For those of you who don’t know, there is an internet meme called the Face Eating Leopard.
From a tweet by Adrian Bott (@cavalorn) in October 2015: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.”
You see it used especially around people who voted for Trump – once, twice, thrice – and are now facing the deportation of a spouse. The subtext is ‘how could they be so stupid/selfish’ and ‘karma is a bitch’.
Let’s step back a bit. All through the 80s, 90s and so on, a certain type of comfortable asshole cheered while the state functionaries dished out violence – sometimes fast (Miners’ Strike) but usually “slow” (rule-changes, casualisation etc etc) to the lower orders, imposing so-called ‘market discipline’ on them. Comfortable professionals who didn’t make common cause with people who they considered their inferiors, never dreaming that they would ever be on the receiving end.
But let’s step back further than the ‘civilised’ West and current concerns for AI/LLMs taking jobs from nice responsible middle-class people. Let’s look at the climate, the ultimate leopard.
All through the 90s, 2000s, 2010s there were a whole bunch of people watching while others put their liberty and lives on the line over climate. Silly hippies, hysterical, get a job etc etc etc.
Why? Because they assumed that IF climate change was a thing then “we could adapt.” Adapt was code for “well, I have air-conditioning, and if you don’t you’re one of the poors, a loser who can’t keep up, who deserves what they get.”
All that time, they assumed that they were ‘safe’ – because they spoke English, were white, had a degree and a Proper Job, and some savings and all the rest of it. If the leopard was real, it would never eat THEIR face.
And here we are. The leopard is growling in the next room, scratching the door so loud it’s like that Edgar Allen Poe story about the Tell-tale Heart.
The leopard, akin to the beast we’ve been poking with a sharp stick, is hungry and the leopard really really does not care who he eats next.
If we wanted everything to stay the same, everything had to change. But people were too smug, too arrogant and complacent to see that, thinking the leopard would never develop a taste for white meat.
Fifty six years ago, on this day, August 17th, 1970, scientist Charles Munro-Watson had a letter in the Sydney Morning Herald: “one does not know the long-term ecological effects of the addition of carbon dioxide to our atmosphere.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 325ppm. 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 environmental issues and questions over energy production, especially, had become quite live in the late 60s, even before the first oil shock of 1973. Questions around carbon dioxide build up were also being asked. And here we see a letter from a prominent Australian scientist of the time to the Australian newspaper back when it was still right wing and conservative, but before it totally jumped the shark.
Actually, jumping the shark is the wrong usage, because it applied to Happy Days, which had moments of grace and usefulness, which I don’t really think the Australian ever had.
What I think we can learn from this is that Munro was a mensch. Munro also was bezzies with Stuart Bailey, a physicist at University of Sydney, who knew all about carbon dioxide build up, and as the author of the Frontiers in Science cartoons, had been banging on about it in 1965, 1968-69 and so forth.
What happened next Munro remained very active on questions around what sources of energy Australia should be investigating and exploiting, and he was very much in favour of renewables, especially solar. He died in 1991.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Prime Minister John Howard has attacked state government plans to introduce a carbon trading scheme, claiming it will cripple the resource industry and cause massive price increases for petrol, gas and electricity. He told Parliament yesterday that according to a recent Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics report, a 50 per cent cut in Australian emissions by 2050 ”would lead to a 10 per cent fall in in GDP, a 20 per cent fall in real wages, a carbon price equivalent to doubling of petrol prices and a staggering 600 per cent rise in electricity and gas prices.” [Pearse 2007 is SCATHING on this]
Beeby, R. 2006. Howard attacks carbon trading scheme. Canberra Times, 17 August, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. 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 there had been various efforts to get a federal carbon tax, and then an emissions trading scheme in Australia. Two emissions trading scheme proposals had gone before John Howard’s cabinet. In 2000 Nick Minchin had killed it off. In 2003 John Howard had killed it off. Insert links
The specific context was that from early 2006 onwards, and especially late 2006 the pressure for climate action became unavoidable, and here we see just before the issue breaks through in September, John Howard trying to attack state governments for being proactive on an issue that he wants to stay dead and buried.
What I think we can learn from this is that 10 years is a long time to be Prime Minister, and Howard had become more isolated and doctrinaire and had lost his feel for issues and simply couldn’t change his ways. And when he tried in 2007 it convinced absolutely nobody.
