Institute  – rightwing “think” tank set up in 1990 to combat green groups – came out with a rapid rebuttal. Over the past year they had become quite good at doing rapid rebuttal reports. The Tasman Institute was wound up a victim of its own success by 1998. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs...

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Academia Science Scientists United States of America

March 12, 1963 – first ever carbon dioxide build-up conference

Sixty years ago, on this day, March 12, 1963, in New York

 “Dr. Keeling was concerned enough about rising carbon dioxide levels to participate in a panel by the Conservation Foundation on March 12, 1963 “Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere”, the report issued being among the first to speculate that anthropogenic global warming could be dangerous to the Earth’s biological and environmental systems. It includes on page 6: “many life forms would be annihilated” [in the tropics] if emissions continued unchecked in the upcoming centuries. They also projected that carbon dioxide emissions could raise the average surface temperature of the earth by as much as 4°C during the next century (1963-2063)”

Source

Probably the first gathering of scientists and policymakers devoted specifically and explicitly to carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The Conservation Foundation had been set up in New York in 1948

The International Geophysical Year was now 5 years in the past, a lot of data had been collected. In January of 1961, there had been a five day scientific conference organised by the American Meteorological Society and the New York Academy of Sciences with plenty of people talking about carbon dioxide buildup, and alongside that there had been other scientific efforts. So the Conservation Foundation, which had been aware of CO2 buildup as a potential problem for a while, held a gathering, the first ever carbon dioxide build up conference

What I think we can learn from this

Well, these sorts of events are fascinating for the legacy they leave. And for several years –  really till the end of the 1960s – the publication about this meeting was cited whenever in writing about carbon dioxide buildup for years, and it only really fell away entirely after the 1971 study on the man’s impact on climate. 

It also seems to have been the “last gasp” in climate science for Gilbert Plass whose statements and work from 1953 had been so important for the growth of acceptance of the carbon dioxide theory.

And in all probability, it was where Lewis Herbert aka Murray Bookchin got his facts for the section in his book written in 1964 and published in early 1965, called Crisis in our Cities, which will be discussed soon.

And the reason I say this is that the event was in New York, Bookchin was in New York and it’s impossible to imagine that he wasn’t aware of the Conservation Foundation’s activities. Bookchin’s politics were not of the technocrats. But just because he didn’t agree with the funders does not mean he’d have ignored what was happening under their auspices.

What happened next

Plass dropped out. 

Roger Revelle and Charles Keeling kept doing what they were doing. 

And the closing statement – well, it came to pass…

Categories
United States of America

March 11, 1969 – NASA explains need to monitor C02 build-up to politicians

Fifty four years ago, on this day, March 11, 1969, some NASA scientists mention the (non-controversial) build-up of C02

 John E. Naugle, Donald Hearth at hearing on NASA budget

“If we are to understand our own atmosphere and to evaluate the long-term consequences of man-made changes (such as the increase in carbon dioxide content), we need to conduct comparative studies of the atmospheres of the other planets.”

“As we look at our planet, as we look at the population that is increasing, we know that man is not only polluting, but possibly beginning to change the very fundamental nature of our atmosphere on the earth.”—John E. Naugle 

source = climatebrad

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

NASA’s stock was very high, they were about to put a man on the Moon using 20 billion pounds of your money and good old American knowhow as provided by Good old Americans like Dr. Wehrner von Braun. And they were also looking at Venus and Mars and so forth. 

So it’s really no surprise to the NASA folks would be aware of carbon dioxide buildup because well it’s fairly basic science

What I think we can learn from this

This is just one more example of how, by the late 1960s, scientists were informing politicians about the basic facts of what was being done to the planet. It was not a theory, it was just a fact.

What happened next

 NASA put men on the moon. Apollo 13 showed for anyone who was paying attention the dangers of carbon dioxide buildup. Man didn’t get beyond low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was done on the cheap, and it showed twice. Now it looks like 50 years later, we are going to put Whitey on the moon. In the words of Gil Scott Heron. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

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anti-reflexivity Australia Denial Media

March 10, 2010 – ABC chairman gives stupid speech to staff

Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 10, 2010, Maurice Newman, a neoliberal warrior from the 1970s onwards, gave a climate denial speech to senior ABC staff. Prime Minister John Howard had appointed him as chair in January 2007.

