Twenty four years ago, on this day, March 28th, 2001,
2001 Bush kills US ratification of Kyoto
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2001/mar/29/globalwarming.usnews
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that on the campaign trail, George W Bush had promised to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. People who wanted to believe that chose to believe that this was a Kyoto ratification promise. It was not. President Cheney told his underling what to say, and the underling said it. For the benefit of short term benefit of oil and gas companies, but also by now, it was entrenched as part of the bigger “culture war.”
What I think we can learn from this
that you can trust people to pursue their material and ideological interests as they understand them in the short term and to hell with the consequences. And if someone gets cold feet, they are replaceable. They’re always replaceable.
See Julian Rathbone’s superior eco thriller The Eurokillers for a fictional representation of this.
What happened next
To absolutely no one surprised that Prime Minister John Howard pulled Australia out of Kyoto negotiations on World Environment Day the following year, 2002. But nonetheless, Kyoto was finally ratified in 2005 because the Russians wanted membership in the World Trade Organization. Meanwhile, 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:
March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol
March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers