Month: January 2025

Categories
Academia United Kingdom

February 1, 2005 – “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change” conference begins

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 1st, 2005,

… an international conference called “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change: A Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases”[17] examined the link between atmospheric greenhouse gas concentration, and the 2 °C (3.6 °F) ceiling on global warming thought necessary to avoid the most serious effects of global warming. Previously, this had generally been accepted as being 550 ppm.[18]

The conference took place under the United Kingdom’s presidency of the G8, with the participation of around 200 ‘internationally renowned’ scientists from 30 countries. It was chaired by Dennis Tirpak and hosted by the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, from 1 February to 3 February.[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoiding_dangerous_climate_change#Symposium_on_avoiding_dangerous_climate_change

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 380ppm. As of 2025 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Tony Blair, neck deep in the Iraq War and his special bromance with George  W. Bush was very keen that the G7 in Gleneagles that year not talk about said war. So there was the Make Poverty History, bullshit. (And by bullshit, I don’t mean the sincere efforts by the NGOs and individuals, I mean UK Government.)

And there was also the climate agenda, so the academic conference at Exeter University must be seen in the context of avoiding talking about Iraq. The conference was held over three days, lots of fine words, including words about carbon capture and storage. It’s not so clear to me that anyone talked about how this was already a 20 year old agenda, if you put the starting gun at Villach..

What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve been talking about avoiding dangerous climate change, and we haven’t. And now we are “coping” with dangerous climate change – that  would have to be the title Or “bracing for the impact of the unavoided and now unavoidable existential threat climate change.” I don’t know what you would call it. 

What happened next:  More people died in the Iraq War of choice. Blair finally went in whenever it was 2007.  And no one ever was held to account for what they did.

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: 

February 1, 1978 – US TV show MacNeill Lehrer hosts discussion about climate change

February 1, 1990 – Australian Financial Review ponders carbon tax… (via FT)

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climateFeb 1 2023 – Interview with Russell Porter, Australian documentary maker

Categories
Activism Australia

January 31, 2009 – Climate Action Summit

Sixteen years ago, on this day, January 31st, 2009,

 From January 31 to February 3, 2009, over 150 community based climate action groups and more than 500 people came together in Canberra to talk, debate, strategise and take action on climate change at Australia’s Climate Action Summit. 

http://www.foe.org.au/australias-climate-action-summit

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that from late 2006 onwards, there had been a great deal of awareness/alarm about climate change and its impacts in Australia and various actions in various places. By late 2008 it was obvious that the Rudd Government was doing a tremendous amount of backsliding and caving in to vested interests. 

And so the Climate Action Summit was held in a period where there was a fragile elite consensus that wasn’t really worth a bucket of warm spit, and citizens were trying to do it for themselves. 

What I think we can learn from this is that citizens can’t do it for themselves. They have to somehow create irresistible pressure on elected representatives, on states, on bureaucracies. But this is much easier said than actually done. 

What happened next

Climate change, oddly, continued to be an open sore, kind of permanently, but especially until the end of 2011 when Julia Gillard managed to get climate legislation through the parliament.

Various climate action summits and efforts at NVDA and efforts at public pressure have continued ever since, and here we are – fubarred. 

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: 

January 31, 1979 – Alvin Weinberg’s “nukes to fix climate change” speech reported

January 31, 2002 – Antarctic ice shelf “Larsen B” begins to break up.

January 31, 1990 – Environmental Racism – then and now… Guest post by @SakshiAravind

Categories
Uncategorized

January 30, 2024 – Climate Committee counsels action

One year ago, on this day, January 30th, 2024,

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has again called on the government to strengthen efforts to meet domestic climate targets, warning that “mixed messages” on the UK’s decarbonisation plans risk damaging the country’s leadership position at UN climate talks.

The independent advisory body will today publish a review of the UK’s role at last year’s COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, which praises efforts to deliver a broadly ambitious new international accord, but warns urgent action is now required to deliver on the goals set under the UAE Consensus.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 422ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a year ago, the Climate Change Committee, created in 2008 as part of the whole “Climate Change Act” thing, gave its latest advice to Sunak’s government (as if Sunak’s government was listening! As if Starmer’s will). 

What will be more interesting is what advice it gives Starmer’s government about the seventh carbon budget. This is set to be released on February 26th. Heathrow expansion?!

