Thirteen years ago, on this day, July 1st, 2013 – court case hinging on a neologism…
Abstract: In 2005, Professor Glenn Albrecht wrote in this journal about the concept of ‘solastalgia’, a phenomenon he had witnessed and researched in the Upper Hunter Valley in Australia following the rapid expansion of open-cut coal mining. A combination of the concepts of solace and desolation, Albrecht’s neologism attempted to capture the distress and suffering experienced by people when their place of residence was threatened by significant environmental transformation. In 2013, the concept came before the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales, in the case of Bulga Milbrodale Progress Association Inc v Minister for Planning and Infrastructure and Warkworth Mining Limited [2013] NSWLEC 48. In this case, the Court overturned a government decision to approve an application to expand the Mount Thorley-Warkworth coal mine. The Court held that the expansion of the mine would have had significant negative impacts upon the community and the environment, which would not have been outweighed by the projected economic benefits to be gained. The decision was heralded as a triumph of David over Goliath; indeed, it has been rare for major development approvals of this kind to be subsequently overturned by the Court.
SOLASTALGIA – Glenn Albrecht case https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/A_case_of_place_Solastalgia_comes_before_the_court/4315151
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 396ppm. As of 2026, 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 we have been changing – and more recently destroying – everything around us. It’s what we hairless murder apes do. And we forget the past because of shifting baseline syndrome.
The specific context was the pillaging of Australia is resisted, on the ground and in the courts. Sometimes – too rarely – the ‘good guys’ win a partial victory.
What I think we can learn from this – a good neologism can help, not just cognitively, but, wow, legally.
What happened next
Haven’t looked. Usually the companies keep plugging away, eventually win by attrition. Have looked – seems to have – https://www.woodmac.com/reports/coal-warkworth-coal-mine-16458529/
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Australian emissions trading scheme comes into effect. See here.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 394ppm. As of 2026, 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 idea of putting a price on carbon dioxide because of its global warming impacts was hardly new. In 1988 the Science Minister Barry Jones had suggested as much (not that he was at the centre of policymaking around this stuff, unfortunately). There had been several efforts to get it accepted, and lots of resistance from the mining companies etc (somebody should write a PhD thesis about this).
Finally, a woman was left to clear up the messes…
The specific context was that in the first half of 2011 an extraordinary campaign – spilling over into all sorts of misogyny, lies, vituperation, bullshit economic modelling – was launched against the Gillard ETS scheme. However, in September 2011 her legislation passed through both houses of Parliament and became law.
What I think we can learn from this – even the mildest and most straightforward responses to the climate threat (and there is so so much more to be done beyond putting a price on carbon) have been rendered virtually impossible thanks to the resistance by some of the worst people on the planet. Oh well.
(As a very smart friend, who proofreads these posts commented – “the example of ETS mostly is a significant piece of evidence that the carbon lobby/incumbents have a documented history of losing their minds, going to any lengths to prevent ‘even the mildest and most straightforward responses, etc. etc.”
What happened next
Gillard’s ETS did, perhaps, help to push emissions down (or was that simply Tasmanian hydro coming onto the grid? People will argue). And then, in 2013 the Liberal National coalition came to power, led by Tony Abbott. He got rid of the emissions trading scheme. Australia still doesn’t have a real price on carbon dioxide. Oh well.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 343ppm. As of 2026, 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 Fuller, along with Lewis Mumford, was one of those ‘he’s a kinda interesting thinker’ people I was encountering in my teens and early 20s (mis-spent and long long gone youth) – as per Terry Pratchett, “inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.”
In her wonderful book Wholly Round Rasa Gustaitis has a really good section on Fuller.
Meanwhile, Buckminsterfullerines get a run in the brilliant film Robinson in Space.
