Month: May 2025

Categories
Australia

 May 6, 1969 – a legacy lunch in Melbourne…

Fifty six years ago, on this day, May 6th, 1969,

Dunbavin Butcher gave a speech to a Legacy luncheon in Melbourne – reported in the Age the following day (see below). Mentions c02 build-up!

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that by the mid-late 1960s it wasn’t just pointy-headed meteorologists and climatologists thinking about carbon dioxide build-up. It was also oceanographers, biologists etc. One reason for this was the 1966 book “Science and Survival” by Barry Commoner.

What I think we can learn from this. We knew. The problem is not knowledge, information, it is – as per Sven Lindqvist’s opening to Exterminate The Brutes – courage.

It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions. Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate All the Brutes

What happened next

Through the 1970s and 1980s the carbon dioxide issue was being tracked. And it finally “broke through” in 1988. Then the denial campaigns – astonishingly successful – kicked in. Essentially, the species decided to let itself die. But the act of letting itself die has also doomed countless other species. Berserk hairless murder apes – what can you do?

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 6, 1977 – Bert Bolin article in Science about increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations owing to forestry and agriculture – All Our Yesterdays

May 6, 1997 – The so-called “Cooler Heads” coalition created

May 6, 2004 – Australian Prime Minister John Howard meets business, to kill renewables

Categories
Australia Coal Industry Associations

May 5, 1990 – Coal barons have to pretend to care

Thirty five years ago, on this day, May 5th, 1990, Australian coal merchants have to pretend to give a damn,

1990 Australian Coal Association conference dominated by environmental issues

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the 1988 conference (they had started in 1978, were bi-ennial) had not had environment on the agenda – the issue of climate change only properly broke through later that year. By 1990 though, international negotiations were pending, and the Australian government had already considered signing up to the “Toronto Target” of a 20 per cent reduction in emissions by 2005. The coal lobby had, therefore, to show what Good Corporate Citizens they were. There was even talk of carbon capture and storage.

What I think we can learn from this

You can use trade association publications and trade conferences as a barometer of what is going on – not necessarily of what the leading actors think, but of what they are worrying about, and what they want other people (regulators, publics, boycott-considering NGOs etc) to think.

What happened next

The fightback against any meaningful climate policy began at about this time and has continued – with remarkable success – down unto this day. Australia’s coal exports grew and grew and grew and plenty of people got rich. During the commodity super-cycle of the 2000s John Howard used the profits accruing to the state (not as much as they could have been) to bribe middle-class voters so he could stay in power. It’s a bit like Thatcher’s use of North Sea Oil in the 1980s to fund unemployment benefits… And here we are.

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 5, 1953 – Gilbert Plass launches the carbon dioxide theory globally

May 5, 1953 – Western Australian newspaper carries “climate and carbon dioxide” article

May 5, 1973 – Miners advertise for a greenie to join them

May 5, 2000 – Business Council of Australia boss on “Strategic Greenhouse Issues” – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Germany International processes

 May 4, 1985 – world leaders promise to solve “climatic change”

Forty years ago, on this day, May 5th, 1985, the declaration at the end of the G7 meeting in Bonn (then capital of West Germany) included this gem,

11th G7 summit – Wikipedia

IV. Environmental Policies

12. New approaches and strengthened international co-operation are essential to anticipate and prevent damage to the environment, which knows no national frontiers. We shall co-operate in order to solve pressing environmental problems such as acid deposition and air pollution from motor vehicles and all other significant sources. We shall also address other concerns such as climatic change, the protection of the ozone layer and the management of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes. The protection of soils, fresh water and the sea, in particular of regional seas, must be strengthened.

13. We shall harness both the mechanisms of governmental vigilance and the disciplines of the market to solve environmental problems. We shall develop and apply the “polluter pays” principle more widely. Science and technology must contribute to reconciling environmental protection and economic growth.

14. Improved and internationally harmonized techniques of environmental measurement are essential. We invite the environmental experts of the Technology, Growth and Employment Working Group to consult with the appropriate international bodies about the most efficient ways for achieving progress in this field.

15. We welcome the contribution made by the Environment Ministers to closer international co-operation on environmental concerns. We shall focus our co-operation within existing international bodies, especially the OECD. We shall work with developing countries for the avoidance of environmental damage and disasters world-wide.

Bonn Economic Summit Declaration on Sustained Growth and Higher Employment | Ronald Reagan

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 346ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that carbon dioxide had first appeared on the G7 agenda in Tokyo, 1979. The following year (Venice) the G7 had promised to double coal burning. Go figure. Through the early 1980s though, more and more reports about what was coming came out, and some clearly managed to percolate up to the senior sherpas at these summits.

What I think we can learn from this

Information has not been our problem, for a very long time. Power was our problem, and will – inevitably – be the death of us (Hannah Arendt would say the question is not power but domination. I would point Hannah to her support for segregation and decline to listen to her maunderings on power. But that’s just me).

