Twenty seven years ago, on this day, March 9th, 1998,
Gwen Andrews was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of AGO (Taplin and Yu, 2000: 104)
She never briefed Prime Minister John Howard!
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard had spent 1997 doing everything with his power to carve out the absolute sweetest deal possible for Australia at the Kyoto conference; up to and including the threat of not even signing. He had sent emissaries to other nations trying to build a coalition for Australia’s special position, without much success, it must be said. And he had also had to make some vague promises ahead of the Kyoto conference. So in October of ‘97 he had really released a stupid statement “Safeguarding Australia’s Future,” and had promised the creation of something called the Australian Greenhouse Office. Ooh, sounds like you’re taking action, doesn’t it, but no. So on this day, the AGO got its first director.
What I think we can learn from this is that solid, important sounding initiatives can be paper-thin Potemkin outfits. And so it came to pass.
What happened next
Gwen Andrews never gave Howard a briefing, I’m sure she was diligent and keen. Howard couldn’t have been less interested in engaging with the science, politics, economics of climate change. The AGO was there as a fig leaf alongside things like the Greenhouse Challenge.
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
Forty seven years ago, on this day, March 8th, 1978,
Senator WEBSTER (VICTORIA) (Minister for Science) – The baseline air pollution station at Cape Grim in Tasmania is viewed by the Government as being a particularly important installation. I have visited the base on one or two occasions and noted when I was there recently that there have been some results from the monitoring that has taken place. The honourable senator will know that monitoring has been in progress at Cape Grim since 1976 only. The tests which are currently being carried out there are particularly important so far as environmental conditions are concerned. Indeed, they might have much wider implications than just the effect of the environment. For instance, the surface ozone levels are being tested, as are the carbon dioxide levels, concentrations of carbon tetrachloride and fluoro carbons- that is, Freon-ll, which is discussed regularly as being an important constituent to monitor.
The period of measurement has been very short and I understand that no firm conclusion can be drawn on any trends which might be occurring within these programs. The results which have been obtained at Cape Grim to date suggest that carbon dioxide and Freon-ll are increasing as constituents in the atmosphere coming to Cape Grim. That is fairly important. Further data is required before it can be established whether these increased concentrations are part of a cyclical variation over a longer period or whether they are in actual fact indicative of a very definite trend in the atmosphere. That is the reason for the establishment of this baseline air pollution station, which is one of a group of stations placed around the world to monitor the atmosphere and to attempt to establish a baseline.
The Government intends in the future to establish the station permanently. Its management is under the control of the Department of Science, with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation playing an important role. We have put additional facilities and equipment down there within the last year. It is my wish that in the near future we shall see some move towards the establishment of a permanent station there.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a few months earlier, the National Academy of Science in the US had released a report on energy and climate, and this had made front page news in the Canberra Times on sea level rise, etc.
Cape Grim as a measuring facility had been open for a couple of years. The CSIRO had an interest in CO2 build up, and was involved in some of the early work, especially Barrie Pittock and Graham Pearman ,and some politicians were aware of what was going on.
What I think we can learn from this is that we’ve been able to measure our doom for a long time, watching it unfold. The ultimate “press” disturbance.
What happened next
CO2, build-up kept bubbling under, bubbling through, an issue finally, finally broke through into public awareness in 1988.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the BBC was making all of these documentaries about environmental issues and whether we were taking them seriously enough or too seriously. And this is another one of those.
March 1971 is possibly “peak Ehrlich” and peak environment. Everyone knew the Stockholm conference was coming. There was a new Department of the Environment. Super departments have been created, Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, etc.
And here we are.
What I think we can learn from this
The TV shows that we think will “wake up the masses” have been made again and again and again and again. And again.
What happened next
Ehrlich’s predictions of the inescapable famine did not come to pass, and this has definitely hurt the green cause, if you want to call it that.
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.
Thirty four years ago, on this day, March 7th, 1991, Senator Graham Richardson was claiming
‘Australia’s commitment was “the most progressive policy, I might say, of any nation in combating the threat of greenhouse climate change.’”
Senate Hansard 1439 (source)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Graham Richardson had been the Federal Environment Minister between ‘87 and ‘90 and had pushed through various useful bits of legislation and tried to push others. But after the March 1990 election, he had expected to get and was promised, according to him – Defense, and then was given it, and then it was taken away. Hawke hadn’t done his numbers correctly, and Richardson was pissed and was secretly working for Keating, who, by this time, was glowering on the back benches. I don’t know the specifics of why Richardson was boasting about this, but presumably someone will have made a jibe about Labor’s position.