What I think we can learn from this
Fuller, Mumford, Gregory Bateson, Stafford Beer, Ursula Le Guin, Donatella Meadows, Ilya Prigonine and the rest of the systems people deserve more of my attention.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Excerpts of Guy Pearse’s book High and Dry in “Good Weekend” newspaper supplement
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 384ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that that Guy Pearse was a nice young capital-L Liberal activist who, in 1988 had gone to the United States on a kind of exchange to work with a Republican, and then quickly realised that the Republican wasn’t interested in the same stuff that he was, and had ended up working briefly for Al Gore’s failed Democratic presidential nomination bid. He had further switched on to environment, and especially greenhouse. He had tried to offer his services back in Australia. This had not really worked, because while the ACF was up for it, the Liberals were not – they felt they had been ‘stabbed in the back’ by the greenies.
He had then done a PhD, part time at Australian National University. It is a brilliant PhD, in my opinion, it is based on extensive interviews with people who were his mates in lobbying for various different industries against any greenhouse regulation. They called themselves the “greenhouse mafia”, which was distinct, of course, from the AIGN.
Anyway, his PhD thesis formed the inspiration/basis for a Four Corners documentary on ABC television in 2006. And he wrote a big fat book that was an expansion and extension of his thesis. Well, it’s actually different. It’s up, but it’s on the same topic about John Howard and Howard’s resistance to climate policy. Very good book, in my opinion.
The specific context was that by mid-2007 you couldn’t move but for articles about climate change, almost 20 years after the first wave.
What I think we can learn is this: that newspapers have acres of space to fill, and they also need to give their readers the sense or pretence that their finger is on the pulse. And so you’ll see newspapers publishing stuff that might not be a close enough ideological fit for their owners (but in any case, usually the control is a little less heavy-handed than that sentence would imply, at least in parts of the West).
What happened next: Pearse kept being active on climate stuff for a few years, but ultimately withdrew because it was obvious that we as a species we’re fucking doomed. Guy Pearse did more than most, and deserves all the credit for that, in my opinion.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
What is there to learn from reading the Daily Mail? “Not much” I hear the more polite among you say. Other, more Anglo-Saxon, phrases are possible, and I’d agree, knowing from personal experience that the wretched tabloid just makes shit up to suit its ‘angle.’
But nonetheless, we are in a climate emergency (or worse) and so it is worth looking at two articles appearing in the June 26, 2026 edition for what they tell us about how its writers think (or “think”, if you’re being arch) and what they expect readers to swallow.
It’s especially useful to name a few tactics that are used, since these crop up elsewhere.
The two articles are
Littlejohn, R. 2026. Why the net zero nut jobs want to make us Hotter and Poorer. Daily Mail, June 26, p.19
Stevens, C. 2026. Heatwave hysteria. Daily Mail, June 26, p.17
I’ll start with a very brief history of climate change and the responses to it (“the Beforetimes”), before discussing the articles in turn. I will then point to the similarities between them, close out with some further reading and ‘what is to be done?’ I am interested in what you think,and what you think I have missed or got wrong. Let me know. If you’re a denialist though, I am not gonna respond; the Fafocene has begun and our time is shorter than you think.
The Beforetimes
In May 1953, building on the work of John Tyndall (1), Svante Arrhenius and Guy Callendar, the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass set a cat among the pigeons by declaring that “The large increase in industrial activity during the present century is discharging so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the average temperature is rising at the rate of 1.5 degrees per century.”
This claim went around the world (but, curiously, received scant media attention in the UK). Through the 1950s, however, other scientists (American and Swedish, primarily) joined in. By the mid-1960s carbon dioxide was one of the many potential threats being described as industrial growth surged. By the late-1970s there was a consensus among climate scientists that there was trouble ahead. In 1979 the Daily Mail was capable, at this stage, of reporting on this without losing its “mind.”
