Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 17th, 1990,
‘We will have to make it clear to our electorate how much pain and anguish they will have to suffer in order to save the planet’, said David Trippier, UK Environment Minister
(quoted in the Guardian, 17 May 1990).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the British government had been warned repeatedly about carbon dioxide build up and done nothing. And here we have a specific example. The British government is figuring out what to do about setting reduction targets and what it would do in the case of a climate treaty which is looking more and more likely. And so the British Minister wants to highlight the costs and to try and dampen down enthusiasm for action by talking about the so-called pain and anguish of acting. He doesn’t talk, of course, about the pain and anguish for other species or for future generations, because they’re not going to help him get re-elected. And that’s the distant future, far off countries of which we know little.
The specific context was that everyone was jockeying ahead of upcoming climate negotiations.
What I think we can learn from this is that climate change was the mother of all collective action problems, and we – unsurprisingly – flunked it epically.
What happened next. The British government continued to do very little substantive on climate change, (though, ironically, more than many countries), 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.
“When civilized man looks out from the padded cell of urban life, what a destruction of the human environment he would see if only his eyes had not become too narrowly focused on his house, his motor car, his golf course, his cocktail bar and his television set. he would see a countryside despoiled, wild life being exterminated, vegetation withered, air and sea polluted, rivers made foul, green fields turned into dumps for rubbish and old model cars, and the night and day hideous with a blasphemous blare of uncontrolled noise. Is the only remedy for this to thicken the insulation and increase the comfort of the padded cell, or can we do more to mitigate or check this destruction.”
Why that would be the then governor-general of Australia, Paul Hasluck, who’d been a Liberal politician for decades. This was back when conservatives were trying to conserve things (1).
Adelaide, btw, is where the Labor Government is busy destroying a portion of the parklands for the ‘upgrade’ of a golf course. I could go on I did, here).
On golf’s ecological impact, well – I have no doubt that
a) there are some academic studies
b) that the golfing industry have hired plenty of spin-Doctors and spin-Professors (see what I did there?) to muddy the waters.
I wasn’t planning to write long, and don’t have time, so I will just post a book cover (borrowed it today from the library) and move on.
Footnotes
(1) Yes, I know they were trying to “conserve” a very specific patriarchal and anthropocentric – and, frankly, Eurocentric and racist as fuck – version of “Nature”, but still…
Thirty five years ago, on this day, May 16th, 1991,
Australia would have to take thousands of environmental refugees from the Pacific if greenhouse seas drowned their island homes, a defence strategist said in Melbourne on Thursday [16th].
Professor Des Ball, of the Australian National University, said rising sea levels caused by global warming threatened the survival of several South Pacific islands.
Anon, 1991. Greenhouse refugees from islands. Green Week, May 21, p.8.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that it was obvious, again, from the late 70s, earlier in fact, that there would be massive geopolitical implications of rising sea levels. One of these was that the low lying island states would get screwed and the humans would have to go somewhere.
The specific context was that here in Australia, it was well understood that this would be a problem. And here we have a security analyst, Des Ball, stating the obvious.
What I think we can learn from this we’ve known, we’ve known this would cause havoc and chaos and disaster. Still, we didn’t act because we could kick the ball down the road, the tin can down the road.
What happened next. Well, eventually, by the mid 2000s the Labour Party in the in Australia was producing hand-wringing documents, and another 20 years later, there would begin to be agreements to evacuate some people from Tuvalu.
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.
Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 16th, 1990,
“It is a country where the ambitious environment minister hopes to ride to higher office by promising to deliver the most rigorous environmental policies in the world.
The finance minister is aghast at the cost of the plan and has held it up in Cabinet for so long that his colleague has effectively gone to the people with a nation-wide series of public hearings.
But now the hearings have become a lightning rod for all sorts of discontent and the environment minister’s carefully nurtured public support is threatening to evaporate just when the Government sorely needs it.
It may sound like a familiar plot but this time the players are not Graham Richardson or Peter Walsh and the Federal Government concerned has a distinctly conservative hue – except when it comes to turning green.
