Month: March 2026

Categories
Media United Kingdom

March 20, 2000 – snow joke –  Within a few years “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”…

On this day 25 years ago, March 20, 2000 a gift to the denialists was given,

 Within a few years “children just aren’t going to know what snow is.” Snowfall will be “a very rare and exciting event.” Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 370ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the relationship between media and scientists has been one of “frenemies” for decades, far beyond climate science.

The specific context was that climate change was now steady “background noise”, and there was a flare up in coverage thanks to the Bush administration preparing to pull out of Kyoto.

What we learn? Well, here’s a journo from the same paper.

Steve Connor: Don’t believe the hype over climate headlines | The Independent | The Independent

Headlines are meant to draw people into a story and have to conform to quite rigid restrictions on space in the printed medium – where this headline first appeared. They are meant to be accurate, but they can never do full justice to the nuances of reporting. This is even more true when it comes to the more complex nuances of science. The headline in this case is not what the story itself said, as Dr Viner made clear. The story was about the frequency of snowfalls, and how “snow is starting to disappear from our lives”, which the it stated clearly.

A more accurate headline would be something like: “Snowfalls are becoming less frequent in our little corner of the world but that doesn’t necessarily mean that snow will disappear from our lives completely and forever.” Unfortunately, any sub-editor who would suggest such a tediously long headline is unlikely to last very long.

What happened next


Various denialist sites kept the receipts.

The End of Snow, 13 Years On – The American Interest

Stripped of context – Readfearn in Guardian

White lies: Daily Telegraph’s excitement over bumper snow season skates over facts | Graham Readfearn | The Guardian

Readfearn in DeSmog

Climate Science Denier James Delingpole Calls For “Alarmists” To Face Court With Death Penalty Powers – DeSmog

Also on this day

March 20, 1967 – Solar Energy advocate warns of carbon dioxide build-up

March 20, 1987 – The “sustainable development” Brundtland Report was released

March 20, 2014 – industry groups monster reef defenders

March 20, 2014 – Australian Senate votes against killing off ARENA, CEFC etc  

Categories
United Kingdom

March 19, 1989 – “Ministers delay plans to curb climate danger”

On this day, thirty seven years ago “Ministers delay plans to curb climate danger” 

GEOFFREY LEAN Environment Correspondent

The Observer  March 19, 1989.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that scientists had been warning since the mid-late 1970s that there was serious trouble ahead.

The specific context was that the climate issue had exploded in September 1988 thanks in part to Margaret Thatcher’s speech at the Royal Society. In response, green groups had thrown down what they called the “Green Gauntlet,” 20 policy proposals; Thatcher had basically blanked it. And now we see this report that ministers delay plans to curb climate danger

 What I think we can learn from this is that it’s easy to say something is an issue and get plaudits, but then when people say, what are you going to do about it, it begins to get awkward, doesn’t it? The management of the climate issue as a political problem, rather than a civilizational one, kicked in because it is the perfect super-wicked problem in terms of distributed responsibility, uncertainty, long term effects, etc, and the problem of free riders, all the rest of it. 

What happened next  Well, in the UK, there was Thatcher’s 1989 Cabinet meeting in April. Then the UNFCCC process kicked in. And so on.

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

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Also on this day: 

March 19, 1956 – Washington Post reports Revelle’s statements

March 19, 1970 – first warning in Australian parliament about carbon dioxide build-up 

March 19, 1990 – Bob Hawke gives #climate speech

March 19, 1998 – industry cautiously welcoming emissions trading…

 March 19, 2001 – US Secretary of Energy boasts about all the coal plants he will build (doesn’t).

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United Kingdom Upcoming events

Upcoming event – March 26th – “Carbon Capture or Carbon Fiction? Science, Policy, and the UK’s Methane Blind Spot”

Next Thursday – March 26th – at 6.15pm, Dr Andrew Boswell is giving a talk at the Royal Society of Chemistry on “Carbon Capture or Carbon Fiction? Science, Policy, and the UK’s Methane Blind Spot“. 