Efforts were to get Thatcher and Reagan interested in the problem. Thatcher was incredulous – “you want me to worry about the weather?”. It wasn’t until 1988 that the physical problem became a political issue. The Americans were able to force the essential idea – of targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries – off the agenda for the 1992 “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Since then, globally emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide is the main one, but not the only one) have surged, and temperatures have surged too. To quote myself
“When Plass spoke out, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was at about 310 parts per million. Today, they’re [430] or so. Every year, as we burn more oil, coal and gas, the concentration climbs and more heat is trapped.”
Unfortunately, a well-funded and extremely determined campaign of denial, doubt, technosalvationism and (predatory) delay has been going on for decades. The Daily Mail has been a part of that. In 2013, for example you get this . People complain, but the toothless watchdogs usually say “nothing to see here.”
So, with that out the way, brace yourselves for…
The Articles
Article One – Littlejohn
For those lucky enough not to be familiar with him, first some context –
“Richard Littlejohn (born 18 January 1954) is an English author, broadcaster and opinion column writer, having started his career as a journalist. As of May 2023, he writes a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail about British affairs.”
He is also a reliable source of spleen and invective – “Littlejohn has been criticised for insufficient fact-checking[4][5] and for alleged anti-gay bigotry.[6]”
The headline (nb not normally chosen by the writer) demonises and trivialises climate action advocates as “Net Zero nutjobs”.
Littlejohn goes in, as usual, studs and all
There is that knowing “skepticism” “we are informed officially” (pointy-headed venal experts’ and ‘comic hyperbole ‘since records began in 1066’ – a call back to the classic ‘1066 and all that’). Littlejohn wants you to remember the 1950s, even if you weren’t there.
There is the inevitable “council jobsworths’ and London Mayor “Genghis Khan” (a play on Sadiq Khan – geddit?)
After tiring himself out with being ‘fair’ by dissing the Conservatives, and showing he is above the fray by casting doubt on Reform, Litlejohn turns his attention to the Guardian.
Note, Littlejohn does NOT ascribe the view that these temperatures (“The sun has got his hat on”) are going to be normal and in all probability surpassed, to scientists at the Met Office or elsewhere. That would make his ‘argument’ awkward. So he has to (only) shoot the Messenger, those hated lefties at the Guardian.
After more jabs at the congestion charge (no mention of the radical reduction in hospital emissions), Littlejohn comes to the crux – those warning about heatwaves and worse are “climate hysterics”. We will come back to this.
There is, inevitably, the invocation of “plucky” Brits (tied up with the whole Keep Calm and Carry On thing).
“With an unfailing ability to pinpoint the details that define a story, combined with a readiness to write about his own deep personal experiences, Christopher Stevens is arguably the most wide-ranging feature writer in British newspapers.”
Stevens’ basic argument, if you want to call it that, is that there is nothing new under the sun, that the heatwave in 1957 (in the UK) is no different from what is going on now.
Before we dive into this one, what is fascinating (to me at least, but I am odd) is that 1957 was a very important year. The International Geophysical Year began and among the many many measurements being taken around the world by many scientists of many nations was… carbon dioxide. Stevens, like Littlejohn, is eerily silent on carbon dioxide.
Stevens is similarly dismissive of the danger to the poor, the sick, the elderly – the fall of the temperature record was “met with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and hailed as proof that our planet will soon be uninhabitable because of global warming.”
Stevens claims that “on that roasting Saturday there was no hysteria, [that word again], no climate scientists predicting the end of the world.” (This is wrong, insofar as the fact that climate scientists WERE already predicting that there would be serious consequences if we kept on burning fossil fuels. See, for example, these)
Stevens then writes about El Nino as a factor, withOUT mentioning the build up of CO2. He mentions a “heatdome” over Europe. Anything to avoid mentioning carbon dioxide build-up. He then pivots to more nostalgia for the 1950s – “A plummy BBC reporter, shirt collar buttoned with a smart striped tie, ventured with his camera crew into the East End to discover how families in the capital’s poorest streets were coping…”
Stevens watched this clip here, surely, but, failing to mention this totally accidentally gives the impression this is all personal reminiscence.