What I think we can learn from this
Labor was still boasting its environmental credentials. This would change under Keating, who was kind of a proto camera, and got rid of all the green crap and stop talking about amorphous issues.
What happened next
Richardson became Environment Minister again, very briefly in 1994, before being replaced by John Faulkner. Richardson then lurched further and further to the right, though he’d always been on the right of the Labor Party.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that with the Global Financial Crisis in full swing, Peter Mandelson recently returned from time as a European Commissioner and bringing back a new-found love of industrial policy launched the first “low carbon industrial strategy with the all singing, all dancing Copenhagen climate conference coming up in 10 months. And of course, the Climate Change Act passed into law only two months previously. So this needs to be seen in the context of UK/EU/global efforts.
What I think we can learn from this is that “industrial policy” as an okay thing goes back further than we thought – I mean, it was a standard Keynesian tool. However, after the post-stagflation triumph of the monetarists/neoliberals, it was career suicide in the 80s and 90s and first half of the noughties to say it, because you would be met with “beer and sandwiches at number 10” as an insult and apparently argument-winningpoint.
What happened next
Well, Gordon Brown’s premiership was at this point, already clearly a dead duck. There was an election in 2010 and to the shame of the Liberal Democrats, hungry for limousines and red boxes, they enabled the Tories (but then Nick Clegg is a Tory on everything except Europe). And although portions of the green rhetoric were kept, it was adios to industrial policy in any meaningful sense.
The low carbon industrial policy went south, but then came back and back and back again, and a new one is going to be launched in June (already pushed back from March).
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.
Forty one years ago, on this day, March 5th, 1984,
March 5 1984 Dickinson presentation “Global Climate Change Due to Human Activities” at Proceedings
HIGH ALTITUDE REVEGETATION WORKSHOP NO. 6
Colorado State University. Fort Collins, Colorado, March 5-6, 1984 https://mountainscholar.org/bitstream/10217/3125/1/is_53.pdf#page=14
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the NCAR had been looking at climatic change for a long time, since its founding in the mid 60s. (See Spencer Weart’s book The Discovery of Global Warming for more details). And the people at NCAR knew what was going on.
This was a minor conference or gathering in Colorado, which is where NCAR is based. It doesn’t really pass the “so what” test, except to say that, by the mid-1980s especially in the aftermath of the EPA, “can we delay a greenhouse warming?” report in October of the previous year, the problem of carbon dioxide build up was becoming well understood by intelligent, informed people. And the cynic might chime in and say,”What, 2% of the population?”
What I think we can learn from this
Is that “we” have known for a very long time.
What happened next
Four years later, in ‘88 the issue, the problem became an issue Since then, the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have gone up another 88 zero parts per million, and human emissions have gone up about 70% I guess
And crucially, we continued with deforestation. The oceans are more acidic and less able to act as sinks, and it’s all going to go tits up very soon. You breeders are gonna be full of regrets.
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.
Fifty five years ago, on this day, March 4th, 1970, a snappily titled academic paper was submitted
Variations of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere By BERT BOLIN and WALTER BISCHOF, Institute of Meteorology, University of Stockholm
(Manuscript received March 4, 1970; revised version May 28, 1970)
ABSTRACT
Six years of measurements (1963-1968) of carbon dioxide in the troposphere and the lower stratosphere are presented. The data reveal an average annual increase of the C0,-content of 0.7 +O.l ppm/year, while during this time the annual industrial output has increased from about 1.9 ppm to 2.3 ppm/year. Thus the increase in the atmosphere is about & of the total output. Considerations of the possible increase of vegetative assimilation due to the higher COX-content of the atmosphere reveals that this is at most of the output, probably considerably less. The net transfer to the oceans thus is at least equal to + of the industrial output. The transfer rate across the sea surface seems effective enough not to represent an appreciable resistance and the decisive factor for determining this transfer therefore is the ocean circulation or turn over rate. The figures quoted indicate that 20-25 %, of the world oceans must have been available during the time of rapid increase of the industrial output of CO, (the last 30-50 years) to explain the rather large amount that has been withdrawn from the atmosphere. Still a continued increase of the fossil fuel combustion as forecast by OECD implies that the C0,-content of the atmosphere at the end of the century will be between 370 pprn and 395 ppm as compared with 320 ppm, the average value for 1968.