The talk will be livestreamed.  It would be good to see you in

If you live in the London area (the talk is at Burlington House, central London). 

Details on how to book both are at https://www.rsc.org/events/detail/82590/carbon-capture-or-carbon-fiction-science-policy-and-the-uk-s-methane-blind-spot

The talk will introduce new material from Boswell’s work on the UK policy framing of Carbon Capture, supporting the call from campaigners for an evidenced based review of UK (and global) CCS policy. 

Please forward on to colleagues who may be interested. 

See also –

Interview with Andrew Boswell – “When I found the double-counting error, I thought, ‘no, they can’t really be doing that.'” – All Our Yesterdays

Categories
CO2 Newsletter CO2 Newsletter articles

Front page news – “Broecker’s 6 meter rise does not appear unreasonable” – C02 Newsletter Vol. 1, no. 5

Here’s the front page story on the CO2 Newsletter for June-July 1980. You can find out more about the newsletter here.

We knew. We knew. Brave diligent people like William Barbat tried to amplify the science, connect the dots, connect the policymakers, the publics and the evidence.

A sense of urgency was introduced to the CO2-greenhouse problem July 30, 1979, when Wallace Broecker (Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory) explained to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, “We have good evidence that during the peak of the last interglacial period, the sea level did indeed stand 6 meters (20 feet) higher than it does now, and we don’t think the temperature of the globe was any more than 1 degree Celsius warmer than now.”

A 1 degree C warming is generally expected to be reached shortly after the turn of the century if the CO2 buildup continues as in the past, The energy scenario of F. Niehaus (International Atomic Energy Agency) which might halt a CO2-induced global warming just short of 1 degree C, as shown in the inset, would call for a rapid phase-out of fossil mostly by nuclear, This scenario was presented at the same Senate hearing. 

Broecker’s 6 meter rise (point ‘a’) does not appear unreasonable on a plot of temperatures vs. sea elevations ranging from ice ages to no-icecap conditions. Global average temperatures of 4 degrees to 5 degrees C cooler than now are shown for the ice ages, as used by Svante Arrhenius in his CO2 greenhouse model of 1896. Corresponding to these periods of maximum glacial advance are vestiges of shorelines 85 to 130 meters lower than now as shown by bar +b’. (Lag in destruction of the Laurentide ice sheet precludes

other equilibrium values for conditions cooler than now.)

An approximation of the pre-glacial global temperature as shown here 5. degrees C greater than now (point ‘c’) is derived from Eocene and early Oligocene subtropical and tropical sea-surface temperatures in the literature. These sea temperatures were based on oxygen isotope measurements made on shells of pelagic foraminifera which grew at that time,

Arrhenius had also judged that the average Arctic temperatures prior to the existence of ice sheets in that hemisphere were about 8 to 9 degrees C warmer than modern temperatures, based on observations of vegetation and animal life. Allowing for 3X to 4X polar amplification, this would correspond to an average global temperature 2 degrees to 3 degrees C warmer than now, which essentially matches the consensus of estimates for global warming which may accompany a CO2 doubling, Such a doubling is expected to be reached about 2025-2050 if growth of CO2 production continues its historical rise.

Because the West Antarctic icecap is believed by John Mercer (Institute of Polar Studies, Ohio State) to have formed at cooler temperatures than the Greenland icecap, the potential sea elevation corresponding to the absence of the Greenland ice is shown here as the sum of the rise if both icecaps were absent, that is, 12 meters higher than present. This 12 meter height – if valid can be considered to be a minimum value, for it is likely that the East Antarctic ice cap was smaller than its present size when global temperature was 2 degrees to 3 degrees C warmer.

No estimates have been published yet for how fast the Greenland ice sheet might disappear with a CO2 -induced warming, and much controversy still surrounds estimates of how fast the West Antarctic ice sheet may disappear due to a lack of precedents. If the CO2 buildup continues unabated, the  expected warming over the next half century may take place in about one-tenth the time that a similar temperature rise occurred about 10,3000 degrees before present, during which time sea level was about 0.2 to 0.3 meters per decade according to the compilations of Rhodes Fairbridge.

