Month: May 2024

Categories
Cultural responses

May 24, 2004 – “The Day After Tomorrow” released

Twenty years ago, on this day, May 24th, 2004, a retread disaster film (with climate change substituted for nuclear war) hit the screens, launched in New York.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 377.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Hollywood does love a good Disaster Movie. Especially if it can save on script by substituting some CGI and basically recycling a nuclear war survivalist thing. And that’s what the Day After Tomorrow really is with an amusingly cast guy who’s a lookalike for then vice president (or actual president). Dick Cheney. Dennis Quaid as the sexy scientist hero, it might be fun to watch it again actually. There’s also the Statue of Liberty thing which is a call back to plan as of the eighth we do like a good catastrophe, don’t we? Netflix and chiliastic…

What we learn is that there are a finite number of narratives and we just like recycling them and repurposing them. That’s not so bad. You know, Shakespeare did it. No one goes to Shakespeare for originality of plot. It’s all in the execution. A bit like policy. It’s all about the implementation. 

What happened next? Activists tried to use the film as a rallying or recruiting point without much success. That’s not how Hollywood films work really. Or activism for that matter. The film did not trouble the Academy Awards particularly. But it was never designed to. It was designed to make money and it did make money.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 24, 2000- Australian denialist nutjobs have nutjob jamboree

May 24, 2007 – James Hansen ponders whether scientists can be too cautious and quiet (or, indeed “reticent”)

Categories
Science United States of America

May 24, 1953 – NYT on “How industry may change climate”

Seventy one years ago, on this day, May 24th, 1953, the New York Times reported on Gilbert Plass’s statements at the American Geophysical Union’s meeting a couple of weeks earlier. The article was by Waldemar Kaempfert, who’d write something else on the topic in October 1956, just before his death.

https://www.nytimes.com/1953/05/24/archives/how-industry-may-change-climate.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The New York Times makes explicit mention of carbon dioxide buildup from industry as something that will heat the planet. This is from their science writer Walter Kaempffert.

The context is that a couple of weeks later earlier, Gilbert Plass, a Canadian physicist had made a startling presentation to the American Geophysical Union, and this had travelled around the world [Conversation article link].

What we learn is that it’s been 71 years since the warnings started coming from people who weren’t “merely” steam engineers. 

What happened next – It was taken seriously, as it were, in the 1950s, then seemed to fall off for 10 years. And then came back in the late 60s and then fell off again, came back in the late 80s. And here we are 35 years after that, having increased our emissions by about 70%. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 24, 2000- Australian denialist nutjobs have nutjob jamboree

May 24, 2007 – James Hansen ponders whether scientists can be too cautious and quiet (or, indeed “reticent”)

Categories
Australia

May 23, 2000 – Deputy Prime Minister versus Greenhouse Trigger

Twenty four years ago, on this day, May 23rd, 2000,

Prior to a Cabinet meeting on 22 May [2000] where the greenhouse trigger was to be discussed, the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson publicly criticised the proposal, describing it as ‘unnecessary and inappropriate’ and suggesting it would harm the economy, particularly in regional [page break] areas. In a press release issued on 22 May, Anderson said that ‘it was not necessary or appropriate for the Commonwealth to effectively take over the State’s role in the environmental assessment and approval of major developments.

(Macintosh, 2007: 49-50) 

And then this –

Senator Hill had been ambushed. It appears neither he nor his staff were aware the trigger proposal was likely to face such fierce opposition in Cabinet….

The anti-greenhouse, anti-trigger camp did not stop at this. The following day [23 May 2000] senator Minchin presented research he had commissioned from Dr Brian Fisher of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE), a critic of the Kyoto Protocol, which found that meeting Australia’s Kyoto target could cost between 0.5 per cent and 1.4 per cent of Gross National Product at 2010. The fossil fuel lobby used this research as a springboard to back Anderson’s and Minchin’s position, suggesting the trigger would have significant adverse economic implications. Dick Wells, the executive director of the Minerals Council of Australia, was quoted in the Australian Financial Review as saying, ‘[w]e agree with John Anderson that the trigger would harm employment and regional growth…..

(Macintosh, 2007: 50) 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369.7ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Howard Government had signed the environmental biodiversity protection and conservation act in 1998 and there was talk of a so-called greenhouse trigger which meant that any particularly carbon intensive scheme would have to go to a minister for approval. Yikes, because this would mean that there would be more lobbying and more political cost in waving through the latest worship of the great god Development. The opponents of greenhouse action hated this idea. And on this day, there was an ambush. 

What we learn is that political parties have different factions representing different interests. And there is always going to be a headbanger element, whether it’s Warwick Parer, Nick Minchin, John Anderson, whatever.