What happened next The idea of an emissions trading scheme didn’t lie down and die, and in fact, Kevin Rudd, as leader of the opposition, appointed Ross Garnaut to look into an emissions trading scheme, and this then morphed into a federal scheme. Garnaut was then sidelined because he was unwilling to sign off on enormous giveaways to big business, which Rudd felt was wise, and the rest is history.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Twenty five years ago, on this day, August 16th, 2001,
Fifty ideas for actions on climate change
In May and June 2001, the Rising Tide Climate Chaos Tour visited 12 cities in Britain. Some 300 people came to the Tour. In the last session of each gig people broke into small groups and brainstormed ideas for action. This is a list taken from their ideas.
This list proves that no one can argue that there’s nothing we can do about climate change. Our only problem now is choosing what to do- and when has that ever been an excuse for not doing anything?!
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 was that a bunch of mostly UK, but not exclusively climate activists had been trying to get people concerned about climate change, they had been there at the first COP in Berlin, and they had especially been there at the sixth COP at The Hague in the Netherlands, in those innocent pre 911 days when it was possible, given lax security to in fact storm the stage, (compare with XR storming the stage with Burnham in early 2019). And rising tide was trying to build a movement, and they failed, not through lack of effort or intelligence, but just it didn’t quite work out for them, and here we see they had plenty of ideals.
The specific context was here they (and I was not among them) desperately trying to get enough people involved/interested in 200.
What I think we can learn from this is issue entrepreneurs have to be smart, persistent, and above all lucky, And part of the luck is the times suiting you and the times seem to suit fascist idiots like John Howard (Australian Prime Minister 1996-2007) more than they do the good people of Rising Tide, and so it goes,
What happened next some people from within Rising Tide were instrumental in the Camp for Climate Action from 2006 onwards.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Twenty five years ago, on this day, August 16th, 1976,
16 August 1976 – Energy expert shortage pleasant in the Melbourne Age
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 331ppm. 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 there had been a big oil shock in 1973-74 where oil prices had quadrupled, thanks to an Arab embargo of exports to countries that had supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and doubtless within this, the oil companies were finding ways to push up their prices, a nice little ancillary benefit.
The specific context was The oil shock had focused the mind on energy shortages, and here we see someone suggesting that if energy were less plentiful and more expensive, it might not automatically be a bad thing. This should be read against the context of E. F. Schumacher, “Small is Beautiful,” the back-to-the-land movement, and all the rest of it with carbon dioxide build up just creeping in around the edges now just starting to be that thing that gets mentioned.
What I think we can learn from this is that there were debates around how much energy we should use. Those debates were sidelined then, they’re being sidelined now. Nothing really changes, because we are led by neurotic narcissists who need power to bolster their self-image (and to get rich, obvs), and they tell themselves stories about the public good on some occasions, or not on others.
What happened next – debates around sufficiency, degrowth etc continue to be ignored, scoffed at etc.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Anyway, I am back for more with some comments (not really at the level of analysis, because life is short) about Richard Littlejohn’s latest contribution to world wisdom – “How eco zealots are to blame for Burn Baby Burnham Britain…”
At the end, I propose a new verb.
The Littlejohn piece is fascinating not for what it says and invokes (more of that momentarily) but for what it DOESN’T. In a full page column Littlejohn manages to avoid using either the phrase “carbon dioxide” or even “climate,” while purporting to offer readers new insights into what is going wrong with the UK’s ecosystems. It’s quite an achievement, and gives us this new tile – “ignore the science.”
For the rest of it, it’s the usual mix of gish galloping (throwing out so many whatabouteries that no response can be given), (en)forced jocularity and bonhomie, appeals to “common sense”, dogwhistles to World War Two (“guilty men“) and so on. I do think the Mail could save a lot of money and just get an AI bot to churn out these columns in the Littlejohn “style.”
There’s endless references to “eco-zealots”, “dysfunctional bureaucracies staffed exclusively by urban, green zealots in Birkenstock sandals”, “mile upon mile of monstrous pylons”, “carpeting valuable farmland with Chinese-made solar panels which are utterly useless when the sun don’t shine”, “rewilding fanatics”, and, of course “loony left councils.”
Some “funny” hyperbole is given to grateful readers.”
“It can only be a matter of time, before this madcap policy extends to those remaining recreation grounds and sports fields which haven’t been sold off to developers for housing.