The amplitude of the seasonal variation is found to be about 6.5 ppm at 2 km and 3.5,ppm in the uppermost part of the troposphere. The phase shift of the seasonal variation between these two levels is 25-30 days. On the basis of these data a vertical eddy diffusivity K = 2. lo6 cm2 sec-l is derived. The amplitude of the seasonal variation in the lower stratosphere, 11-12 km, is less than…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bolin had been switched on fifteen years previous to the issue of carbon dioxide build up. He’d studied, after all, under Rosby, who died prematurely. Bolin had really caught hold of Keeling’s data and understood even then, I think the implications, (see 1959 Science Notes).
Bolin kept beavering away on the science, but also on the politics. And this paper is fairly typical. The findings are not necessarily startling, but in retrospect, they are part of the ominous “pending debacle” of it all.
(Fwiw, Bolin was also helping Keeling in Europe at this time, I’d need to go and reread Keeling’s biography to get the details right)..
The other context is that by the time this was submitted, even the king of the Netherlands was talking about CO2 build up at the beginning of 1970, the European Conservation Year.
What I think we can learn from this is that we knew plenty, we just didn’t understand and we didn’t want to accept the implications.
What happened next Bolin kept at it. The 1970s saw him begin to team up with Mustafa Tolba, head of the United Nations Environment Program, which was possibly the one thing that emerged from the Stockholm conference in 1972.
Bolin would talk to journalists about CO2 build up (see 1978 BBC radio documentary).
Bolin was the obvious pick, unanimous, I think, to be chair of the IPCC, which he obviously held for quite some time. And if anyone can be said to have died a good a well-timed death, it’s Bolin. He died just after the 2007 Bali COP, which obviously he did not attend because he was too ill. The Bali COP saw the “roadmap to Copenhagen” laid out. So he died thinking that maybe just maybe, we wouldn’t be entirely too late to act on the warnings that he had been giving since 1959
Thank goodness he was not still alive to witness Copenhagen.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the German climatological scientific elite, people like Herman Flohn and others, including IASSAere well into the energy climate society question in the late second half of the 1970s. Tis workshop is part of all that work.
What I think we can learn from this is that by the late 70s, people whose job it was to think about energy systems and their impact on “the environment” were pretty sure there were interesting times ahead. Now, of course, cynics will say “well, they’re paid to speculate on possible problems so they can get funding for workshops in “nice places”, and advance their careers.” And this is, of course, perfectly circular and is undisprovable. It also ignores the fact that physics exists, that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that was established in the 1860s, 120 years before this workshop.
What happened next All through the 1980s up until ‘85 you see these sorts of workshops – scientists meeting, scratching their heads, exchanging ideas, becoming more and more sure. Tthen Villach really is the starting gun, and you can say that it wasn’t science, it was the political opportunity structure, because ozone was giving them kudos. And power, social power. Or you can say it was pure play “the science”, (see Wendy Franz).
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.
Sixty nine years ago, on this day, March 2nd, 1956,
A modest plan crystallized in meetings of experts arranged by the U.S. National Committee for the IGY in early 1956. Here two senior scientists, Roger Revelle and Hans Suess, argued the value of measuring CO2 in the ocean and air simultaneously at various points around the globe. The ultimate goal was “a clearer understanding of the probable climatic effects of the predicted great industrial production of carbon-dioxide over the next 50 years.” But the immediate aim was to observe how seawater took up the gas, as just one of the many puzzles of geochemistry. Revelle had become interested in the question through his own research, which had been amply supported by the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research and other federal agencies, whose interest in the oceans was whetted by the competition with the Soviet Union.
The committee granted Revelle some small funds for measuring CO2. The key actor in this, and much else in getting greenhouse gas studies underway, was Harry Wexler, a meteorologist turned administrator who served as Chief of the Scientific Services division of the U.S. Weather Bureau. Wexler was an outstanding example of the thoughtful officials who worked behind the scenes to identify and promote promising research, while the scientists they supported got all the credit”
Clearer understanding:” Minutes of IGY Working Group on Oceanography, Regional Meeting, 2 March 1956, Washington, DC, copy in provisional box 96, folder 243, “IGY-CSAGI Working Group on Oceanography,” Maurice Ewing Collection, Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the International Geophysical Year was going to start in 15 months, and it was going to be an 18 month collaboration of measurement and experiments around, well geophysics.
What I think we can learn from this is that scientists had a wish list of things that they wanted to investigate so they could better understand what was going on. Just in general, carbon dioxide build up was certainly known of, but it was by no means a central focus of the Geophysical Year.
What happened next
Roger Revelle was able to use a bit of spare money so that Charles Dave Keeling could start measuring CO2 at insanely precise levels
NB As per Rebecca John’s archival work – Keeling had already been measuring for the industry funded “Air Pollution Council”.
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.
