Twenty six years ago, on this day, June 23, 1997, German climatologist Hermann Flohn died.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was this – Flohn was aware of Guy Callendar’s work. During the war he had written about the greenhouse effect. By the late 1950s/early 60s was part of the small band of people paying close attention to what was going on. He was present at the January 1961 meeting in New York of the New York AAAS.
By the early 1970s he was briefing senior politicians including Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme. He was engaging with Australian scientists in the 1970s, and in 1982 he was at the 148th meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement Association for the Advancement of science and was quoted in the New York Times on 7th January 1982 and then in the Christian Science monitor in February 1982
In 1993 he had the pleasure of being on a platform with Richard Lindzen and Patrick Michaels who were denying, well, 19th century physics.
Flohn has not had enough credit for what he did.
What I think we can learn from this
The official histories don’t always give enough credit to people who deserve it.
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.
Thirty five years ago, on this day, June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen gave his pivotal testimony to senators.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that since the 1985 Villach meeting advocates of climate action had been pressing every button and pulling every lever that they knew. Hansen had testified before and this testimony timed to sensitise journalists before the Toronto “Changing the Global Atmosphere” conference was held on a very hot day in Washington DC with the windows closed and the air conditioning turned off.
What I think we can learn from this
You have to say the same thing over and over and over again to get anywhere. You have to be lucky with your timing. And crucially James Hanson was a small c-conservative person at that point, so coming from him it was a big deal to say that the greenhouse effect was here. Those words would not have had the same effect from some other people…
What happened next
The issue exploded. Presidential candidates were forced to address it. Hansen got smeared and ignored and uninvited to important meetings. This continued until he retired. He’s been getting arrested a lot.
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.
Fifty three years ago, on this day, June 22, 1970, Rep John Culver of Iowa shares his eco-concerns, reads “the Imperiled Environment” into the Congressional Record.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Earth Day had happened in April and there were many articles about the desperate state of the planet. And many of these articles – including this one – included a couple of paragraphs about the long-term problem of carbon dioxide build up.
What I think we can learn from this is that many US politicians knew what was at stake they could read the tactic of reading something into the record is helpful for historians 50 years later it’s not clear it was particularly helpful for anyone at the time.
What happened next
The carbon dioxide build up continued to get intermittent press but it was only in 1988 that the issue exploded.
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.
Sixty five years ago, on this day, June 21, 1958, the Washington Post (not then the paper it is now) reported on carbon dioxide build-up.
21 June 1958 – IGY findings – Price, B. (1958) World Seen Turning Into a ‘Greenhouse’. Washington Post and Times Herald ; Jun 21, pg. A1
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
That, even without Charles David Keeling measurements, it was clear that atmospheric CO2 was building up and would eventually cause the planet to overheat. This was thanks to the International Geophysical Year which was by this stage almost 12 months old. The previous December the Washington Post and run a front page story based on Edward Teller’s warning of a long-term climate apocalypse.
What I think we can learn from this
We can learn that there really wasn’t any secret about this in Washington or presumably London, it was just in the too hard and too far away basket
What happened next
The measurements started. The scientists continued to point out that there would be trouble ahead, especially people like Herman Flohn and David Keeling. But it would be 1988 before politicians were forced to take note.
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.
Twenty three years ago, on this day, June 20, 2000, business was getting what it wanted…
It’s quite plain who has the Government’s ear on greenhouse issues, writes Andrew Clennell.
At 4pm on June 20 on a busy parliamentary sitting day in Senate committee room 1S3, the big players in industry put their views to Government on greenhouse. A single sheet of paper was placed on the table. Now, as the Government takes its place in talks on global warming in The Hague, we can appreciate the full significance of that piece of paper. Policy on greenhouse coincides with business’s June wish list. See also his piece – Clennell, A. 2000. Industrialists Urge Caution On Gases Plan. Sydney Morning Herald, 21 June, p.5.
A contingent of industry leaders asked the Federal Government last night to state clearly that it would not ratify the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases unless the United States did so first, and to pledge that Australian jobs would not be sacrificed.
Representatives from BP Amoco, Rio Tinto, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Alcoa Generation met the Industry Minister, Senator Minchin, the Environment Minister, Senator Hill, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anderson, and ministerial advisers from three other offices to discuss Australia’s greenhouse policy.
On the red leather chairs at the rectangular table were three ministers Robert Hill (Environment), Nick Minchin (Industry) and John Anderson (Deputy PM) and advisers from their offices and from the offices of the Treasurer, the Finance Minister and the Forestry Minister.
Facing them were BP’s Australian head, Greg Bourne, miner Rio Tinto’s managing director, Barry Cusack, and heads of the major lobby groups the Business Council, the Minerals Council, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry among others.
Clennell, A. 2000. Taking Care Of Business. Sydney Morning Herald, 14 November, p.15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Xxx John Howard was now 4 years as prime minister and facing another election soon. He had displayed just how willing he was to stop environmental policy if it hurt the interests of the fossil fuel industry, and what the above Google shows is the detail of how lobbyists helped make that happen.