So, the narrative, as with Littlejohn, is of “plucky” Brits, no-nonsense, ‘keep calm and carry on time’”. Inevitably, Winston Churchill gets a cameo –
“Aged 73 he joined Queen Eizabeth for the Garter ceremony in full regalia at St George’s chapel, Windsor.”
So, you see, the two situations are entirely comparable. And then, of course –
“Now amid similar temperatures we have seen a mood of doom-mongering from Left-wingers and climate campaigners.”
Inevitably, the Guardian is derided, and El Nino is invoked as a “natural phenomenon”.
The word natural here is interesting and telling.. Cobra venom is natural. Bubonic plague is natural. Stevens is, however, using natural in the sense of ‘benevolent and/or inevitable’.
Grasping at straws Stevens invokes some experts who he can quotemine to agree with his thesis. Without pointing out the decades of warnings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , Stevens says “In other words, El Nino is always unpredictable, often disruptive and now is as good a time to panic as any.”
To fill out space, and hammer home the 1950s point, Stevens again returns to the 1950s (when, as he well knows, many of his readers were young and carefree) “Or we could fall back on the amiable, understated attitudes of our forebears in 1957. They just rolled up their trouser-legs and had an ice-cream. But such insouciance is frowned on now.”
So what do we learn?
In both cases, there is a resolute silence on the fact of carbon dioxide build-up. Neither can bring themselves to mention the basic facts that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that levels of it in the atmosphere have risen very sharply. Stevens is a little more sophisticated (it’s a low bar), and focuses on the El Nino as a way of NOT talking about carbon dioxide.
Both invoke weak-willed people, coddled for too long by an incompetent and intrusive Nanny State – the same old playbook.
Both, to no feminist’s surprise, reach for the adjective ‘hysterical’ to nail home their point.
In both there is an invocation of “plucky” British resilience and a harkening back to a simpler, bucolic past.
In both there is a focus on the messengers – specifically the Guardian – rather than the sources of the message themselves – various scientific bodies (IPCC, Met Office, Royal Society etc), because this would complicate/undermine the ‘nothing to see here’ message.
For both, there is an insistence that we must focus on individual solutions (put aircon in your house, with or without planning permission) and don’t think about (because otherwise you might have to worry about) collective solutions and the problems of equity. (Life doesn’t HAVE to be a shit sandwich, you know.)
What is to be done?
We need a typology of Daily Mail style tactics. These include (but are not limited to) –
Nanny States
Corrupt (grant-hungry) Scientists
Control-freak lefties (and local government bureaucrats)
Hysterical men/women who hate progress
British pluck and resolve
The 1950s!
If at all possible, avoiding mentioning the basic physical facts of carbon dioxide build-up. Under no circumstances show a Keeling Curve more than, say, once a year (see this, June 6 2025 and this May 9, 2022)
Maybe a typology already exists and I am wasting my time? If so, please point me to it.
We need not only a typology, but also bingo cards, cartoons, and little videos that show how these propaganda tactics are deployed, why and when they are effective and how they can be combatted.
Most of all though, we need functioning social movement organisations that don’t go up like a rocket and come tumbling down like a stick.
That last one is something most advocates of climate action don’t even address. Their implicit theory of change seems to be that if we just name and shame the oil companies enough, and deride the ‘doomers’ as ignorant or unwitting dupes of said oil companies, then somehow the new Jerusalem (hopefully with lots of shade trees) will be builded here.
(June 23, 2026) “Why the heatwave hysteria won’t change how I run my school” in the Spectator
I haven’t read these but they look good
Clarke, I. (2024). The discourses of climate change denialism across conspiracy and pseudoscience websites. In The Routledge handbook of discourse and disinformation. Taylor & Francis.
Forchtner, B., & Özvatan, Ö. (2022). De/legitimising EUrope through the performance of crises: The far-right Alternative for Germany on “climate hysteria” and “corona hysteria”. Journal of Language and Politics, 21(2), 208-232.