What I think we can learn from this is that quasi-independent bodies like the Climate Change Committee can offer all the advice they like, and politicians will, by and large, ignore them unless the advice is going to suit the interests of big business. Oh, call me a cynic. 

What happened next

Well, it was only a year ago. Nothing much has happened in British politics since then.

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: 

January 30, 1961 – New York Times reports world is cooling

January 30, 1989 – “Hawkie” flies off to flog coal

January 30, 1989 – Je ne fais rein pour regretter… #climate jargon

Categories
Podcasts

Podcast review: Rebecca John, Deceptive PR Strategy Pioneered in 1950s California to Hide Climate Change Risk

I am going to start doing reviews of climate change podcasts that touch on the long gory history (especially pre-1988). If you have recommendations, get in touch. The first review is positive (yay). Rebecca John appearing on the History of California Podcast to talk about research she did about the “Air Pollution Foundation” – an early 1950s oil-industry funded group that (spoilers) hired a young Charles Keeling to measure the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Tl; dr – good questions, comprehensive but not verbose answers, and some methodological nuggets for the history geeks; what’s not to love?

The review

History of California Podcast

The History of California podcast looks really good. I’ve only listened to one episode (so far), and it was even better than really good. And it’s an interview with Rebecca John who has done lots of award winning documentaries, etc, and has been fossicking in the archives for what we knew about climate change when. “we” meaning the elites, not just the scientists. This is, of course, All Our Yesterday’s jam.

John is being interviewed here about one particular article published in January of 2024 about how the oil and gas companies were funding something called the air pollution foundation in 1953 54 in Los Angeles, and how that foundation funded the first carbon dioxide measurement work of Charles Keeling, who has neglected to mention it in his memoir.

This is what you want from a podcast. The questions are both on point and to the point, the answers are comprehensive without being train- spottery. And there’s some, you know, fun methodological facts. I totally recognize that you’re sitting in an archive, and you read some phrase, and you think, “hello?”, and then you pull on that bit of string and kapow. Well, it’s takes hard work, obviously.

So have a listen, and I’ll certainly be checking up more of the history of California podcast 

Two final things.

John has a really interesting news piece on DeSmog that begins thus

An Israeli private investigator wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly carrying out a hack-and-leak operation commissioned on behalf of ExxonMobil is fighting against his extradition to a Brooklyn, NY, detention center. 

Also thanks to John’s shout out at the end, I found the specific files on Inside Climate News about Exon “the path not taken.” That led me to a trove of materials, including the one I just put up, from January 29, 1980, which is going viral (by my standards) at the moment.


Next podcast review – Alice Bell as a guest on The Cursed Object.

See also Green and Red podcast (haven’t watched yet)

Categories
United States of America

January 29, 1980 -Exxon HQ tells its Vice-Presidents that CO2 build-up is “a potentially serious problem”

On this day, 45 years ago, the head of Exxon’s Science and Technology Department laid out some basic facts. We know this thanks to the sterling investigative work of Inside Climate News. You can read the whole thing here.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that since 1977, Exxon scientists had been helping educate the C-suite about what Exxon’s product (i.e. fossil fuels) might be doing to the atmosphere, and helping oceanographers with their research.

What we learn is that, to coin a phrase “Exxon knew.”

What happened next Exxon kept supporting climate research for a couple of years. In the mid-80s it did a reverse ferret and became the denial generating and supporting scamp we all know and love.

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, obv

Also on this day: 

January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift

January 29, 2004 – John Daly, Australian skeptic, dies

January 29, 2006 – Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

Categories
United Kingdom

January 28, 2020 –  Scientists warn politicians #02: United Kingdom

Five years ago, on this day, January 28th, 2020, a deeply unfunny clown got an education.

A slide show that Prime Minister Boris Johnson says helped convince him on climate change has been revealed for the first time. The slides used to “teach” him about climate science have been released after a Freedom of Information request by UK climate website Carbon Brief. While Mr Johnson has urged action on climate change, he previously, as a journalist, expressed scepticism. He called the presentation, given just after he took office, “very important”. The “teach in”, as it was described in email correspondence, took place in the Cabinet Room of Number 10 Downing Street on 28 January 2020.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60203674

See Carbon Brief’s story here- 

Revealed: The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 414ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Johnson had been dismissing climate change and renewable energy for decades. His dad, as a journalist for The Spectator in the late 1960s had written sensibly about carbon dioxide build up and environmental issues. Pity his son never read any of that, eh? 