Canada, with a resource dependent economy like Australia’s and a pro-growth conservative Government, is embroiled in a national debate over a government promise to introduce a comprehensive five-year environmental plan which is forecast to cost billions of dollars.”
Earl, G. 1990. Price and pay-off for the world’s green conscience. Australian Financial Review, May 16.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that from the late 1970s it was obvious that getting off fossil fuels to deal with climate change was going to cost a lot of money. This was one of the reasons that the politicians maybe hadn’t acted.
The specific context was that in 1988 it became impossible to ignore the issue anymore, and so by May of 1990 as the First Assessment Report of the IPCC was released, and it’s obvious that there’s going to have to be some sort of climate treaty. You will then get people counting the cost. And this article is fairly typical of that the business press was full of this at the time. Understandably.
What I think we can learn from this. all the cards were in the air because the Soviet Union was in the process of disintegrating. The Berlin Wall had come down. Elections were being held in former satellite countries and Germany was on the way to reunification. By this time, 1990 it was clear that there was going to be a negotiating process for climate treaty, and that there would be a Rio Earth Summit in 1992, 20 years on from the Stockholm conference.
What happened next. The cost of acting became embedded via all sorts of pathetic, tendentious economic modelling produced by so called independent think tanks, and this helped the forces of the status quo stop action from happening
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.
Thirty six years ago, on this day, May 16th, 1990,
The UN Economic Commission for Europe held a large conference on Sustainable Development in Bergen, Norway. This was intended as a regional follow-up to the WCED report. The Ministerial Session of the conference was attended by 300 delegates from thirty-four governments.
“In order to achieve sustainable development policies must be based on the Precautionary Principle. Environmental measures must anticipate, prevent and attack the causes of environmental degradation. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2026 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that international agreements around environmental issues are pretty hard to find. However, at this period, there had been the success of the Montreal Protocol on CFCs. And so there was still hope that there could be effective, if not necessarily binding, international agreements on x and y and z.
The specific context was that all the cards were in the air because the Soviet Union was in the process of disintegrating. The Berlin Wall had come down. Elections were being held in former satellite countries and Germany was on the way to reunification. By this time, 1990 it was clear that there was going to be a negotiating process for climate treaty, and that there would be a Rio Earth Summit in 1992, 20 years on from the Stockholm conference.
What I think we can learn from this. It could, perhaps, have been slightly different…
What happened next. The US prevented any meaningful text in the climate treaty, by threatening to boycott the whole show if there were targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries in the text.
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.
I was conscious that I could not abuse the privilege by speaking for more than say five minutes — and that a dense, technical speech might challenge the interpreter, excellent though she clearly was.
So I expressed my regret that in the available time I could not develop the arguments or the detail — I could do no more than state my position (but I offered to send my “Cool Thinking” book to anyone interested — and had several requests for it afterwards). I said that a large and increasing number of highly qualified scientists were challenging the orthodox view. I pointed out that by general agreement mean global temperatures in the last hundred years had risen less than one degree C — a very modest and normal sort of change. I said that many people thought that the small changes we had seen were entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate cycles. I briefly mentioned the Roman Optimum/Dark Ages/Mediaeval Warm Period cycle, and said that we appeared to be moving towards a new 21st century climate optimum.
I said there were sound scientific reasons to believe that CO2 was not a major factor in climate change — though sadly I had no time to develop that point.
Ukipper MEP tells Taiwanese parliament CC is doubted… Comedy gold!! http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/i-address-the-taiwanese-parliament-on-climate-change/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there has always been a “head banger” wing to right wing thought. unconvinced by hippie greeny hoax bollocks like, oh, I don’t know, 19th century physics. And you can use words like anti-reflexivity, but ultimately it comes down to willful stupidity and selfishness, which is quickly followed by unwillingness to admit that they’ve been wrong for a long time, so they paint themselves into more and more corners.
The specific context was that UKIP was exemplary of this.
What I think we can learn from this is that stupid is going to stupid, and there’s no cure for stupid.