How long before they get round to cricket pitches? If Beefy Botham was bowling from the Pavilion End at Lord’s these days, he’d have to fight his way through thickets of weeds and long grass, taking extra care not to run into one of the goats hired to maintain the outfield.”
Oh, that one is a thigh-slapper. Huzzah!
So, finally, the promised proposed verb.
To littlejohn, v. To spew out vituperation, anecdotes and poorly sourced factoids while avoiding the central underlying causes of the problems you purport to address, and then invoking an “obvious” solution full of its own problems.
For other Daily Mail techniques (not a complete list yet!) see here.
“Rewilding link to record wildfires” blares the front page Daily Mail headline.
Even if your scepticism alarm isn’t triggered by the fact it’s the Daily Mail, anyone who knows anything about rewilding is sure to wonder how the Daily Mail has reached such a conclusion.
One of the main objectives of rewilding is restoration of land and waterways to retain more water.
Stuff like reintroduction of beavers to build dams and pools; restoring wetlands; and reintroducing woodland in upland areas to retain more water and prevent flash flooding.
It’s hard to see how a policy of re-wetting the British landscape and slowing water runoff, could lead to more wildfires … unless … the Daily Mail are being deliberately misleading.
The article cites three sources to back up their lurid headline that blames “rewilding” for the record number of wildfires this year (rather than record high temperatures and record low rainfall).
Country Land and Business Association – a landowner lobbying group
The Countryside Alliance – a farmer’s lobbying group
Ian Botham – “the lazy lord”
Not a single one of these cited sources actually makes the claim that “rewilding” is to blame for the wildfires.
What they all complain about is the ban on “controlled burning” of the hundreds of thousands of acres of British uplands that are used (wasted) as grouse hunting moors.
The CLBA spokesperson criticises government ministers for making it “harder for land managers to carry out … controlled burning”.
The Countryside Alliance complain that the government has “more than trebled the area over which the controlled burning of vegetation is effectively banned in our uplands”.
And Ian “lazy lord” Botham accuses DEFRA of “reckless incompetence” over the restrictions on burning off heather.
The policy of restricting moorland burns has nothing to do with “rewilding”. If we actually listen to what rewilders say (like the Daily Mail studiously refused to) they’d argue that grouse moors should be replaced with upland forests. Not pine forestry monocultures either. Proper British forests, populated by native species. The kind of upland rainforests that existed before our ancestors burned them off and created the barren moorlands that exist today.
Actual rewilders say that we should replace grouse moors with temperate rainforest to retain more water, and the government has restricted the amount of grouse moorland that can be burned off, and the Daily Mail is pretending that the two things are the same.
It’s a convenient fiction to pretend that “rewilders” who say the barren uplands need to be restored to temperate rainforest, are responsible for wildfires on the barren upland grouse moors this summer.
It’s obvious that organisations like the CLBA and the Countryside Alliance, who represent the interests of the British grouse hunting industry, are up in arms about government restrictions on their practice of burning off swathes of moorland every year, but they’d be even more opposed to the idea that grouse moors should be replaced with the kind of natural temperate rainforest that existed before humans destroyed them.
They want to keep the moors barren, so rich toffs can go up and shoot birds for fun, and if they can get the Daily mail to blame the wildfires on people who say the barren grouse moors should be restored to temperate rainforest, good for them, right?
Ian Botham is a game shooter and owns a grouse moor in North Yorkshire. A massive conflict of interests that the Daily Mail “forgot” to mention in their article.
Twenty six years ago, on this day, August 15th, 2000,
Emissions soar 17 per cent despite $1b spent on crisis
AUSTRALIAN scientists are investigating a scheme to bury carbon dioxide underground as a way of reducing our burgeoning greenhouse gas emissions.
A research team, which is in the middle of a four-year project, claims it can find a cost-effective way of sealing carbon dioxide in the earth, safely and permanently, by putting it back where it came from.
They are looking at sedimentary basins across Australia – deep saline areas, coal seams which cannot be mined and depleted oil and gas reservoirs – for spaces big enough to hold big volumes of carbon dioxide.
The continuing research will be presented at an international conference on greenhouse gas control technologies in Cairns today, after new figures which warned of the effects of global warming.