What I think we can learn from this is that an expensive education will not make you serious or smart.

What happened next. The pandemic.  The emissions dipped a bit. Then came roaring back.

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: 

January 28, 1969 – Santa Barbara Oil spill

January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick

January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK

Categories
United States of America

January 28, 1987 –  Scientists warn politicians #01: United States

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, January 28th, 1987.

1987 Scientific basis for the Greenhouse effect. 

Testimony by Gordon MacDonald given to a joint hearing before the Subcommittees on Environmental Protection and Hazardous Wastes and Toxic Substances of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, U.S. Senate, One-hundredth Congress, first session, 28 January 1987.

page 123 of Abrahamson 1989

(Wally Broecker also gave testimony)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 349ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that after the scientific meeting in Villach, Austria in October 1985 atmospheric scientists saw both an opportunity and a need to push hard on carbon dioxide build up. And so you had various bits of testimony, perhaps most famously, Carl Sagan in December 1985 . You’d had other greenhouse hearings all through the 80s, thanks in part to people like Al Gore. Some of these had been the subject of television news stories (for example Walter Cronkite in 1980). 

What’s perhaps interesting about this is you have Gordon MacDonald, who, by this time, had been writing about weather modification and carbon dioxide for 20 years, and also Wally Broecker, who had been trying to get politicians interested (see his 1980 letter toPaul Tsongas). 

What I think we can learn from this is that before the issue finally broke through in 1988 there was a steady increase, especially from the mid 80s, of scientists pushing to turn a problem into an issue. 

What happened next

The Long, Hot Summer and drought, the endless summer, as Andrew Revkin would have it, of 1988 provided the final impetus. That was the year that James Hansen gave his testimony and the Changing Atmosphere conference happened. Candidate for the presidency, George Herbert Walker Bush, talked about solving the greenhouse effect with the White House effect. And then Margaret Thatcher gave her speech at the Royal Society, and the issue had indeed arrived.

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: 

January 28, 1969 – Santa Barbara Oil spill

January 28, 1993 – Parliament protest – “Wake Up, the World is Dying” – Guest Post by Hugh Warwick

January 28, 2013 – Doomed “Green Deal” home insulation scheme launched in the UK

Categories
United States of America

January 27, 1967 –  Time Magazine talks carbon dioxide build-up

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, January 27th, 1967,

After the usual litany of localised issues, it ends with this remarkable set of paragraphs. 

Other scientists are concerned about the tremendous quantities of carbon dioxide released into the air by the burning of “fossil fuels” like coal and oil. Because it is being produced faster than it can be absorbed by the ocean or converted back into carbon and oxygen by plants, some scientists think that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased by about 10% since the turn of the century. The gas produces a “greenhouse” effect in the atmosphere; it allows sunlight to penetrate it, but effectively blocks the heat generated on earth by the sun’s rays from escaping back into space.

No Apocalypse. 

There has already been a noticeable effect on earth—a gradual warming trend. As the carbon-dioxide buildup continues and even accelerates, scientists fear that average temperatures may, in the course of decades, rise enough to melt the polar ice caps. Since this would raise ocean levels more than 100 feet, it would effectively drown the smog problems of the world’s coastal cities.

The waters, however, need never rise. Within his grasp, man has the means to prevent any such apocalyptic end. Over the short run, fuels can be used that produce far less pollutant as they burn. Chimneys can be filtered so that particulate smoke is reduced. Automobile engines and anti-exhaust devices can be made far more efficient. What is needed is recognition of the danger by the individual citizen and his government, the establishment of sound standards, and the drafting of impartial rules to govern the producers of pollution. Over the long run, the development of such relatively nonpolluting power sources as nuclear energy and electric fuel cells can help guarantee mankind the right to breathe.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Time had first covered the possible problem of C02 build-up in 1953, in response to Gilbert Plass’s statements at the AGU meeting. The more immediate context was that questions of pollution, air, water, noise had been exercising American journalists and writers for several years. There’s the wonderful song Pollution by Tom Lehrer two years earlier. 

And the crucial context, perhaps, is not so much Lyndon Johnson’s message to Congress in February 1965 but Philip Abelson’s editorial in Science two weeks before Time published this 

What I think we can learn from this is that if you were reading either Science or Time magazine or both back then, the idea of carbon dioxide build up as a problem was there at the beginning of 1967 which is 58 years ago. This was not arcane. This was not bizarre. This was 1967. Alongside this, you also had, of course the book Science and Survival, by Barry Commoner, that had come out the previous year. 

