Thirty nine years ago, on this day, August 20th, 1987,
MJ Elliott in the Legislative Council of the South Australian parliament
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 349ppm. 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 South Australian Parliament had been hearing about carbon dioxide build up intermittently since 1971, usually from figures in the right-wing Liberal Party.
The specific context was that by 1987 these statements were becoming more frequent, in the context of the 1985 Villach Scientific Conference and the CSIROs present at Division of Atmospheric Physics presentation to the Australian Environment Council in 1986 and the forthcoming greenhouse project of the CSIRO atmospheric physics people and the Commission for the Future.
What I think we can learn from this is that this politician was not at all lying. We had adopted a “wait and see” policy, even though from the mid 70s various scientists have been making point that a wait and see policy was not risk-free and in effect not acting in itself was an action, and it was an action in favour of increased risk.
What happened next is that in 1988 the issue exploded in the UK, the US, Australia and since then politicians have had to take a stance and most of them have chosen to pay lip service, though some especially on the right have delighted in “owning the libs” by saying they don’t actually care if there is indeed a problem, we will tough it out and technology will save the day.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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).
“This summer’s extremes have left a lot of people frightened and angry. That feeling needs somewhere to go.
Hope the coming months bring a new wave of#Climate mobilisation, so politicians finally feel the heat over their inaction! “
This summer's extremes have left a lot of people frightened and angry. That feeling needs somewhere to go.Hope the coming months bring a new wave of #Climate mobilisation, so politicians finally feel the heat over their inaction!
“We need actual movement building, not just constant mobilisations”
So what IS “Actual Movement Building” (AMB) and how is it helped and how is it hindered by “constant mobilisations”? There’s other work I should be doing (should have been doing for ages), so this will necessarily be brief.
What is a social movement?
For me, it is a network (thick multiple links) made up of individuals and groups all trying to move society (inc culture, politics, economics) in a certain direction. These individuals and groups have got knowledge (that they need – who has the power, what events/decisions are coming up etc) and skills (group maintenance etc) that matter, and know how to share their skills etc.
N.B. A “movement” is NOT a single organisation, no matter how big and gaudy its brand might be at a given time. (Yes, looking at you, “Extinction Rebellion” and all the people who glugged the Kool-Aid, who really ought to know better but were drunk on a momentary sense of relevance.)
What is “actual movement building”?
AMB is about strengthening yourself (more skills, more knowledge, more relationships), the groups you are part of (skills audit and plugging gaps [HOLDING DECENT MEETINGS, for example. Sorry for shouting, [not sorry]), minimising your group’s pathologies around recruitment and retention) and ALSO undertaking “services for the movement” – offering practical help, advice, constructive critique, encouragement, introducing individuals and groups to each other, etc etc.
Crucially, this takes willingness to face up to past and present failures. It can’t happen if you can’t or won’t see what is missing (as per James Baldwin – “not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced”).
All of this requires us to take the harder road, away from (only doing) the big symbolic spectacular stuff that gives a sugar rush and cooks your pancreas.
What does AMB require?
Time (which we don’t have, won’t have)
Expertise (which we don’t have, won’t have)
Space (“third spaces” where people can get together and think. NGOs sometimes have these, but in my experience expect the best part of the meeting to be taken up bending the knee to them).
Intellectual courage (which we seem to have as individuals, but not in collectives, not once we start policing each other.)
People willing to step beyond their “guard rails”, and with the understanding that there are bad ways to organise/act.
Other actors not deliberately getting in the way to fuck shit up. (they will always be there, always determined to stop progressive movements by any means necessary, from smears and demoralisation through harassment to all forms of violence.)
What are the barriers to AMB?
There are many barriers, but time and attention are short, so I will stick to three.
There are easier ways to feel “impactful”
We have an easier way of meeting our psychological needs – by doing the things that we know how to do – marches, petitions, camps, getting arrested – because we know how to do them (smugosphere).
Keeping on doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
The problem with constant mobilisations is that it’s like being on a fucking hamster wheel. Round and round, never actually getting anywhere, but jacking up on short-term hopium.
We don’t want to look into past failures. We just don’t. ESPECIALLY when we both should and COULD have acted differently back when it might have mattered..
“It’s a sad story, hard to tell —
Which one of us likes to talk about his failures?
I’ll tell the truth and nothing but the truth,
For if one does fail, there’s a touch of glory
In having tried at all.”
Book 9 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses “Achelous and Hercules”
Yes, but there’s not any touch of glory in doing the same thing over and over again when you know it is not going to work. And there is no glory at all in chiding people who point this out as “doomers” (looking at you, Julia).
The field is “stable” and the costs of new entrants – both organisations and repertoire of behaviour are prohibitively high.
See what happened to XR, when it tried to contest the Greenpeace-FoE duopoly!
More Fundamental Attribution Error-ly, the people “in charge” don’t have the willingness (ability?) or incentive to take a look at themselves and their organisations (see my blog post Cher, incentive structures and our inevitable doom, especially for the Carl Rogers at the end.)