What happened next? Well, the greenhouse trigger did not get up and three months later, there was another defeat when the emissions trading scheme also bit the dust. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 23, 1977 – President Carter announces Global 2000 report… or “Let’s all meet up in the Global2000”

May 23, 1980 – Aussie senator alerts colleagues to #climate threat. Shoulder shrugs all round. #auspol

May 23, 2012 – wicked problems and super-wicked problems all around…

Categories
United Kingdom Wales

May 22, 1972 – Horizon doco “Do you Dig National Parks?”

Fifty-two years ago, on this day, May 22nd, 1972, the BBC showed an influential documentary about national parks and how the protections people thought they had were being undermined…

Outcry from the Conservation Society, Friends of the Earth and other groups led the BBC to run a Horizon documentary called Do You Dig National Parks May 22 1972

FOE’s collaboration with television teams led, in September 1971, to a Granada TV production entitled “A Subject Called Ecology in a Place Called Capel Hermon,” and, in May 1972, to a BBC Horizon production called “Do You Dig National Parks?” In the discussion which formed the latter half of the Horizon program, FOE spokesmen Graham Searle and Amory Lovins, manifesting a grasp of open-pit mining technology and economics at least equal to that of their adversaries, methodically dissected the arguments put forward by RTZ Vice-Chairman Roy Wright and one of his colleagues. Suddenly it began to be conceivable that FOE and its allies – who now included many of the local people in Snowdonia – might have a chance of winning.

Walt Patterson – https://www.waltpatterson.org/foertz.pdf

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the nascent environment/protest movement in the UK was worried about what was being done to national parks by Rio Tinto and other mining companies. This documentary exposed that and helped raise public awareness and make some of the decisions more costly and unpalatable for politicians.

What we learn is that documentaries can matter. 

What happened next, the environment movement kept growing sort of though, things kind of became harder from ‘73 onwards partly because of fatigue and old news-itis but also the oil shock and economic problems up the wazoo. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 22, 2007 – “Clean coal” power station by 2014, honest…

May 22 – Build Back Biodiversity: International Biodiversity Day

Categories
United Kingdom

May 21, 1990 – “The Big Heat” documentary

Thirty four years ago, on this day, May 21st, 1990, the BBC ran a documentary on, well “The Big Heat”

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/22a5069010204a1ea1421917335be902

The Big Heat

As the cold war ends, world leaders are already beginning to fight the climate war. They have been warned by scientists that global warming, caused by industrialisation and pollution, will cause a dramatic increase in storms, floods and droughts around the world. But there is bitter disagreement over who should pay the cost of preventing such disastrous climatic change. Should the burden fall on the west, with the risk of recession and a fall in living standards, or should Third World countries also foot the bill, even though it may mean hunger and poverty?

As part of One World week, Stephen Bradshaw reports from Britain, America and India on the politics of the climate, and reveals the latest scientific evidence on the future of our weather. Producer Charles Furneaux Editor Mark Thompson

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was banging on about climate change, global warming, the greenhouse effect. And this documentary explored the geopolitical consequences and implications.

 What we learn is that the issues have been laid out, repeatedly, for anyone who cares to understand them. 

What happened next, more documentaries. But also, quite soon after the pushback with the ridiculous greenhouse conspiracy documentary, the one that John Houghton wrote about. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 21, 1971 – Marvin Gaye asks “What’s Going On?”

May 21, 1998 – “Emissions Trading: Harnessing the Power of the Market”

Categories
United Kingdom

May 20, 1976 – UK World Trends committee chair worries about the weather…

Forty eight years ago, on this day, May 20th 1976, a senior British figure worries about the weather (as the drought is just kicking off).

As early as May 1976, the chair of World Trends asked whether, given the ‘2 years of abnormally mild weather’, and a gathering ‘pressure on Ministers to make statements about climatic change’, the 1975 advice that nothing known was of concern still stood?

TNA CAB 134/4103. Minutes, WT(76)1st, 20 May 1976. Sawyer of the Met Office replied that WT(75)7 was indeed ‘still valid’

(Agar 2015: 613)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the weather had been a little weird. And people like Henry Kissinger had been talking about that at the United Nations. This was even before the long hot summer of 1976. Were we going to burn or were going to freeze? And the fact that he raised it and then had to tamp it down, “there’s nothing to worry about nothing to see here ol chap” is amusing.

What we learn is that the British state was keeping an eye on things, but had no sense of alarm. Because, well, John Mason at the Met Office told him there was nothing to be alarmed about. He wasn’t the only one.

 What happened next? Well, the drought of 1976. 