See also the way that the denialists figured out how to use journalistic norms of ‘balance’ to force journalists to keep saying there was a ‘debate’ on the science.
Maxwell T Boykoff, Jules M Boykoff, 2004. Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press, Global Environmental Change, Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages 125-136,
Did John Tyndall rip off the work of Eunice Foote? Possibly, but there’s no smoking gun or any other whispers besides chronology, at least as far as I have seen.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, June 29th, 2004.
On 29 and 30 June 2004, Global Access Partners (GAP) brought together a number of business entrepreneurs, utilities representatives, architects, planners, infrastructure investors, scientists and regulators in the environmental arena and building industry, to address future directions and emerging opportunities in the core area of the ‘Sustainable Built Environment’. Supported by Australian Government and Business, the GAP Forum on Ecological Sustainability 2004 launched a practical ‘Year of the Built Environment’ initiative -The Formation Of an Australian National Committee on Business Building Sustainable Cities
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 377ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that the third IPCC report has come out. People are getting more concerned about CO2 build up in general, the international negotiations seem hopelessly clogged. At times like this, people become more interested in what they can do in their own back yard.
What I think we can learn is this: We are so doomed.
What happened next: More technocratic approaches, more soothing lullabies that everything can continue. More or less is the same, more emissions, higher concentrations, etc.
You need to cut and paste the list of phrases and links into the top of these pages. I do you wait aquatic guys?
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 427ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 for this was that we have been warned – at first quietly and speculatively, sort of – and then with increasing further since 1988 about extreme weather events. And we had them in 2003 for example, with the European heat wave that killed 1000s. But we persisted.
The specific context was that – well, this was a year ago. Your short term memory should be able to fill in the blanks.
What I think we can learn is this: that it’s going to be the vulnerable who get hit first. Life is a shit sandwich: the more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat. The vulnerable being the people who do manual labour in hot conditions without air conditioning at home, who have poor diets, unmet health needs, etc, basically disposable people. And so it came to pass.
What will happen next? Those rich white people who think that their money will protect them are in for sooner or later, a rude awakening. But in the meantime, countless billions of living things will be destroyed on the altar of their greed and stupidity.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
BRISBANE, June 27, AAP – A new national coal research centre will be based in Queensland, Mines Minister Stephen Robertson said today.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Coal in Sustainable Development would facilitate research to assist the Australian industry produce coal in the most efficient and environmentally responsible manner, he said.
Mr Robertson said Queensland had provided $250,000 towards the setup costs.
He said the centre would explore ways to improve the environmental performance of existing coal technologies and promote the adoption of emerging clean coal techniques.
The centre would also maximise the economic and social value of Australian coal reserves.
“Many of Queensland’s export markets including Japan and Europe are becoming concerned with issues of efficiency and environmental performance,” Mr Robertson said.
AAP, 2001. QLD – New coal research centre. Australian Associated Press, 27 June.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that again, Australian political and economic elites had been warned about climate change through the 70s and into the 80s. In 1988 the problem became an issue, became unavoidable, if not undeniable. One of the reactive pieces of rhetoric is around “clean coal”.
The specific context was that by 2001 the Millennium drought was well underway. The third IPCC report had come out. There was ongoing efforts to get an emissions trading scheme going, either nationally or federally or from the states.
Meanwhile, the coal industry is always interested in handouts from the taxpayer for “research.” It keeps academics employed and it gives the politician something to announce what are called, or were called under Rudd, announceables.
And that’s how this sort of thing should be seen. I’m not a Luddite. I’m not saying there shouldn’t be any research into cleaner coal and cleaner everything, depending on your definition and explanation of clean. It is, after all, a finite planet, and there’s no such thing as away (as per Barry Commoner). But I’m also fearful that these sorts of announcements act as a kind of mitigation deterrence. They allow everyone to go back to sleep and to assume that the system is managing the problems.