To those who think we can break these chains, I ask who is the Agent of Change, the Modern Prince who are supposed to do this movement building?
“Established” activists, who know how the game is played and are winning at it. They can’t even see the need for innovation.
Burnout out/super-annuated activists who got out/were pushed out? Why? Where is their energy coming from, their credibility?
The utter newbies who don’t know what’s been tried, are new to everything and have no hinterland, who is taking their cue from the established activists?
The Alien “Activist Adjudicators” from Sigma IX? They don’t exist.
What is to be done?
Fucked if I know.
I have some various answers to the “little” stuff (how to hold meetings, how to hold film showings etc), but in terms of building and sustaining mass movements that avoid being co-opted, repressed, exhausted as we stare down both barrels of a loaded shotgun when Mother Nature has an understandably itchy trigger finger? Nah, that one is beyond me. But, you know, pay me some money for food and books, and I might come up with something.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 412ppm. 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 business lobbies have always regarded environmental concerns as at best an impediment, and at worst part of an International Communist Conspiracy. Business lobbies tend to be made up of today’s successful enterprises, the insurgents chasing new technologies and new production methods don’t have the financial muscle or the spare capacity to form effective lobbying groups, and if they do, that effective lobbying group will probably get taken over by the big powerful actors wanting to make sure that nothing happens.
In the early 1970s Milton Friedman had dismissed environmental concerns by saying that they would be solved under a regime of private ownership. Friedman was well aware of the carbon dioxide issue, and I can say this confidently, because he corresponded with William Barbert, and his correspondence was published in an issue of the CO2 Newsletter. And his Friedman doctrine had basically been “greed is good and everything will work out if we just let the rich people do whatever they think is best.” This is demented. This is hardly new, but it has been at various times convenient for people, not just the rich, to believe. Let me talk to you someday about how most academics are basically the equivalent of monks arguing about angels on the head of a fucking pin.
The specific context. So why did this happen in 2019. I think the Business Roundtable realised that they were doing themselves some reputational damage by failing to pretend to give a shit, and you get this, you get business lobby groups knowing that they have to look sane and reasonable if they want to be effective. See, for example, the Australian Mining Industry Council having to change both its tune and its name after it went in so hard against the Mabo decision on Aboriginal land rights in 1992.
What I think we can learn from this
xxx
What happened next
I’ll have to look and see if the Business Roundtable has suddenly endorsed Greta Thunberg. Somehow I doubt it.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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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).
“Speaking to BBC Radio 5Live on Friday [15th August], he suggested approving the two plans could help “speed up the energy transition”.
Although he did not name the sites, Burnham said: “We won’t be able to stop using oil and gas for some time, that’s just a fact. The question is whether we can accelerate use of it so that we pay for the transition, and one thing helps the other… whether that extraction can be the bridge to the clean energy future we need, and bring it forward. It’s about a pragmatic approach to both of those.””
When (1) Prime Minister Burnham gives the approval to one (or both) of Rosebank and Jackdaw, his team will do its best to manage perceptions, and anger. The announcement itself will presumably be sandwiched between two ‘nice’ and ‘cuddly’ announcements. Probably one to do with animal welfare (something about maximum temperatures for battery farms, with maybe price controls on what vets can charge for pet care? idk – spitballing here), the other to do with heating bills and insulation. All this will be phrased as “sensible”, “pragmatic” “achievable” etc.
My guess is that the announcement itself will come at Labour Party conference, so additional pressure can be placed on any MPs who might otherwise be more tempted to run their mouths. This is slightly dependent on temperatures, of course – Burnham doesn’t want to be announcing these project approvals during another heatwave. Burnham will make sure that when he makes the announcement he is flanked by a couple of photogenic young apprentices (ideally women of colour) who will be getting Job and Training on one of those projects.
What will happen next?
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh will be endlessly scrutinised for any gritting of teeth during their support for this ‘difficult but ultimately sensible’ decision.
We will be flooded with the pundit class telling us how important to be “adult”, to “understand how politics works” etc. Much as they did when Peter Mandelson was announced as UK ambassador to the US.
The Telegraph and the Heil will have several full-page articles about how reality is impinging on Burnham, but while Miliband is around, there is still Peril.
The business lobbies pushing for this will I suspect be relatively low-key, not wanting to draw too much attention to their power. The gloating can be done behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the riff-raff.
The Climate Change Committee will put out some schrodinger’s cat of an announcement, carefully crafted so it can be read in any way that is useful to government, opposition etc.
The Chief Scientific Advisor will be unavailable for comment – either on holiday or being held at a secret location until the heat dies down a bit.
There will be denunciatory press releases and stunts (a “die-in” or three?) by a fairly broad coalition of green groups and groupuscules. Perhaps some Grim Reapers, “outside the Treasury, carrying empty harvest baskets and hessian sacks marked “WHEAT – FAILED”, “POTATOES – FAILED” and “CROPS – FAILED”, against a backdrop of drought-scorched crops.” (as per Edie, 2026).