What I think we can learn from this
We can learn that even though business is structurally lucky and in a mutually supportive relationship with the state apparatus usually, it never really takes anything for granted and so, the lobbying and smoothing of the wheels continues non-stop.
What happened next
Howard made sure that the Kyoto protocol was not brought forward for ratification and prevented an emissions trading scheme from being started. ronically this would have helped some forms of business but he also was unrelentingly unremittingly hostile to renewables.
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.
Fourteen years ago, on this day, June 19, 2009, the leader of the Liberal Party gets in a snit because business is – gasp – happy enough with the weak policy being proposed by the Australian Labor Party (then in government).
MALCOLM Turnbull has attacked big business for “snuggling up” to Labor, demanding business publicly back the Coalition strategy of amending and then passing the government’s emissions trading laws.
In a blunt exchange with about 30 chief executives at a Business Council of Australia breakfast at Parliament House on Wednesday, [17]Mr Turnbull attacked business for being “intimidated” into supporting the government and for failing to publicly push for amendments to the laws.
Taylor, L. 2009. Opposition tells industry: don’t `snuggle up’ to Labor — Turnbull puts heat on business. The Australian, 19 June, p.1.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Malcolm Turnbull as the new Liberal Party leader needed to attack Labor, get business on side and not lose his own support. This was always going to be tricky given the competing and frankly irreconcilable demands.
What I think we can learn from this
A political party has explicit ideological needs, whereas business needs to cuddle up to whoever is in government and to keep selling stuff to people even when they’re having one of the periodic fits of “Let’s save the Planet.” Therefore business is going to take a more rational clear-eyed reality-based focus. This can be hard for a political party – especially one which takes business support for granted – to understand.
What happened next
Turnbull tried to take the carbon pricing issue off the table sending his Chief of staff Chris Kenny to talk with Rhodes chief of staff but no dice road was enjoying Turnbull’s agony too much. See Paul Kelly’s book Triumph and Demise for the gory details. Turnbull then lost his position as Liberal party leader to Tony Abbott, who came out swinging against doing anything on climate change.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The carbon tax battle had been lost. And now the anti-climate anti-Gillard sorts were doing their best to keep the flame alive with an anti wind power rally. But you can’t reheat a souffle. And this one was an embarrassment because people on the whole, like wind power, (especially if they don’t have to have their house immediately underneath a turbine).
What I think we can learn from this
Some technologies catch the public mind and are considered nice and good, and others are not. It’s not entirely fair. And neither is life.
What happened next
The anti-wind turbine people kind of more or less, folded up their tent and switched to other sorts of stuff, but then they could afford to do that because by September of 2013, their guy was in power and he hated the damn things. (See my 2017 paper ‘wind beneath their contempt’)
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..
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Everyone, especially the Europeans, was running around talking about the wonders of CCS, we were in a hype cycle. And some of the people intimately involved, know the dangers. And what will happen if there is an over promising and under-delivering.
What I think we can learn from this
And so the more sane members of a community will try and tamp down exuberance and excessive expectations. And that’s what appears to be happening in this case.
What happened next
CCS got European Union support. But none of the projects got constructed. And here we are in 2023. And it’s still not clear that much CCS is going to happen – watch this space!
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.
Thirty years ago, on this day, June 16, 1993, an OECD/IEA conference “International Conference on the Economics Of Climate Change” ended in Paris.
What a doomed species we are.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Earth Summit happened. And now everyone was gonna have to figure out the economics of climate change. The IEA and the OECD were good venues for this, both of them with one foot in the technology. So see for examplethe carbon disposal symposium in Oxford earlier in the year. And IEA had been playing around with the science since well, February of 1981, at the latest. IEA had been looking ideas about what would you do about the economics of climate change? This stuff had been discussed as far back as the mid 1970s by Nordhaus for IASSA
What I think we can learn from this
And the same sets of ideas get moved around the chessboard. And then a new game starts and they set the chess pieces up. And round and round and round it goes. Questions of political and social cultural power, are, of course, bracketed or sidestepped altogether, because that would be normative and not easily quantified. And might take you towards things like new international economic orders, an old unpopular (with the rich) idea from the 1970s…
What happened next
The carbon dioxide kept accumulating. And the economists and so forth, kept flying from conference to conference.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that every man and their dog were talking about climate change – had been since the second half of 2006. And now the Copenhagen Climate Summit was going to be the icing on the cake. So of course, a quote left of centre, but actually centrist newspaper has to bring together the bien-peasants (sic) and business to show that it is a responsible corporate citizen. And there is lots of talk about technology and social change and expectations. Because there are reputations to be burnished and logs to be rolled and mutual back-scratching of various intensity. And how else do you know if you’re alive, unless you’re on one of these platforms being obediently listened to?
What I think we can learn from this
What we learn is that the cycle goes on, and that everyone has their stable place in the emotacycle and the corporate emotacycle. But no one asks question “Gee, what have we been doing wrong?”
What happened next
Copenhagen was predictable and predicted catastrophe. But everyone keeps on same day.
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.