 In a speech to senior ABC staff on 10 March 2010 he said climate change was an example of “group-think”. According to an ABC PM account of the speech: “Contrary views had not been tolerated, and those who expressed them had been labelled and mocked. Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he’s waiting for proof either way.”

(wikipedia Maurice Newman)

and

“The media hasn’t been good at picking these things up and it’s really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.

“And I brought in as well in that vain what’s been going on in climate change where there’s been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.”

https://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2010/s2842177.htm

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

People like Maurice Newman, long time neoliberal soldier, want to be within the commanding organisations such as universities and media, for obvious reasons. And he did what he (was) set out to do….

What I think we can learn from this

What’s interesting, what we can learn is that these terms like “groupthink” gets thrown around as if there’s some sort of profound statement. And they’re a shortcut for avoiding actually engaging with the fact that the science around the basics of climate change has been settled for a very long time. Unable to combat that. Newman and his ilk resort to name-calling and pseudo profound smears.  But it’s quite effective…

What happened next

In an article in The Australian on May 8, 2015, Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, said that the United Nations is behind the global warming hoax. The real agenda of the UN “is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook,” Newman said. “This is not about facts or logic,” he added. “It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.”

James Powell Could Scientists Be Wrong

http://jamespowell.org/resources/CouldScientistsBeWrong.pdf

The ABC has continued to be a site of struggle, and has been almost entirely hollowed out by the neoliberals and their chums. You can always track individual journalists and stack the board with non entities and lackeys and if they persist in being independent, reduce their funding until they get the message. 

See also organisational decay.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs...

Categories
Agnotology Denial

March 9, 2009 – Scientist tries to separate fact from denialist fiction

Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 9, 2009, Stefan Rahmstorf, climate scientist and oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research spends time and readers’ bandwidth unpicking the trickery of Bjohn Lomborg, ace lukewarmist.

“And it is telling that he then goes on to draw an “inescapable” conclusion about a slow-down of sea level rise from just four years of data. This is another well-worn debating trick: confuse the public about the underlying trend by focusing on short-term fluctuations. It’s like claiming spring won’t come if there is a brief cold snap in April.”

Rebuttal in The Guardian of Lomborg´s claim that sea level is not steadily rising, March 9th 2009.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2009/mar/09/climate-change-copenhagen

And see this from page 17 of James Powell’s “could scientists be wrong”

http://jamespowell.org/resources/CouldScientistsBeWrong.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that denialists were stepping up their campaigns of cherry-picking, doubt-mongering  and so on. The so-called lukewarmists – a more sophisticated.version of straight out denial, were stepping up their campaigns of doubt and confusion and spewing out flak, ahead of another big international gathering, this time in Copenhagen.

What I think we can learn from this

The patient work of debunking a set of misleading statements is costly and ineffective. Because the mere attempt to debunk gives the appearance that there are two more or less equal sides in a debate on this issue. There really aren’t, not equal, cognitively or in terms of numbers of working scientists.

But they want to give that impression thus – the Oregon petition, (which comes up in April on this site), and so on.

What happened next

The “Gish Gallop” technique keeps getting used, because it’s a really effective tool in the absence of an educated populace that is able to think for itself.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

Categories
Feminism Interviews

International Women’s Day – what is feminist archival practice?

Cracking interview with Dr Jenna Ashton (aka @heritagemcr) about feminism, archives, etc.

1. Who are you, and how did you come to be an historian?

I am a Lecturer in Heritage Studies and arts-led researcher, in the Dept. of Art History & Cultural Practices, University of Manchester. I’m also Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures with our “Creative Manchester” platform, and an Associate Member of the Sustainable Consumption Institute. My work largely focuses on place-based community cultural practices and expression, along with evolving (I hope!) feminist theory and methods. As an artist, curator, and producer, I consider artmaking as a process for thinking and analysis (to misquote Mieke Bal, 2022).

