Twenty seven years ago, on this day, July 4, 1996, in an issue of Nature,
“Benjamin Santer, K.E. Taylor, Tom M. Wigley, and ten other researchers published an article that concluded: “The observed spatial patterns of temperature change in the free atmosphere from 1963 to 1987…are similar to those predicted by state-of-the-art climate models… It is likely that this trend is partially due to human activities,…”
Gelbspan, R. (1998) Page 220
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the IPCC second assessment report was coming out. And the authors of this article, especially Santer, had been attacked on spurious grounds repeatedly, publicly and viciously by demented [see addendum at foot of post] old men who were being funded by cynical fossil fuel interests. These assholes were at base, very well aware of the climate science, which was not really in dispute.
What we learn again, there are no depths to which these mongrels, these monsters, will not stoop.
What happened next
Santer’s career continued. The science kept getting stronger. The Global Climate Coalition was able to fold in 2002 to having achieved its aims of stopping the US taking any serious climate action.
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.
Addendum
A commenter has raised an eyebrow over the adjective demented, and they are 100% correct. It was simply wrong to throw a medical term around as an insult. It also medicalises and explains away a political decision. I will try to do better in future. If you, reader(s?) see other examples of dodgy thinking/language, feel free to drop me a line.
4 replies on “July 4, 1996 – article in Nature saying ‘it’s partly us’”
Thanks for the assiduous retrospectives. ‘Likely’ and ‘partially’ now seem very modest assessments from fingerprinting. Could they have said something like: in so far as trends have emerged from noise, they are all consistent with the expected enhanced greenhouse effect? More context would be that ten or twenty years previously, much of the general public knew about it.
Santee was treated abominably by all accounts and perhaps was lucky to escape with sanity intact, but where you say ‘demented’ i begin to feel uncomfortable, partly because of connotations of dementia. Oreskes suggests old men trying to stay relevant and find a post-Cold Was enemy. I’m sure there’s lots of truth in that, but personalising the anger may be second best to analysis of institutions involved. I mean, there are good reasons to be angry at untruths that lead to destruction of the biosphere. What were the exact attacks against Ben Santer, and how were they promoted?
Hi Cedric,
first, thanks for taking the time to comment.
second, you are ABSOLUTELY (sorry for shouting) right about my misuse of the term ‘demented’. Wrong on several levels, and I will amend accordingly.
third – the campaign against Santer was led by Frederick Seitz and chums, with help from the misnamed ‘Global Climate Coalition’ and involved hatchet job letters to the Wall Street Journal, public accusations of dishonesty etc etc. It is covered in one, possibly both, of Ross Gelbspan’s excellent books about the denialist campaigns. If I recall rightly, it’s in The Heat Is On: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription, Perseus Books Group; Updated edition (September 1, 1998) ISBN 0-7382-0025-5
Thanks for the speedy and informative reply. Please delete my double post (i thought a browser add-on might have blocked my first attempt).
There may be no general ‘institutional analysis’, but what would really interest me, and I don’t know if Ross Gelbspan covers it are things like: internal briefs to PR companies, how hatchet job letters are accepted unchallenged, how intemperate comments by Seitz and Singer get encouraged and further promoted by agencies, the co-ordinated PR strategy.
Michael Mann suggests denial strategies have stopped… Not sure that’s completely true, because paranoia among a fraction of the public is easy to exploit, but it has moved on There are current coordinated attempts to mislead over climate policy in the UK on behalf of oil investors.
Anyway, on to browse some of your other posts, wondering if an emotacycle is some new zero-carbon transport 🙂
There has been some work done on the ecosystem of denial – Robert Brulle would be an obvious start. The letters about Santer mostly, I think, were in the Wall Street Journal (its reporting, as opposed to its editorial side was not bad). And yes, there will be PR outfits, shady deals, all sorts.
In terms of denial – I think outside of the Twitterbots, mostly the big outfits are focussed on predatory delay and deliberate mitigation deterrence (predatory delay is Alex Steffen’s term).
All best!
Marc
Emotacyle link here – https://marchudson.net/2019/09/23/the-emotacycle-what-it-is-why-it-matters-what-is-to-be-done/