What I think we can learn is this: We have been telling ourselves soothing lullabies for a very long time. Time to wake up and start screaming.
What happened next: More announcements of more research, but also, of course, more emissions, higher atmospheric concentrations and more impacts.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
The Inside Sunday edition of the CBS Evening News for June 26, 1988 featured a very unusual eight-minute environmental story that led with the greenhouse effect, linking it to the high temperatures of the 1980s. The Goddard Institute’s David Rind and climatologist Thomas Karl warned of future warming and discussed the need to decrease the production of carbon dioxide.
(Sachsman, 2000: 5)
starts at 14m45secs
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 351ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 for this was that various news networks, especially CBS, had been broadcasting clips on the greenhouse effect repeatedly. There was one in 1980 and then in response to various congressional hearings, especially in 1982-1983. This was nothing particularly new, except in the length of it (8 minutes is a long time in TV-land).
The specific context was that three days earlier, in the midst of a heat wave and a drought, James Hansen had said to journalists after a meeting, after giving evidence to the Senate inquiry, that “it was time to stop waffling and say that the greenhouse effect was here.” This had been broadcast around the world.
What I think we can learn is this: the media has. Indeed tried to alert us. It’s the rain falling on hard surfaces and just running away.
What happened next: The media continued to cover the story with more or less accuracy and ethics over the coming years. An important one to remember is the September l88 incident where Stephen Schneider is not invited on because they want someone who’s going to make even more “alarmist.” And you’ve also got Australian science journalist Robyn Williams talking about how they’ll have to be the backlash stories. But that’s science is not a matter of opinion like this, you fucking muppets. And then, crucially, the denialists learn to exploit journalistic norms for their own purposes – “Balance as Bias”, as Boykoff and Boykoff put it.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Thirty years ago, on this day, June 26th, 1996 another GCC flak letter (see also 30 May).
This controversial issue also resulted in two letters (dated 30 May and 26 June), being sent to me, one from the Global Climate Coalition (John Schlaes) and the other from The Climate Council (Donald Pearlman). Copies of these were also sent to ten key members of the US Congress as well as the Advisor for Science and Technology and Assistant to the US President (John Gibson), and the Assistant Secretary of State (Eileen Clausen).”
Bolin 2007, page 130
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 362ppm. As of 2026, 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 for this was that industries that feel threatened by potential or actual regulation by states, local, federal, national, whatever, will usually fight back by supporting or inventing politicians who will fight their corner. And they will flood the public domain, newspapers and then later, radio, television and the internet, with arguments against regulation. It’s been explained and exposed many times.
One particularly good exposure, in my opinion, is Nancy Oreskes and Stephen Conway’s, Merchants of Doubt. You’ve also got on climate, two books by Ross Gelbspan, “The Heat Is On” and “Boiling Point.”
And so it came to pass with climate in 1989 something called the Global Climate Coalition was created. Sounds cuddly, doesn’t it? But it is actually opposition to national and international action on climate change via the usual mechanisms of group public letters signed by the CEOs of a bunch of companies, incredibly dodgy economic modelling that “proves” the sky will fall, divisive rhetoric, targeting of vulnerable politicians who have elections coming up, threats of funding their opponents, classic carrot and stick.
The specific context was that by this time, the attacks had moved to the scientists with the IPCC second assessment report. And they wheeled out a bunch of decrepit Relevance Deprivation Syndrome suffering physicists to try and create confusion. It worked.
What I think we can learn is this: is that evil organisations doing evil things have to contend with people who have slivers of morality.
What happened next: the Global Climate Coalition also attacked, of course, the Kyoto Protocol. Then in 2002 it splintered even further and lost more members, especially Ford; the gig was up. And in any case, the Global Climate Coalition was able to declare victory. They had stopped there being any robust international or national response to climate and secured their profits for another few decades.
You’d compare it with the greenhouse mafia in Australia, but it was wider, better funded, more organised.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