And a month later the World Meteorological Organisation warned that “the World’s temperature was likely to rise”.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 21, 1971 – Marvin Gaye asks “What’s Going On?”

May 21, 1998 – “Emissions Trading: Harnessing the Power of the Market”

Categories
India

May 20, 1959 Times of India letter about Teller and CO2

Sixty five years ago, on this day, May 20th, 1959, the Times of India ran a letter, under the title “Getting Hotter?” by S.B. Kulkarni and R. Mani about Edward Teller’s warning on carbon dioxide.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Edward Teller had been talking about CO2 buildup. And this had caught the eye of a couple of people in India who had written letters about it.

What we learn is that people all around the world were aware. They’d already been in January of 1957 the Otago Herald times in New Zealand. 

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.

Also on this day: 

May 20, 1960 – Spengler suggests decline of the … whole shebang

May 20, 1977 – Australian Prime Minister says “coal, not solar” is the future

May 20, 1990 – “Ironing out the Greenhouse Effect”

May 20, 2010 – climategate keeps delivering for denialists

Categories
International Geophysical Year United States of America

May 19, 1957 – LA Times asks “Is your smoke helping to melt polar icecaps?”

Sixty seven years ago, on this day, May 19th, 1957 the Los Angeles Times asked the question (not for the first time.) This was all part of the pre-International Geophysical Year (IGY) build-up…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Los Angeles Times had already run some articles about this. And here’s another one. In the context that senior politicians, scientists had been talking about this, not just Revelle, but also Kaplan, Wexler, etc. And it was speculative, but Gilbert Plass by this time had come out with his article in Tellus and was working on one for Scientific American. 

What we learn is that, again, if you were reading a newspaper the idea that over time the carbon dioxide could build up and cause mayhem was explained to you. Whether you chose to remember it, or believe it was up to you.

What happened next, the International Geophysical Year, Sputnik the Keeling Curve, the remorseless rise of emissions and then 30 years later, greenhouse effect would become undeniable. Except to those who chose to deny it, of course.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 19, 1937 – Guy Callendar’s carbon dioxide warning lands on someone’s desk

May 19, 1993 – President Clinton begins to lose the BTU battle…

May 19, 1997 – an oil company defects from the denialists. Sort of.

May 19, 1997 – BP boss says “If we are to take responsibility for the future of our planet, then it falls to us to begin to take precautionary action now.”

Categories
United Kingdom

May 18, 1967 – NA Leslie at Institute of Petroleum, citing Barry Commoner on C02 build up

Fifty seven years ago, on this day, May 18th, 1967, NA Leslie, giving the Presidential Address at Institute of Petroleum, quotes from Barry Commoner’s Science and Survival, and mentions CO2 build- up as a possible problem

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Barry Commoner’s book had come out the previous September. The BBC had shown Challenge in January of 1967 and the oil and gas industries’ own environmental body Concawe had been going since ‘63. And Torrey Canyon had just happened too…

[It would be fascinating to know if Concawe had written anything I don’t know where their records might be but I need to talk about them as a body as well.]

What we learn is that the oil and gas industries were aware of the issue at the time, not at the stage of necessarily wanting to do anything about it. 

What happened next is that over the next couple of years the possible problem of carbon dioxide build up became much more broadly known in the UK and US (and to a lesser extent in Australia).

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.

Also on this day: 

May 18, 1953 – Newsweek covers climate change. Yes, 1953.

May 18, 1976 – US congress begins hearings on #climate

May 18, 2006- Denialist nutjobs do denialist nutjobbery. Again.

Categories
United Kingdom

May 17, 1979 – Martin Holdgate’s A Perspective on Environmental Pollution” published

Forty-five years ago, on this day, May 17, 1979 an important book on Environmental Pollution, written by Martin Holdgate, came out (with a section on carbon dioxide build-up),

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 336.8ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Martin Holdgate had been working on pollution issues for 10 years by this stage and had a lot of useful data. This book had been finalised a couple of years before. The broader context of course, is that Margaret Thatcher had just taken office. And this unfortunately meant that the work on climate change that had been building under the Callaghan government was largely frozen out and ignored. So it goes. 

What we can learn is what you have already learned from the site, which is that smart people knew. We knew. People who read newspapers knew. We knew we knew we knew.

The problem was not lack of information. The problem was plausible pathways to power and influence.

 What happened next. Holdgate and others kept writing, kept working. And the emissions kept climbing.

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.

Also on this day: 

May 17, 1968 – “Some prophets of darkness warn of polar icecaps melting…”

May 17, 1972 – New York Times reports carbon dioxide build-up worries…