It’s funny you describe me as an historian. I never think of myself as an “historian”, but a strange scholarly combination, working across the sociological, historical, visual, material, spatial, ecological. I’ve always wanted to connect the contemporary with the historical and understand things politically. I finally discovered this was called “cultural studies”, so I guess that’s where I have landed now, with a critical angle on all-things “heritage” practice and discourse.

My background education is mostly in the arts; at A Level I took all arts subjects across literature, language, performance, and film (much to the dismay of my science and sociology teachers). At Uni (I took all three degrees, BA (Hons), MA, PhD at Uni of Manchester, not being able to afford to travel elsewhere, and with other family and work commitments), I first took a combined degree across Drama, Literary Studies, Art History, and Classical Civilisation. It was a running joke that I had the longest degree title of any student graduating in my year. But I didn’t want to drop any subjects after A Levels, and I also didn’t know what I wanted to “specialize” in. So, a combined degree fulfilled that. It was horribly organised and combined students were badly supported; we didn’t belong to any one department, so we were pushed around and ignored quite a bit. It’s funny that interdisciplinarity is such a “thing” now. We were doing it via the combined programme, but we didn’t have the lingo or the zeitgeist. I loved it. I could pick and choose the modules I wanted to take and mix it up into a wonderful artsy-soup. I discovered a love of (and knack for) art history and visual studies [AHVS] (which wasn’t available during school), with a focus on feminist and social practices. I took my MA (FT) and PhD (PT) in AHVS. My PhD analysed childhoods through the lens of contemporary sculpture. It was described by the examiners as not a very “traditional” art history PhD, as it brought together visual arts, sociology, spatial theories, and psychoanalysis. To me, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world to use the visual and plastic arts to make sense of socio-psychological experiences given they emerged within a cultural context. Within a cultural studies dept. or school of art this wouldn’t have been at all odd.

Anyway, since 2018 I have been back at that same department as an employee, working mostly with colleagues in the “cultural practices” side of things or with academics in other arts and science disciplines. 

So am I an historian? Kind of. “Historian” always seems such a grand title and as if you should have a very precise and defined period of expertise. I don’t have that. But historical methods are important to all scholarship and practice. I always thought it odd the separation between what I would call “straight” history (with a capital H) and “queer” history (aka art history). It still exists; the two disciplines don’t seem to talk to each other. At some point during my education (and also lived experience) feminist activists, histories, and practices helped me fuse all these disparate academic parts together with my concern for social justice issues. Feminism exists on the edges, in the gaps, defies the binaries. Feminism is also hopeful. It can see a way through the quagmire.  

I have a parallel story of work and everyday life that intersects with my uni education and academic development that was/is as equally important as the learning undertaken in the Ivory Towers, but that’s for another interview.    

2. Why do we need a feminist analysis and practice around archives and archiving? (Imagine I am asking that in my best Daily Mail voice, muttering about woke Corbynista stalinist social justice warriors)

Archives are part of structures of power and oppression. This is not a “woke-snowflake” interpretation, but a fact acknowledged by archivists and archival science. Archives are not neutral or objective containers of artefacts and documents but, like museums, have evolved through a process of careful (or not so careful) construction – led by the “victors” and those with power. Feminist practices seek to redress or expose structures of power relating to sex and gender (and its intersectional issues), and to evidence and promote differently gendered or sexed experiences and materialisations that have been oppressed or eradicated via oppressive patriarchal systems. Importantly, feminist practices are not just concerned with the historical record, but feed back into our contemporary cultural and social systems, reimagining, shaping, and enacting societies that are fair, equitable, and just. Feminism in the archives makes space for evidencing the marginalised and oppressed; it also enables the documenting and evidencing of its own heritage (feminism as heritage). Where women’s rights are still under threat (along with wider LGBTQ+ peoples), and our bodies are at risk from violence, poverty, and ill-health, feminist analysis and practices are required across all areas of cultural production and its materialisation and systems. 

