Twenty five years ago, on this day, April 26, 1998, The New York Times runs a story, probably not that different from the one on the 26th of December 1997 in the Washington Post. That, lo and behold, industrial interests, coal miners, auto makers, etc. are going to continue to try to – to use the academic terminology – shit all over climate action. And I think this is front page news but certainly not a surprise.
Anyone who’s paying any attention knows that we live in a plutocracy, not a democracy, and that the ability of powerful cashed up vested interests, to shape policy to prevent policies they don’t like, is enormous. Just because the power is enormous doesn’t mean that they always win all the time. But it means the game is rigged, y’all.
1998 Cushman of NYT breaks story – Cushman, J. 1998. Industrial Group Plans to Battle Climate Treaty. New York Times, 26 April, p.1
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly pp368.8m. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the US had been at COP-3 Kyoto meeting. I think Al Gore even signed, but it was never going to come to the Senate for ratification. But the danger was that in two years time, if there was a Democrat in the White House, things could somehow change…
What I think we can learn from this
Opponents of action take nothing for granted and are always trying to keep their muscles, their attack muscles fresh, in case they’re needed.
What happened next
Cashed up denialist kept doing their denying.
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.