What happened next. UKIP, I’m told, is still around, but the energy has moved to Reform, but that is in danger of splintering as well (Restore, Advance etc).
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.
Last night the Nelson Mandela lecture “Strengthening our Democracy – Valuing Our Diversity – Building Our Future” was delivered by Thomas Mayo, who is “an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man, assistant National Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia and author of seven books about First Nations history and justice.”
It was held at the Hawke Centre (more of that later) on North Terrace. Last time I was here was for a pre-Voice referendum event which left me disconsolate for its lack of strategic focus, and fearful for what was to come(1). Last night I left with more ‘hope’, but still uneasy.
This was a night of three parts (four if you count the book signing afterwards, I guess).
First up there was an excellent “welcome to country.” These can vary in quality of course, but this one was done with empathy, honesty, clarity and good humour (especially the line about normally asking people to stand up, but given the tiered theatre and the audience demographics switching to plan B). The woman welcoming us was of the Kaurna peoples, and also a member of the Pirltawardli Collective, trying to defend trees and animals from the State Government’s chainsaws. I didn’t catch her name, but will add it as soon as I can.
Second up there was a very good lecture by Thomas Mayo.
The man knows how to grab an audience. The anecdote about his Bob Marley fixation being joined by a love for Lucky Dube was great.
Mayo has a lovely voice, a lovely manner and – crucially – an actual working-class perspective to put. It is all too rare to hear a full-throated defence of unions in public life.
In a paragraph – there are a series of pillars of Australian democracy (among these trades unions, recognition of First Nations, access to information, the right to protest), all of which have been under very deliberate sustained attack for decades. Mayo explained why each was important, what was being done to it and what needed to be done to defend the pillar/undo the damage.
Mayo also had useful things to say about Artificial Intelligence – and the need for a Universal Basic Income, and much else.
It was entirely competent, occasionally lyrical, but – back to that sense of unease – very much left me with ‘who will bell the cat?’ vibes. (This is from one of Aesop’s fables). The point is – there are all these good policies we are expecting ‘government’ to enact, but who is going to force the government to do the right things, when it is so obviously a plaything of the economic elites? “Braver mice” was the answer of someone earwigging my explanation to a friend. Braver mice sure, but who is brave, under what circumstances, for how long, to what purpose?
Anyway, that asides, Mayo’s speech was excellent and watching the video recording would be a good use of your time, whether you’re interested in defending (Australian) democracy, or learning how to structure a speech or to deliver it. Or something else.
As soon as the Hawke Centre people put up the recording, I’ll post it here and also blog it again.
The final portion was however, frankly painful, through no fault of Mayo. There were no questions from the audience, but rather Mayo was ‘in conversation’ with Peter Geste. This can work, but if the questioner is bold, engaging and bringing their A-game. Not tonight; it was a polite/liberal avatar of Andrew Bolt in the room. Geste, presumably needing to defend his journalistic persona as ‘neutral,’ (2) was flipping through all the right-wing/nut-job (the Venn Diagram merges year after year) talking points. Doubtless among the thousand people joining the meeting via Zoom were some Murdoch hacks looking for a cheap headline about “ABC journo in soft-balling [insert dogwhistle adjective] activist.” Rather than asking any interesting questions, getting Mayo to expand on his arguments, Geste forced Mayo onto the back foot. It was frustrating and literally unedifying. Geste is a man of undoubted courage and intelligence and this was all quite bewildering.
This could have been prevented if the Hawke Centre either
Had a different interlocutor (Marcia Langton was in the room, for instance)
Had had the guts to go to the floor for questions instead (though this comes with its own risks, of course).
Random reflections
It is easy to give a list (litany) of what has been going wrong, and Mayo did it very well.
It is less easy to explore the underlying motivations/causes of what has been going wrong, and Mayo, in the margins, tackled this.