Rose, R. 2000. Plan To Bury Greenhouse Gas. The West Australian, 15 August, p.9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 370ppm. 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 the idea of capturing and storing carbon dioxide because of climate change went back to 1975 when Italian physicist Cesar Marchetti did some back of envelope calculations as part of an International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis workshop. This had been built on, looked at, and in the late 90s examined a bit more deeply and disregarded because it was palpable nonsense,
The specific context was that with the negotiation of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 it was clear that actual emissions reductions for rich nations might be unavoidable, and therefore carbon capture and storage no longer looked too expensive and too ridiculous to consider. There had been a series of international workshops on greenhouse gas technologies from the early 90s onwards, and here we see another such meeting.
What I think we can learn from this is that a technology can be laughed at, but come back later, because it now meets either an ecological, economic, or political need.
What happened next Carbon capture and storage really started to take off by the mid 2000s as a political solution to an ecological and social problem. There was a spike in interest in the second half of the 2000s especially in the lead up to the Copenhagen climate summit. It then went away again, and it has now come back, but seems to be as far as I can tell, and I really can’t be bothered to look closely because it is way later than anyone things – on life support.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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 King of the North became Prime Minister on July 20, over three weeks ago, on July 20. His silence on climate change, in the midst of rolling heatwaves, drought and fears about food supplies, is beginning to gain attention.
We learn from a good piece by journalist Chloe Farand that it’s not, generally, a priority for them.
This morning there ia a terrible Guardian “analysis” that doesn’t even answer the question the headline – ‘why is Burnham so reluctant to talk about the climate crisis’ – puts. It is mere description and not worth your time, and I have deliberately not linked to it.
Anyway, Burnham’s silence is now trending on Bsky.
This is presumably because Greens leader Zack Polanski is continuing to punch the bruise and Guardian columnist George Monbiot is at work.
“There is an urgent problem of bombs falling on London. They appear to be coming out of the sky. We convened a COBRA meeting to discuss it. The root causes of this problem are not something I am prepared to discuss.”
So let’s dig deeper on this question of why Burnham has been silent. In my original piece I posited either a) keeping powder dry ahead of Major Announcement at Labour Party conference or b) having to be silent because of ongoing battles within the party (administration, MPs – not the members though, fuck the members) about what stance to take.
There are (as I said) other possibilities.
One, Burnham and his advisors just don’t think “green issues” are a vote winner – those lost to the Greens aren’t coming back and chasing them will lose the “red wall” voters who switched to Reform. (To be clear, I think this is an absurd misreading of the electorate, as several people with a better grasp on the electorate have pointed out repeatedly, but you can see where it is coming from). For one thing, only very rarely have climate issues been particularly prominent (1988-1991, 2006 to 2009 and 2019). Most voters don’t really care, or at least that’s how Westminster sees it. But there’s always the Lucretian problem, isn’t there?
I know I already said this, and used this screengrab from an unpublished letter to the Financial Times
, but it bears repeating – Burnham as mayor gave no REAL evidence that he gives a shit. He’s there for the photo ops, for the tame audiences he knows he can tickle, but I saw no evidence that he was willing to expend significant political capital on actually making either mitigation (cutting emissions) or adaptation (like we can!) happen. It’s kayfabe, ‘kay?
Two – the fiscal crisis of the party. (aka Follow the money)
We know why Burnham won’t talk about it: Labour are in a dire financial state as members quit for actual left-wing and centrist parties and donors flee to the right, so they can’t be picky when it comes to donations. And they are putting party first, as they have since Starmer won the leadership.
More broadly than Burnham’s personal history and following the money “Follow the ideology.”
Here I like to use an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, where they’ve captured a Borg and plan to plant an ‘impossible’ object in its visual cortex.
PICARD
How can a geometric form disable a computer system?
DATA
The shape is a paradox. It cannot exist in real space or time.
GEORDI
When Hugh’s imaging apparatus imprints it on his bio-chips, he’ll try to analyze it.
DATA
He will be unsuccessful, and will store the shape in his memory banks. It will be shunted to a subroutine for further analysis.
GEORDI
When the Borg download his memory, they’ll incorporate it into their network. Then they’ll try to analyze it.
DATA
It is designed so that each approach they take will spawn an anomalous solution. The anomalies are designed to interact with each other, linking together to form an endless and unsolvable puzzle.
PICARD
Quite original. How long before total systems failure?
GEORDI
Not until the shape has gone through several hundred computational cycles.
For me, climate change is the ultimate geometric form. Other people have called it a wicked problem, or a superwicked problem, or part of the polycrisis. For me, the Borg thing will do.