To illustrate the seriousness of a potential equilibrium with the warmness of a CO2 doubling, the Jefferson Memorial is depicted on the same elevation scale. For other comparisons, the absence of icecaps would correspond to sea level at the clock face of London’s Big Ben and up to the roadway of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

March 18, 2008  Guy Pearse submission to Garnaut review

Fifty years ago, on this day, March 18th 2008, Guy Pearse made his submission to the Garnaut Review, “Protecting Australia’s new climate change response from the Climate mafia”.

Reading the fine print on emissions trading

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Australian political elites have been receiving warnings about carbon dioxide build up, really, since 1986, which would be a good date to start. 

I mean, obviously there’s also stuff in the late 1970s and the Office of National Assessments fossil fuels in the greenhouse, though it’s not clear to me how that was distributed and who talked about it.   

National Party senators were also talking about the carbon dioxide problem as well in the early 1980s…

Then, to understand this story, you have to understand that Guy Pearse, (not the actor), had been a young Liberal staffer and speech writer who had gone to the States and then ended up working on briefly, on the Al Gore campaign rather than Republicans in ‘88 because he was switched on to environment and especially climate.

But the Liberal Party was not welcoming place for people concerned about environment and climate, in part, because of the Dolchstuss myth, the stab in the back from 1990. 

Pearse had then been working as a lobbyist, and realised that lots of his friends were busy undermining climate policy, in the agriculture, tourism, et cetera, positions.

He had then done a PhD part time where he basically interviewed his friends and constructed a really brilliant PhD about this. He had done this PhD at Australian National University and with Clive Hamilton as one of his supervisors. Hamilton had already written a book called Running from the Storm about climate policy. 

And Pearse’s work had been exposed to the public in 2006 thanks to an ABC Four Corners documentary on the greenhouse mafia.

The specific context was that alongside all of this in late 2006 partly with thanks to things like the Four Corners documentary, the climate issue had exploded into public consciousness and the new Labor leader of the opposition, Kevin Rudd was using Iraq and a scandal about grain supplies and climate change as his two principal sticks with which to beat long-serving Prime Minister John Howard. 

And one of Rudd’s stunts was to ask economist Ross Garnaut to write a report about the economics of climate change to inform whatever policy degree the Rudd Government, if it were to happen, would put in place. So this was called the Garnaut Review, and here we see Guy Pearse trying to drop some truth bombs.

But “you people can’t handle the truth,” etc, etc.  

What I think we can learn from this is that if you really want to understand a document like this, you have to understand the back story. That takes time and there’s only so many hours in the day. But enough whining about methodology!

What else we learn is that Australian policy elites have been grappling with the climate problem with some success. If your success metric is how to make it look like you’re taking action without taking action.

That has become more difficult over time, because people get wise, get – you can call it “cynical”, – but I would call it sensible.

What happened next

Garnaut produced his report, but it was sidelined because he was going to demand too much of Rudd, who didn’t want to upset rich donors, etc. Rudd got toppled and Garnaut got brought back to inform Gillard’s climate policy process. Pearse kept writing about it for a while, but I think eventually realised that it was a lost cause.

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: 

March 18, 1958 – Military man spots carbon dioxide problem

March 18, 1968 – Bobby Kennedy vs Gross National Product

March 18, 1970 – Ministry of Transport says “exhaust emission is a minor pollution problem not warranting public expenditure“

 March 18, 1971 – “Weather modification took a macro-pathological turn”

March 18, 2010 – “Solar” by Ian McEwan released.

March 18, 2022 – Antarctic has a day 38.5 degrees above seasonal average

Categories
Science Scientists United States of America

March 17, 1982 – An overview of US carbon dioxide/climate research is written. 

Forty four years ago, on this day, March 17th, 1982

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that since 1977, at the beginning of the Carter Administration, there had been workshops, seminars, conferences etc. By 1982 A LOT was known. 