It is not easy at all to explore (in private and especially in public) the reasons why those wanting to make things worse for ordinary people and better for the big end of town have been winning, almost without pause, for a good 40 years. That’s because speaking truth about power marks you out as a radical, and speaking truth about the failures of the forces trying to slow down/reverse the horrors will mark you out as a malcontent, who is ‘not constructive’ etc. Mayo did not attempt this at all, and while I totally understand (I think!) why he didn’t, it’s a pity, because if we don’t talk about the failures of the ‘progressive’ forces, the reasons for those failures, and what might be done to avoid history repeating itself again and again and AGAIN, well, history will probably repeat itself, with force.
As James Baldwin said – “not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
One thing that makes it harder to defend democracy is the isolation and atomisation we all face. Part of this is to do with “technology,” part the sense of ‘speed up’ in our lives (real or imagined) and partly by the destruction of ‘third spaces’ where people can meet and be convivial and, well, civil.
The Hawke Centre COULD, if it wanted, take some really quick simple and no-financial cost actions around this. They COULD create a norm where every public lecture has a two or three minute ‘turn to someone you don’t know – probably someone sat behind or in front of you – and introduce yourselves’ at the beginning of their events, and similar before a Q&A.
I’ve written about the why and how of this, in case you’re interested
I don’t expect it will happen, but then, speakers like Mayo could insist on it until it became a new ‘norm’ of meetings. And then, in a town like Adelaide, the informal ‘weak ties’ would become more numerous, loose networks would spread, information, ideas and resources would flow more easily.
It was the Hawke government that ratted out the Aboriginal communities on a Treaty, after basking in the applause of saying they’d sort one, back in 1988. (Aye, Barunga).
But then it’s not polite to mention these things…
Footnotes
And so it came to pass – the Murdoch media’s assault, and the decision of Peter Dutton’s Liberal Party to be the absolute worst version of themselves, meant that a tsunami of lies swept away the possibility of basic respect. Had it not been for the events of October 7th, Australia’s international reputation would have taken a massive hit.
Many books have been written about what ‘neutrality’ and ‘objectivity’ mean in journalism. I ain’t gonna recapitulate except with a quote and a reference.
The quote – “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” Desmond Tutu
The citation –
Maxwell T Boykoff, Jules M Boykoff,
Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press,
Abstract: This paper demonstrates that US prestige-press coverage of global warming from 1988 to 2002 has contributed to a significant divergence of popular discourse from scientific discourse. This failed discursive translation results from an accumulation of tactical media responses and practices guided by widely accepted journalistic norms. Through content analysis of US prestige press—meaning the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal—this paper focuses on the norm of balanced reporting, and shows that the prestige press’s adherence to balance actually leads to biased coverage of both anthropogenic contributions to global warming and resultant action.
Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 15th, 2007, a stupid politician is stupid,
A SENIOR Federal Government minister has expressed serious doubts global warming has been caused by humans, relying on non-scientific material and discredited sources to back his claim.
One month after a United Nations scientific panel delivered its strongest warning yet that humans were causing global warming, the Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, has questioned the link between fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution.
In a letter he wrote on March 5 to Clean Up Australia’s founder, Ian Kiernan, Senator Minchin took issue with Mr Kiernan’s criticism of the minister’s scepticism.
Frew, W. 2007. Minchin denies climate change man-made. Sydney Morning Herald, March 15.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there’s a kind of Australian politician who takes delight in what we now call “owning the libs” and being a hate figure. They believe that they are somehow heroic Galileos, defending Western civilization or some such. Nick Minchin is one of those, and in 2000 he led the successful campaign to defeat an emissions trading scheme in John Howard’s second cabinet.
The specific context was that the climate issue had burst back into public prominence in September, October, 2006 for a variety of reasons, including the Millennium drought, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, a fracturing business consensus about Kyoto ratification and the ongoing IPCC process, all of which were taken and being taken advantage of by Labor, the opposition party. In December 2006 Kevin Rudd had become Labor leader, toppling Kim Beasley, and had used climate change as one of his two sticks to beat John Howard with. So here we see the Liberals feeling cornered and flustered, but you can always rely on someone like Nick Minchin to say the stupidest thing possible.
