Thirty two years ago, on this day, July 22, 1991, the Australian radio program “The Science Show” (ABC Radio) had two climate denialists on. Oh joy.
(See Robyn Williams letter to The Australian, 1991, Dec 6, p.10).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Science Show had from its very beginnings been aware of the dangers of climate change. So Ritchie Caleer, who had been writing about the problem emphatically since the late 60s (and had been aware of it since the early 1950s), was a guest in 1975 on the first episode.
In 1991, the politics of it national of climate, internationally and nationally were getting hot. The negotiations for a climate treaty to be signed in June of 92 were going nowhere thanks to the resolute intransigence and blocking of the United States administration.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process was reaching its final stages, drafts were being written ahead of release within a couple of months. I don’t know if the Science Show had pro-climate action guests the week before the week after. But on this occasion, they had two idiots. One was Bill Nirenberg, one of the Jasons who you can read about in Merchants of Doubt. He had helped to write the 1983 NAS “changing climate” report, saying, “Oh, it’ll be long term and there’s nothing we can do anyway.” The other guest was Brian O’Brien, one of the more active climate deniers on the Australian scene. He was able to play on the fact that he had been the scientist for NASA, as if this somehow gave him expertise on climate science. O’Brian had written various screeds about climate policy, especially attacking the “Toronto Target”.
What I think we can learn from this is that even the best media has to allow dodgy people on because if you don’t, it is “censorship”. And especially 31 years ago, there was still need to “hear both sides of the argument.” And to be fair, I don’t know how Robyn Williams dealt with that at the time, maybe he did a very good job of sending a public health warning to listeners.
What happened next
The ecologically sustainable development process was killed off by new Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and his henchmen within the Australian Federal bureaucracy. The Rio Earth Summit, rubberstamped a piss-weak climate treaty, i.e. the Americans won. And in long term, everybody lost.
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.