The specific context was that this research was having precisely zero impact on policymakers, who were Reaganaut nutjobs

What I think we can learn from this is that we knew plenty and that we had our chances and we blew them.  

What happened next. The emissions kept climbing. And climbing. And so did the concentrations. 

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: 

March 17, 1976 – UK Weather boss dismisses climate change as “grossly exaggerated”

March 17, 2006 – Rio Tinto says “CCS is key to cutting greenhouse gases.” Oops, then…

March 17, 2007 – Edinburgh #climate action gathering says ‘Now’ the time to act

 March 17, 2014 – Carbon Bus sets off to the North

Categories
CO2 Newsletter commentary Guest post

Gus Speth – “the greatest dereliction of civic responsibility in the history of the Republic”

Gus Speth (read more about him here), very kindly wrote this to accompany the release of CO2 Newsletter Vol. 1, no. 5. (his testimony to a US Senate committee, in April 1980, is quoted extensively in it.)

Gus Speth

What does it mean that we knew enough over 50 years ago to begin serious action on climate change, and didn’t?  It certainly does not mean that the issue was forgotten or that the pleas for action were muted or that the problem was too uncertain. I recently wrote a book with MIT Press, They Knew: The U.S. Government’s 50-Year Role in Causing the Climate Crisis (2021), which disposes of those excuses. 

We can see now with some clarity that this failure, which in They Knew I referred to as the greatest dereliction of civic responsibility in the history of the Republic, was due and is still due to the confluence of several problematic factors. 

In the United States, we will never be able to go far enough, or fast enough, doing the right things on climate, as long as our political priorities are ramping up GDP, growing corporate profits, increasing the incomes of the already well-to-do, neglecting the half of America that is just getting by, encouraging unrestrained consumerism, facilitating great bastions of corporate and money power, and helping abroad only modestly or not at all.

These unfortunate factors and forces are all manifestations of a system of political economy that is not suited to today’s needs. Making the needed progress on climate change, and much else, requires an escape from the fetters of today’s system and an urgent transformation to a new—a next—political economy.

Of course, we must use today’s democracy, flawed though it be, to fight efforts seeking to rollback climate protections, to promote rapid deployment of both technology and policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt to changes we cannot forestall. We must do our best in all these regards, but, beginning now, we must also start to build a new democracy that can address the climate crisis here and abroad with the authority needed—a climate-capable democracy.

Building a climate-capable democracy should proceed down two paths. First, today’s political reality cries out for many straightforward pro-democracy reforms. We know a lot about what is needed in this regard, including actions to shore up voting rights, protect election integrity, and otherwise greatly strengthen our democracy’s functioning.

Beyond such measures, however, deeper changes are needed. We need to recognize that democracy depends for its success on a great many factors in the social and economic spheres as well as the political. Consider the following ways our democracy is constrained today.

When economic inequality mocks political equality, democratic progress is difficult. When corporate power dwarfs people power, democratic progress is difficult. When money is the be all and end all of campaign success, democratic progress is difficult. When the voting public is subjected to repeated lies and endless misinformation and propaganda, democratic functioning is difficult. When future generations and the natural world are not accorded political rights, democracy is deprived and unrepresentative.

In short, there is much that must be done, both working within the current system and also building a new one. I am hopeful but by no means confident.

Gus Speth, 2026

Categories
Denial United Kingdom

March 17, 2013 – Daily Mail idiot makes idiotic climate claims 

Nineteen years ago, on this day, March 17th, 2013,

In the four-page version published in the Mail on Sunday on 17 March, he calls climate science the “Great Green Con”. And, when David writes one of his exposés, Carbon Brief like to expose his errors. 

https://storage.googleapis.com/gpuk-archive/blog/climate/mail-fake-cover.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 400ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the Daily Mail has been mostly but not entirely, hostile to the idea of carbon dioxide build up. There was this article from 1979 based on a book, World without Trees.