What happened next Five months later, in next-door Austria, scientists gathered in Villach. From there and then they started to run around pushing every button and pulling every lever they could.It still took until mid-1988, with an enormous drought in the US, for the issue to break through. Then the kayfabe properly started.

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 4, 1990 – coal industry sweats over greenie influence

May 4th, 2012 – The Heartland Institute tries the Unabomber smear. It, er, blows up in their face…

May 4, 2016 – South Australian Premier preening at Emissions Reduction Summit – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Australia

May 4, 1992 – Liberals to be terrible on environment, for once.

Thirty three years ago, on this day, May 4th, 1992, in the great southern land…

The Federal Opposition will seek to exploit the Government’s embarrassment over its on-again off-again resource security legislation by prolonging debate in the Senate until after Tuesday’s meeting of the Labor Caucus.

Garran, R. 1992. Opposition to exploit resource indecision. Australian Financial Review, May 4, p 9.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was the new Keating government was busy burying any residual “green” ambitions, and the opposition, ahead of an election less than a year away, was punching the bruise and trying to peel away voters from Labor who had got Labor over the line in 1990 (not by attracting them to the LNP, but by making Labor look hopeless).

What I think we can learn from this

Two things – the game is the game and that “Moments” where everyone pretends to care about The Environment are almost by definition fleeting – normal service resumes fairly quickly.

What happened next The LNP managed to lose the unloseable election in March 1993 – Keating’s “sweetest victory”. John Hewson, LOTO at the time, has reinvented himself as a Nice Sane Guy on environment.

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 4, 1990 – coal industry sweats over greenie influence

May 4th, 2012 – The Heartland Institute tries the Unabomber smear. It, er, blows up in their face…

May 4, 2016 – South Australian Premier preening at Emissions Reduction Summit – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
Activism

May 3, 2024 – Friends of the Earth and Client Earth win a court case

One year ago, on this day, May 3rd, 2024,

Britain’s climate action plan unlawful, high court rules

Environmental campaign groups took joint action against decision to approve carbon budget delivery plan

Helena Horton

Fri 3 May 2024 11.44 BST

The UK government’s climate action plan is unlawful, the high court has ruled, as there is not enough evidence that there are sufficient policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, will now be expected to draw up a revised plan within 12 months. This must ensure that the UK achieves its legally binding carbon budgets and its pledge to cut emissions by more than two-thirds by 2030, both of which the government is off track to meet.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 425ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was the UK government has been making ever-bolder pledges around targets for emissions reduction (60 percent reduction by 2050, no – 80! – no, “net zero” for a couple of decades. Promises are easy, actual policies harder and implementing those policies harder still

What I think we can learn from this. You can (and should try, obvs) to win in the courts. But the megamachine rolls on.

See also Kayfabe.

What happened next

Oh, presumably some new plan will be released at some point, and challenged in its turn.

Meanwhile, the environmental protection rules that we have are about to be fed into the woodchipper.

Labour’s great nature sellout is the worst attack on England’s ecosystems I’ve seen in my lifetime | George Monbiot | The Guardian

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

May 3, 1978 – First and last “Sun Day”

May 3, 1989 “Exploration Access and Political Power” speech by Hugh Morgan – All Our Yesterdays

May 3, 1990 – From Washington to Canberra, the “greenhouse effect” has elites promising…

Categories
Academia United States of America

May 2, 1989 – a DC forum about “Our Common Future”

Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 2nd, 1989, a bunch of people got together to think about The Future (turns out it is murder),

Global change and our common future papers from a forum. 

DeFries, Ruth S .; Malone, Thomas F. National Research Council (U.S.), Committee on Global Change Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future 1989 Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 1989. xiii, 227 p. : ill., maps ; 28 cm. Committee on Global Change, National Research Council. 

Proceedings of the Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future, held on May 2-3, 1989, at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and organized by the National Research Council’s Committee on Global Change. Includes bibliographical references.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the “Our Common Future” report had been released in 1987. It was a sequel/rehash of sorts of the Brandt report of 1980, and sat alongside the Global 2000 report. All these – whisper it – were dancing around the fact that the Limits to Growth people of 1972 were basically right but nobody wanted to admit it so everyone went along with the bright shining lies about Technology or Development or Human Rights or whatever protective incantations were popular and career-enhancing at that moment.

What I think we can learn from this. We were smart enough to spot the problems. Mostly too scared (with good reason) to point out that the maniac sociopaths in charge would never allow the actions required, because it would interfere with their power, prestige, appetites, ideology. Duck and cover? Kinda.

What happened next

In 1989 the Global Climate Coalition was formed – oil companies and auto companies and so on – to fight any meaningful policy response to climate change. They won.

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

May 2, 1990 – Nairobi Declaration on Climatic Change – All Our Yesterdays

May 2, 2009 – Australian Liberals warned of wipe-out if seen as “anti-climate action” #auspol

May 2, 2012 – CCS is gonna save us all. Oh yes.

May 2, 2019 – Committee on Climate change report on net zero by 2050