Twenty six years ago, on this day, October 1, 1997, an international conference on Environmental Justice took place in Melbourne.
More than 400 academics and environmental activists from 30 countries attending an Environmental Justice conference at the University of Melbourne heard on Wednesday [1st October] that much of the Federal Government’s greenhouse gas research had been funded by the fossil-fuel industry.
Dent, S. 1997. Greens see red on gas. Herald-Sun, 3 October.
[Environmental Justice: Global Ethics for the 21st Century : International Academic Conference of the University of Melbourne, Australia, October 1st-3rd 1997.]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 363.6=5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by 1997 it was obvious that the international negotiations were not going very well. The Kyoto conference which was then impending, was likely to have a pretty watered-down, scientifically inadequate agreement on emissions reductions. There had already been a “Countdown to Kyoto” conference in Canberra. Meanwhile the Howard government had been busy slicing and dicing the CSIRO and other potential problems.
What I think we can learn from this
The hand-wringing about fossil- fuel funding can be overdone. “Intellectuals’ ‘ have always sucked up to power structures, be they the church, the state or corporations – those people with the money, who can dish out the prestige and the cushy living. Don’t be surprised.
What happened next
The fossil fuel gang had continued to dominate. They have tightened their grip in most ways like an anaconda. But still occasionally some academic will try and tell the truth and will get publicly punished for it as a lesson to the others
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.