What I think we can learn from this. Some people are just well, they’re who they are.
What happened next. The climate wars continued unabated. The most vicious period was maybe 2011 because we had a female prime minister who was “intentionally barren” trying to do the smallest, most inadequate thing to put a price on carbon dioxide. And those climate wars bubble under today, and you have the problem being that there is no competitive consensus, and that you have a Labor party that has basically given up on everything except being in power.
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.
Vibes aren’t going to cut it: What we (well, I) learn from the Possum rally
Last night I was at the rally on the steps of South Australian parliament protesting the cutting down of 585 mature trees in the North Parklands.
I should write something longer, coherent, but I don’t have time, energy (and perhaps talent). So instead, just a list of random observations. After that, the speech I would have liked to have given.
From an emotional perspective, the whole thing was a success. Those attending got their emotional needs met. Three obvious candidates here –
The cop who tried to push me onto the pavement instead of simply asking (did he get the uniform so he could literally push people around, or did he get the desire once he had the uniform? Chicken, meet Egg)
Some (#NotAllSpeakers) of the speakers, who were loving the attention (they wouldn’t be human if they didn’t). Special shout out to the person who read out a speech that had been written for a council meeting last night and almost lost the crowd (‘read the (lack of a) room’). You could have quickly pointed us to the video of that speech and said something else?
Those attending, who got to feel less lonely (that’s good) and more sane (it’s a crazy-making world). The repeated chants of ‘stop the chop’ are the progressive ‘left’s versions of the muscular bonding and chanting at sports events that hoi polloi get every weekend.
Those attending (2000, according to the ABC, but we will come back to that) got some information they already knew, or could easily have found out. In terms of what to DO they got requests that amounted to (and did not go beyond)
write to your MP
sign the petition
get some stickers
come to another rally on Sunday.
They were assured that the Federal Minister for the Environment had been written to. Well, that’ll show everyone. There were no calls on individuals who had turned up and were keen to know how they could contribute to
Use and expand their skills
Use and expand their knowledge
Use and expand their relationships
Just people as an undifferentiated mass, a pulse of emotional energy, that will be gone like a fist when you open your palm.
We were told to ‘maintain our rage’, a cute line from someone who was not around when Whitlam said it.
Besides who WAS there (Kaurna spokespeople, Adelaide Parklands Association people, Adelaide City Council folks) there was one very very telling absence.
The Conservation Council of South Australia, the peak body for various green groups (the clue is in the name). Did they have any representation at the rally? Not that I saw. Certainly none of the speakers and their blog is entirely silent.
This is not surprising. The CCSA is dependent, financially, on the State Government, and knows it would not be forgiven for biting the hand that feeds it. At this point it is simply a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Labor government. This is a tragedy, but there you have it.
UPDATE 15/7/2026. Last night (14/5/2026) CCSA sent around an email encouraging people to attend the next demo, on Sunday. Their website is still silent on the question. Make of this what you will.
4. The media coverage was hilarious and instructive.
The 7pm ABC TV news of South Australia framed it as ‘no violence happened though police were present’ (yes, and if it meets the needs of the state for there to be violence, doubtless the police – in uniform or plain clothes – will be happy to provide it). There were two vox pops that focussed on the animal livelihoods aspect, not on the far more sinister State government powergrab aspect. Meanwhile, the ‘Advertiser’ (Murdoch toilet paper, the only print paper in town) … pretended it had not happened. Not a single word, because their pet Malinauskus is doing what they like, generally. They had an ‘exclusive’ from him (presumably planned as a spoiler?) about overturning a fracking ban. At this point the Advertiser should just rename as the Santos Sturmer.
Don’t get me wrong. Rallies matter. Good signs are good signs.
But it is not enough. We have been here so many times. So so so many times. If we don’t use rallies for MORE than feeling good in the moment, for supplying ego-fodder and being ego-fodder, then more losses will pile up, while the pile of debris that gets called progress grows skyward.