Since 2016 I have been focusing on feminist archival and curatorial practices as methodologies, working with numerous archives and collections, archivists, artists, and women’s organisations to explore these issues through practice and publishing.

In 2017 I published “The Feminists are Cackling in the Archive: A Manifesto for Feminist Archiving (or disruption)” with Feminist Review (download here). It was an invited submission, following an event on archiving women’s performance practice. The Manifesto brings together all the things I still try to do: working collaboratively with people, develop new forms via creative practice, publish varied and interesting pieces that embody the practice (not merely representative or dissemination), and work through serious issues playfully. 

3. Are women still being written out of the history? If so, how, and what should people (including ‘male allies’ – because, you  know, ultimately everything has to be about them) be doing about that?

First, start by reading (and citing) all the great feminist work that is being done to diversify histories and contemporary accounts of women’s experiences and practices. Second, support women-led initiatives and research aiming to “cackle” and disrupt the record (including providing the funding and infrastructure.) Third, get on and disseminate that work. Fourth, pay women decent wages across all sectors so they are not struggling to survive. Fifth , stop killing women (ideally, this should be first). Sixth, just because she’s a woman with power doesn’t mean she’s a feminist and cares about other marginalised or at-risk women (see various examples in current Conservative Government). But, stories of those women are as equally important to evidence, to remind us that social justice is the work of feminist practice, not simply putting women into powerful positions.   

4.  What are you working on at present/near future?

Publishing wise, I’m working on an edited collection for Routledge on “Heritage and Gender”, and an experimental authored book for Intellect on “Feminist Co-Production: as a Crochet Textile Playground” (using the work of Japanese artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam as a textile metaphor). Practice-wise, I am working in North Manchester (in neighbourhoods with high indices of multiple deprivation) leading an interdisciplinary research project making sense of community resilience under climate change stresses, and exploring the potential of arts practice for supporting social justice. Plus, I’m working on another research project supporting work around riparian treescapes for climate adaptation, land stewardship, and species reintroduction. Now (and in the near future) my work is mostly ecological, a natural progression from feminist cultural work. I also have an adopted archive of an ageing female photographer I want to work on at some point … 

5. Anything else you’d like to say.

Amongst the raging at inequalities and injustice, I witness, daily, very ordinary people doing extraordinary things for humanity and other living beings. I hold onto bell hooks’ call for people to practice love and to love each other well. Feminism is hope.

Categories
Media United States of America

March 7, 2001 – CNN unintentionally reveals deep societal norms around democracy

 Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 7, 2001, the US news network CNN showed what is “normal” and what is “bad” in its cosmology, when reporting on old white men in suits versus protests…

7 March 2001 CNN reports on climate protests “marring” (pointless) climate talks – Protests mar climate talks 

https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/03/environment.summit/index.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there were  climate negotiations in Italy, at which the Americans were – surprise surprise – basically saying “fuck you.” This was shortly after George Bush was selected as President. 

The Hague negotiations in November 2000 had ended in such a disaster that the meeting wasn’t finally closed. And so with your big Cheney as his vice president, it looks pretty perilous for international climate negotiations.

What I think we can learn from this

What’s important here is the framing that protest activity by civil society would besmirch the nice, cool, rational debates of our lords and masters. Now, if you put it bluntly, the journalist who wrote it, or the sub-editor who wrote it, would either say, “Well, look, it’s just a headline. And we don’t have much space.” They might agree with the point about the politics at a superficial level. But if pushed, they would say “No, why should the mob be able to influence what the smart technocrats are doing?” 

And that hatred of ordinary people, and their involvement is persistent. And it’s the case that if you don’t abide by that, then you don’t get your role as a journalist or as an academic or whatever. 

If you’re interested in this stuff, then obviously, reading Chomsky is a good idea, but also the life and times of Randolph Bourne who died just after World War One. Obviously Gramsci on the power of hegemony. If and how the popular press works, and any number of publications by the Glasgow Media Group etc

What happened next

Bush pulled out of Kyoto, an entirely sane and rational decision “marred” by protest.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..