Twenty nine years ago, on this day, July 22nd, 1996,
Gremlins in the Greenhouse. On 22 July [1996] Dr Murray Rowden-Rich outlined the latest ice-cap research, which suggests that internal ice cap dynamics may be a major factor influencing global climate change.
Source – Tasman Institute 1996 Annual Review
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 362ppm. 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 the denialist campaigns in Australia had begun to kick into gear by 1989-1990. It was largely “subcontracted” to so-called “Think tanks” like the IPA and the Tasman Institute, which acted as an attack dog on environmental policy.
The specific context was that although Australian policy elites had decided no on carbon pricing domestically, and the new Liberal National Party government of John Howard was unlikely to backtrack, there was still the spectre of international entanglements (the Berlin Mandate etc). And also, just laying down suppressing fire, in the form of ongoing doubt-seeding and confusion-boosting.
What I think we can learn from this is that outfits like the Tasman Institute come and go (gone by 1997, as surplus to requirements), but the ideology behind them goes on, of course.
What happened next – the denial campaigns kicked into higher gear in 2000, with the fear that a Labor government might end up ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. They kicked into even higher gear in 2006-7, when carbon pricing looked likely.
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 22, 1966 – “The Conservation Society” holds launch event
July 22, 1968 – Gordon Macdonald tries to warn about carbon dioxide build-up…