What happened next

Time and Newsweek kept doing the sort of hand wringing, “What have we done?” reports As did US News and World Report. And then, really, by late 1969 the environment “took off” as an issue.

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: 

January 27, 1967 – James Lovelock told to keep schtum about climate change by Shell science boss

January 27, 1989 – UN General Assembly starts talking #climate

January 27, 1986 – Engineers try to stop NASA launching the (doomed) Challenger Space Shuttle

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

January 26, 1972 – “Enhance Oil Recovery” with carbon dioxide kicks off.

Fifty three years ago, on this day, January 26th, 1972, a new technology came along.

CO2-enhanced oil recovery (EOR) has been carried out in the United States and Canada since the 1960s. The world’s first large-scale CO2-EOR project, Scurry Area Canyon Reef Operating Committee (SACROC), has been implemented by Chevron in the oilfield in Scurry County, Texas since January 26, 1972 [13]. The CO2 for this project comes from the natural CO2 fields in Colorado and is pipelined to the oilfield for flooding. More than 175 million tonnes of natural CO2 in total were injected in the SACROC project during 1972–2009 [14].  

Ma et al  – 2022. Carbon Capture and Storage: History and the Road Ahead. Engineering Volume 14, July 2022, Pages 33-43

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that economies were still growing at a rate that we would now consider either astonishing or Chinese. Energy companies were looking to extract more oil and gas, of course, and to do it as cheaply as possible. In retrospect, we can now see this is the formal beginning of enhanced oil recovery. But at the time, I guess it was just one more experiment (EOR had already been piloted on a much smaller scale). 

What I think we can learn from this is that EOR, which is still the raison d’etre behind CCS, or the only way that it will make money, has a long history, longer than 1972. 

What happened next

Well, CCS had a long, slow development process. There were studies in the late 70s through the 80s. There was momentary interest in it in 1989 and then the people who would have done it realized how much it would cost and how they could get more bang for their buck elsewhere. And CCS finally took off in the 2000s because the Kyoto Protocol looked like it might come into force, and rich nations needed something with which to pretend to be taking action.

Somebody should write a book. Oh, wait.

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: 

January 26, 1970 – British PM offers US a “new special relationship” on pollution. (Conservative then tries to outflank him.)

Categories
Australia

 January 25, 2007 – John Howard proclaims himself as a “climate realist”

Eighteen years ago, on this day, January 25th, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard tries to explain away his late-2006 U-turn.

 “I regard myself as a climate change realist. That means looking at the evidence as it emerges and responding with policies that preserve Australia’s competitiveness and play to her strengths.” John Howard, Address to the National press Club, 25 January 2007

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a few months earlier John Howard had been forced to begin to pretend that he cared about the possibility of climate change from carbon dioxide build up. This was because of a whole sequence of events, including the ongoing Millennium drought, the release of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and The Stern Review into the economics of climate change by Her Majesty’s Treasury. And so Howard had created the Shergold Group to look into the possibility of an emissions trading scheme. And this was, of course, stacked with the usual suspects and left out people who might have different, stronger opinions. But Howard wasn’t really convincing anyone. And so Howard was using words like “realism” in his  National Press Club speech. And anyone who knows or has been around for any length of time knows that “realism” and “realistic” are code words that people use trying to frame themselves as the “sensible center” and their opponents as either wild eyed fanatics or dreamers. 

What I think we can learn from this is that politicians will always try and do U-turns if cornered. Of course they will, but these may not work. 

What happened next  Howard became only the second Australian Prime Minister to lose his own seat at a Federal election. In November of 2007 the world got Kevin, “I’m from Queensland, and here to help” Rudd, who said he was going to sort out the climate issue. And he did as much on that as he did on the wheat to Iraq scandal and many others- that is to say, fuck all. 

The National Press Club has hosted all sorts of climate talks, of course, in its long and illustrious life. Here is an incomplete precis- https://marchudson.net/2017/01/29/turnbull-climate-and-the-national-press-club-auspol/

, 

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: 

January 25, 1994: UK government releases “Sustainable Development Strategy

January 25, 1995 – Australian electricity reforms mean more greenhouse gases…

January 25, 2013 – Lord Stern admits #climate “worse than I thought”