The fact that Saint Andy was happy to get some nice publicity when signing the Fossil-Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty with Massive Attack and an academic will be dredged up (On June 5, 2025, since you ask)
The Compass outfit, which claims to bring red and green together, will once again be revealed as, well, pointless.
Green Party membership will get a noticeable bump, as people realise that they have met the new boss and he is the same spineless meat-puppet as the old boss, only with “better comms.”
The Conservatives and Reform will not punch the bruise too hard, I think. Ms Badenoch will release some screed – “We congratulate him for finally facing down the eco-loons who most days run his party”.
Reform will say that this is not enough, however, the Government should also be outlawing onshore wind and solar.
And the rest of us? We will take the blow with that same hollow-eyed, hollow-stomached sense of fear, despair and powerless that we’ve been coping with (or not coping with) for years or decades.
Once again we will learn that “pragmatic” means cowardice. As per the words of a brave anti-Nazi German called Manfred (2)
“… the word praktisch had been a two-syllable club he’d been beaten with by fellow students and teachers and businessmen and clergy all through the nightmare years. “Stop being such a god-damned idealist! Be practical!”“Practical means I know right from wrong but I’m too fucking scared to do what’s right so I commit crimes or permit crimes and I say I’m only being practical. Practical means coward. Practical frequently means stupid. Someone is too goddamn dumb to realize the consequences of what he’s doing and he hides under practical. It also means corrupt: I know what I ought to do but I’m being paid to do something different so I call it practical. Practical is an umbrella for everything lousy people do.”
(Quote from Brendan Phibbs amazing book The Other Side of Time: a Combat Surgeon in World War II Little Brown & Co, New York (1987)
And, somewhere, a tool-maker’s son will have some kind of wry smile…
But if the Labour party wanted naked pragmatism, frankly it could have stuck with Keir Starmer. It looks to Andy Burnham for something more: the courage to face up to difficult questions but also the political skills to sell difficult answers, and the emotional intelligence to manage the fallout. As this unnaturally hot summer fades into what may be an equally unnaturally wet autumn, we’ll soon know whether he can actually deliver.
Well, “if” – I hope he surprises me, obviously, but it would be a surprise.
Manfred had got out before the war. In 1944 he had volunteered to be parachuted behind German lines in a soldier’s uniform with the aim of gathering whatever intelligence he could, get captured by advancing Allied soldiers, and then spill the beans. The Gestapo etc knew about this – it was fantastically dangerous.
“Iceland’s Okjokull glacier commemorated with plaque”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49345912
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 412ppm. 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 warnings about shrinking glaciers and rising sea levels since the 1950s Those warnings had become more emphatic with each passing year as the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 climbed.
The specific context was Glenn Albeicht had invented the word solastalgia, which seems to fit here.
What I think we can learn from this is that humans are capable of mourning, not just the passing of their own species or other sentient species, but also of beautiful, long-lasting aspects of this wonderful planet that we are trashing because we know what’s at stake. We know that we have not been custodians or guardians. We have not obeyed the invocations to be careful, to be carers.
What happened next We weaponized and encouraged our worst impulses, and that is having consequences. We are in the Fafocene,
xxx
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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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-four years ago, on this day, August 17th, 2002,
“In 2002, for example, Federal Environment Minister, David Kemp boasted – without foundation – that ‘increasingly the international community recognises that although we have taken the view that it is not in Australia’s national interests to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, we are actually at the forefront of nations that are taking the responsible attitude,’ adding, ‘We have to be a good international citizen’: “ABC,
‘Minister Defends Position on Greenhouse Gas Emissions’, Insiders, 18 August 2002
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 374ppm. 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 climate issue was flaring up again, in part because George W. Bush, appointed by the Supreme Court as President of the United States, (despite losing the popular vote, and probably having lost Florida) in 2000 had pulled the United States out of the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol, and crucially, Australia had followed suit in June 2002 two months before Kemp says what Kemp says,
The specific context
On September 10 2001 George W. Bush had apparently asked John Howard whether he was going to back the US or the rest of the world on carbon dioxide and Kyoto. Howard had, of course, said, “I’m backing the US.” Anyway, here we see David Kemp, who had replaced Robert Hill as Environment Minister. spouting utter bilge. Surely, as an intelligent man, he must have known that it was bilge.
What I think we can learn from this is that intelligent people are entirely capable of self-delusion, and ambitious, obedient intelligent people are capable of convincing themselves to believe whatever they need to believe to get through the day.
What happened next Kemp kept spouting this stuff, and they kept working with the Americans on so-called technology partnerships, including spectacularly the AP six, which was an attempted spoiler operation against the Kyoto Protocol and meanwhile, the emissions climbed, the concentration climbed, the consequences became readily and speedily apparent, and here we are.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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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).
There’s another dreadful Daily Mail (well, Mail on Sunday) article knocking around, this one by a guy called Ross Clark.
There is the usual absolute silence on climate science, and the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
There are a bunch of really interesting techniques Clark uses, but I don’t have time or inclination to examine them all now. The one that leaps out at me is personalisation…
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
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References
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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
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References
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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).
