Twenty three years ago, on this day, November 9, 2000, an academic collaboration finally ground into existence, after a 1997 Tony Blair election promise…
The Tyndall Centre is a national United Kingdom centre for trans-disciplinary research on climate change. It is dedicated to advancing the science of integration, to seeking, evaluating and facilitating sustainable solutions to climate change and to motivate society through promoting informed and effective dialogue. The Centre was constituted in October 2000 and launched officially on 9 November 2000.
http://www.preventionweb.net/english/professional/contacts/v.php?id=2713
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Blair’s Labour Party had made a lot of promises in the run up to the 1997 election. One of these was the creation of a scientific body in the UK to look at climate change. And so on this day in November 2000, over three years later – nice sense of urgency Tony! The Tyndall Centre had been launched.
This was against the backdrop of stalling international climate negotiations in the midst of the uncertainty about whether Gore or Bush would be president in the end. George W. Bush’s dad’s mates on the Supreme Court fixed it for him. With the collapse of the negotiations at The Hague it was all looking pretty bleak.
What the Tyndall Centre would do, if one were to be cynical about it, is offer institutional homes for disciplinary and interdisciplinary work around climate change. Ultimately there’s something deeper and longer going on here isn’t there? There is a failure to really solve these problems. So you have to ask yourself, why do we keep doing what we keep doing? It’s because this change is really difficult and it’s comforting to keep doing what we’re doing. Fewer costs. It’s easier to be a winner on a losing team than a loser on a losing team because even if you switch, you yourself will not derive benefit, but I digress.
What I think we can learn from this
Academics gonna academic. It’s no bad thing.
What happened next
Tyndall is still going, still producing great work (I mean that sincerely, not snarkily!).
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.