Maybe this campaign will win – it’s the future, so I don’t know. But IF it wins, it hasn’t laid any ground work for future bigger campaigning sinews, relationships, skills, knowledge, expectations. And if it loses, then people will just have more grounds for despair.
Below is the three minute (ish) speech that could have been given.
Hypothetical speech to Rally.
Thank you for coming. That you are here matters. But it doesn’t matter ENOUGH.
I want us to reflect on who we are, what are we even doing here, and what we must do in the coming days, weeks and months.
Who are we?
Some of us here have ancestors who were here, on this land, thousands and thousands of years ago. (hopefully applause). Some of us maybe trace our history with this land to 1836 or thereabouts, when South Australia was ‘settled’. (pause) . South Australia was not settled. South Australia was invaded. And sovereignty was never ceded.
Some of us maybe trace our history to the last 50 or 20 years.
But this is home. All of us here tonight, we know this land, this air, this water, these other creatures we share with, is precious. We know it is fragile, and that it must be protected from those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. We know it must be protected from people who have no respect for nature, or for democracy, for anything than their wretched careers and bank accounts.
Do we know this?
(Hopefully everyone yells “yes”)
Do you – you, me, everyone – want to protect this land, this air, the possums, the birds, the humans, the future generations?
(Hopefully everyone yells yes).
Okay. That was the easy part.
What are we even doing here?
I have bad news. Besides the trees being cut down, besides the naked powergrab by the State Government. The bad news is that while you being here now, today, is great – and thank you for coming – it is not enough.
Is it enough?
(Hopefully people shout ‘no’).
Can we do more?
Can we do more?
(Hopefully people yell ‘Yes’)
Will we do more? Do you, as an individual, commit to doing more?
(Hopefully people yell ‘Yes’)
Okay, so this is where it gets interesting. I do NOT have a short list you can tick off. – “sign here, donate there. Tick that, next campaign.” Sorry.
But I do have some pledges for you, me, all of us to make. They want to destroy 585 trees, homes to birds, animals. 585. So I am going to close out with three pledges.
Does each of you pledge to talk, in the coming days, with five people who don’t know about what is happening? To listen to them, to inform them, to help them take a stand. Five people. Do you pledge this?
(Hopefully ‘yes’)
We need Peter Malinauskus and the Labor Party more generally to know that they have made a mistake, but that it is not yet too late for them to do the right thing.
Eight sentences. Do you pledge to write an eight sentence letter to Malinauskus, and send a copy to your MP -about this. Not War and Peace; Just eight sentences, which maybe you show to those five people, to your local councillors and that you post online?
Do you pledge this?
(Hopefully ‘yes’)
This is great. Thank you. But this is not enough. We need more. So a final pledge is coming up..
We need artists, poets, songs. We need tiktok videos, we need memes, slogans. We need blogs. We need letters to the Advertiser. Sorry- I was just playing with you. We need to bypass the Murdoch media. We need lawyers, we need conversations, we need networks. We need people standing outside football matches with placards and information about what is being done by this government, and in whose benefits. We need – well, we need more ideas than I have, we need all the ideas, skills and energy that YOU have.
Does each of you pledge to go home from here and – alone or with your friends – come up with a list of five things you all can do, with your knowledge, your skills, your networks, your time? Then DO those things, get better at those actions. Share those actions? Do you?
(Hopefully ‘yes’)
Talk to five people
Write an eight sentence letter to the Premier and your MP
Fifty four years ago, on this day, May 14th, 1972, American journalist John Crosby was making fun of ecology. Smart fella.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that Crosby had been a big deal in the US, before moving to the UK in the 60s. He’d fronted one of those ‘harrumph, the green freaks are wrong’ documentaries, that I should write about some day.
The specific context was that the Limits to Growth report had come out, the Stockholm Conference was coming up, and harrumphing was what Sensible People were doing. It is always “punch a hippy” day, isn’t it?
What I think we can learn from this. To hell with these assholes.
What happened next. The harrumphing continued. The old white men could never admit they were wrong – their world would implode. As to the actual world burning, well, what of it?
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.