But on the whole, the Daily Mail mostly has derided hippies and anti-capitalists and grant grubbing-scientists. Every so often, they’ll run a story or an editorial to show that they’re somehow “balanced”, but they’re not really fooling anyone

The specific context was that their journalist, if you want to call him that, David Rose, was a reliable repeater of the latest denialist memes and talking points and bullshit to come out of the United States. (and, self-confessedly at the time of the Iraq war, security services disinformation). And so it came to pass here, in 2013 after the Copenhagen failure and ahead of David Cameron saying “cut the green crap.”

In 2013, Media Matters named Rose’s publication, the Daily Mail “2013 Climate Change Misinformer of the Year” for its stirring up of “faux controversies about climate science.” In 2014, Greenpeace made an official release noting that David Rose is “not a credible source.”12 13

David Rose – DeSmog

What I think we can learn from this is that there is a conveyor belt of ass-hollering, where denial, half truths and outright lies get washed into newspapers, and then some of it ends up in people’s heads. I am not proposing a hypodermic model;  it is more of an air mist than a hypodermic. 

What happened next The Mail has kept on being awful on climate, alongside the Express, the Sun, the Times and the Telegraph, as per Carbon Brief.

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: 

March 17, 1976 – UK Weather boss dismisses climate change as “grossly exaggerated”

March 17, 2006 – Rio Tinto says “CCS is key to cutting greenhouse gases.” Oops, then…

March 17, 2007 – Edinburgh #climate action gathering says ‘Now’ the time to act

 March 17, 2014 – Carbon Bus sets off to the North

Categories
CO2 Newsletter

“A sense of urgency was introduced to the CO2-greenhouse problem” -CO2 Newsletter Vol. 1 no. 5

The fifth issue of the CO2 Newsletter, published bi-monthly by American geologist William N. Barbat between 1979 and 1982, is live. You can download a pdf and see the full text here.

The eight page issue has a front page story on testimony by Wally Broecker (famous oceanographer) in July 1979.

A sense of urgency was introduced to the CO2-greenhouse problem July 30, 1979, when Wallace Broecker (Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory) explained to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, “We have good evidence that during the peak of the last interglacial period, the sea level did indeed stand 6 meters (20 feet) higher than it does now, and we don’t think the temperature of the globe was any more than 1 degree Celsius warmer than now.”

There’s also an editorial, feedback from readers (including people at the UK Climatic Research Unit), excerpts from recent reports and a concluding article “Some Functions and Merits of Energy.”

Categories
Australia Coal

March 16, 1988- Coal strategy, no mention of climate

Thirty eight years ago, on this day, March 16th, 1988, a coal industry apparatchik produces a strategy.

Ritchie, J. 1988. Development of a Strategy for the Australian Coal Industry.  Australian Coal Association, paper to the Petroleum & Minerals Review Conference, Canberra, 16 March.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that the Australian coal industry had been experiencing boom times in the 1980s and became the world’s biggest coal exporter in 1984.

There were still, of course, major problems in terms of modernization of equipment, working practices, infrastructure, all the usual stuff. 

The specific context was. What’s fascinating about this proposed coal strategy does not mention climate change at all, March of 1988. If it had been published a year later, even six months later, it would have had to so.

What I think we can learn from this is that this is like one of those nice little digs into the fossil record, where you can see when the asteroid hit fairly exactly. 

What happened next By the end of 1988 climate change was everywhere thanks to the long, hot summer in the States, James Hansen’s testimony, the Changing Atmosphere conference, but also in Australia, there had been lots of activity. In September of 1987 the Greenhouse Project had been launched. This was a co-production of the CSIRO’s division of atmospheric physics and the “Commission for the Future.” They held an academic conference in 1987 and then connected public conferences in 1988 in November. So that’s really when you can date the coming of the greenhouse issue in Australia.

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: 

March 16, 1973 –  North Sea Oil for the people?! (Nope)

March 16, 1993 – VAT to be imposed on domestic energy, called a “climate measure”

 March 16, 1994 – “We could bail from Rio” says former Environment Minister

March 16, 1995 – Victorian government plans brown coal exports