Thirty three years ago, on this day, July 7th, 1992,
Greenhouse Action Australia, in Sydney on Weds July 7, Dr Noel Brown, UNEP regional director.
Anon. 1992.Post Earth Summit Briefing. Greenweek, July 7, p.1.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 356ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Australia had looked like it was going to take climate change seriously (1988-1989). Or, if you squinted and chose to be optimistic, you could believe that, as the various conferences and jamborees of 1988-1990 took place.
The specific context was that from 1990 onwards there had been a very effective (though crude, and lucky) fight back by the usual suspects. Australia was also lucky in that the George HW Bush administration did most of the heavy lifting on reducing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to mostly empty but nice-sounding words… By the time of this seminar, the UNFCCC had been agreed, the greenies were back from the “Earth Summit” hoping what they knew was going to happen wouldn’t in fact happen.
What I think we can learn from this is that the failure to act was baked in, 33 years ago. Oh well.
What happened next is that what the greenies hoped wouldn’t happen has happened.
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:
July 7, 1969 – Newsweek writes about the “good earth,” mentions carbon dioxide build-up
July 7, 1970 – an Australian banker goes “Full Extinction Rebellion”, 50 years early…
July 7, 1988 – foolish “Jumping the greenhouse gun” editorial in Nature.
July 7, 2008 – Liberals start back-tracking on climate promises.