But especially for the shiny faced technocrats with their SPAD-dy CVs, and their PPEs from Oxford or Cambridge, the idea of a problem that doesn’t have a clever presentational/policy fix is basically unseeable and “therefore” (sic) ignorable.
What needs to happen? Burnham needs to be shamed into showing his true colours. For my money, this idea, which I put on Bluesky yesterday, would be worth pursuing.
Any coders, ppl handy with animations/graphics: can we not have a “Burnit all, Burnham” clock?
It would have days/hours/minutes since Burnham last said ANYthing about climate change/carbon dioxide build-up and – say – amnt of CO2 added to atmosphere, acres of land burnt in UK, lives lost to heat
Burnham became PM on 20 July, at (let’s say, 3pm). That’s 22 days & 18 hrs = 1,965,600 seconds. Given there’s 12 Hiroshima bombs of heat added per second (!) that’s 23,587,200 atom bombs.
But acres of land lost would be better, albeit somewhat trickier. I don’t have the skills.
What is Burnham going to do?
Well, presumably his minions and munchkins are out there briefing the Westminster lobby hacks who aren’t on holiday about how he Does Care, he Does Get It etc. There will be a few more hit pieces against Polanski and the Greens. Farage will get (even more) deserved jibes about his stance. Badenoch too (though Burnham’s mob should be careful – the “we’re not the Tories” line only worked briefly for Starmer.
Beyond that, there are broadly three options
Do nothing and just wait for the Bluesky crowd to rant themselves hoarse. Risky, but it may be perceived as the least risky option. Only act if the Daily Mail starts editorialising that he should say something.
A joint press conference with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Miatta Fahnbulleh, the Sec of State for Energy and Net Zero, with a nice round number announceable (old money repackaged) and perhaps some mini-conference with UK and European “stakeholders” pencilled in for mid-September, with unions, NHS and – obvs – big business. And the French.
This might provide enough of a sandpit for wonks to play in, but does look anemic. But my guess is it will be something like this. It will not persuade those who have made up their minds, but it will buy him some time.
Some sort of Prime Ministerial address to the nation, speech with Andy’s mix of seriousness and bonhomie, with an extra sprinkling of gravitas. I think this is unlikely in the short-term.
In the meantime, I think we should all be learning how to look after ourselves and each other as best we can. You can’t really stockpile water, but you can have food, medical supplies etc etc. It’s gonna get quite grim, I fear.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 300ppm. 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 it had been understood and accepted for decades that carbonic acid (carbon dioxide) trapped heat (see Eunice Foote and John Tyndall). In the 1890s Svante Arrhenius had spent a year calculating what would happen if the amount of carbon dioxide in the air doubled. The world would get significantly warmer, he showed, but he thought this was a good thing (less severe Swedish winters) and would take thousands of years.
The specific context was that the American magazine Popular Mechanics had done an article on whether the climate was changing and what the various theories were. This had then been excerpted/syndicated all over the show.
What I think we can learn from this is that people misunderstand how well accepted or known the carbon dioxide build-up theory was, and post it online as if “they” “knew.” “They” really didn’t. The absolute earliest date you can say “politicians etc really ought to have paid close attention” is 1953, and really, to be fair, the late 1950s…
What happened next People keep posting this damn thing as a conversation-ending-cliche on social media and I wish they would stop but they don’t and won’t.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Forty years ago, on this day, August 13th, 1986, a newspaper tells the truth.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 347ppm. 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 in Ireland in 1954 there had been warnings about carbon dioxide build up and the warnings had continued. Here we see by 1985 – and I’m thinking of the Villach meeting here- the scientists who studied this sort of thing were willing to come out and say “holy shit.” Thus from late ‘85 onwards, you see more and more reports, more scientists addressing Congress, parliament, etc. saying, “Look, this problem we warned you about tentatively, our warnings are no longer tentative. We’re damn sure there is trouble ahead.”
The specific context was , I don’t know, some National Academy of Sciences report, whatever.
What I think we can learn from this is that it takes a long time to get the attention of politicians, because well, various reasons, but we should not forget the politicians are not particularly bright people, very few of them have a science background, and they’re interested in problems that they can be seen to be solving before the next election, or at least be on a palpable, plausible pathway to solving. They also don’t like to go up against determined, rich, vested interests.
What happened next The climate issue really exploded in 1988. And we now have 40 years of failure to look at and rue.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
Country Land and Business Association – a landowner lobbying group
