Month: August 2026

Categories
United States of America

August 7, 1977- Arthur Herzog’s “Heat” reviewed

Fifty years ago, on this day, August 7th, 1977,

Dayton Daily News,7 Aug 1977, p.182

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 333ppm. 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 was that from the early mid 70s there had been plenty of news stories about carbon dioxide build up, and here we see Arthur Herzog, who had already written The Swarm and Earthsounds, wrote the first full-length cli-fi novel, which is not to say that climate change from carbon dioxide build up had not appeared in various short stories by Isaac Asimov, also in James Blish’s 1969 “We all die naked” and in Ursula Le Guin’s “The Lathe of Heaven.” 

The specific context was that Herzog had already had some successes!

What I think we can learn from this is that it’s now 50 years since the first full-length carbon dioxide specific cli-fi book was published, and here we are.

What happened next Herzog’s novel never got turned into a movie, which is a pity. It would have been a good one, I think.

 Research and see if you can find out more about Hertzog’s process. Keyword search: Hertzog heat genesis. Did he consult Stephen Schneider, etc. Has anyone written about this? 

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).

Also on this day: 

August 7, 1933 – Elinor Ostrom born

August 7, 1979 – Cabinet Office wonk hopes to pacify greenies

August 7, 1991 – “Draft Ecology Plans released” 

August 7, 1995 – decent Australian journo reports on utter bullshit #climate economic “modelling” 

August 7, 2003 – John Howard meets with business buddies to kill climate action

August 7, 2007 – Cate Blanchett asks “Who on Earth Cares”

Categories
United States of America

August 6, 1960 – “Earth Warming Up?” asks New York Times

Sixty six ago, on this day, August 6th, 1960,

https://www.nytimes.com/1960/08/06/archives/earth-warming-up.html

This below is from another paper, off the same newswire – almost certainly the same text.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 316ppm. 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 from 1953 when Gilbert Plass – building on the work of John Tyndall, Svante Arhennius and Guy Callender – had pointed to the build up of carbon dioxide as a factor in warming the earth. There had been semi-frequent discussions in the United States media, and to a much lesser extent in the UK media.

The specific context was that Charles David Keeling had been taking accurate, fanatically accurate in fact, measures of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at Mauna Loa, and also in Antarctica. And it was clear that the carbon dioxide was in fact building up. What was less clear at this point was whether the earth was warming up, because the warming trend that had continued until about 1940 had gone into reverse. At the time this was postulated that this was due to the amount of sulphur dioxide being put into the atmosphere by the extraordinary volumes of coal being burned. What sulphur dioxide does is it whitens clouds, so more sunlight bounces off them before ever hitting the earth, leading to cooling. This is the albedo effect. 

What I think we can learn from this is that if you were reading the New York Times, you were therefore aware that there might be an issue with carbon dioxide. In fact, if you’re reading lots of newspapers, if you’d seen the Bell Telephone documentary Unchained Goddess, none of this was a state secret.

What happened next the New York Times kept reporting, sometimes about things getting cooler, some, but then from the late 60s onwards, pretty consistently about carbon dioxide as a threat. You can make lots of criticisms of the New York Times. I’d stand by those, but then if you think that one source is going to give you the unvarnished truth, then you’re a fool. You need to read widely. But then it becomes a question – who has the money and who has the time? I think we “pick” on establishment newspapers, especially left ones, nominally left, actually liberal ones, as gatekeepers, because we have a broader frustration that we have been unable to build an informed, engaged, and enraged civil society. 

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).

Also on this day: 

August 6, 1945 – Hiroshima 

August 6, 1990 – another climate documentary shown… 

August 6, 1992 – Australian environmentalists and businesses united… in disgust at Federal bureaucrats #auspol #climate 

August 6, 2009 – Governor Paterson versus the Greenhouse Effect

Categories
Australia

August 5, 1980 – carbon dioxide build-up discussed in the South Australian parliament

Forty six years ago, on this day, August 6th, 1980, a South Australian MP shows he knows.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 338ppm. 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 large deposit of uranium had been discovered in South Australia, and there was debate about whether to start digging it up and exporting it. The Labor government of the day, under Don Dunstan, was somewhat split. The Liberal Party was all for it, and once they took power in 1979, they were banging on about the benefits of Roxby Downs economically, and so forth, and they were also using the argument that only nuclear power could deal with carbon dioxide build up, and that’s what you see here. 

What I think we can learn from this is that awareness of ecological problems is not the preserve of hippies, but ecological problems have various possible solutions, and some of those solutions are extremely technocratic. But we should also be careful about this word “technocratic” as a slur and a swear word, because you have to ask yourself, are vaccines technocratic? Is solar power technocratic? Then, of course, you can slap adjectives on in front of technocratic, but I’m not sure that really always helps so much, but I digress. 

What happened next. Roxby started exporting in 1987.

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).

Also on this day: 

August 5, 1971 – First “South Pacific Forum” happens

August 5, 1997 – “Climate Change Policies in Australia” briefing 

August 5, 1997 – Australian politician calls for “official figures” on #climate to be suspended because they are rubbery af 

August 5, 2010 – academics call for insurance industry to get involved in climate fight 

Categories
Papua New Guinea

August 5, 1976 – “It is wise to influence the climate” writes Mikhail Budyko…

On this day 50 years ago, the Post-Courier of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, ran a feature by Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko about, well, climate change. It had originally been published in the UNESCO Courier.

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 Russians (including Budyko and Federov had been looking at atmospheric change – deliberate and accidental since the late 1950s.

The specific context was that still, in the mid-1970s it wasn’t clear to everyone if we were going to get hotter (and why) or colder (and why). There were still competing theories around dust etc. 

What I think we can learn from this – the UNESCO Courier was a proper publication. We used to be a smart-ish species. We have idiotified ourselves. Or been idiotified by the most greedy and vicious among us, who find an intelligent populace a threat. 

What happened next. The debates, sadly, continued, long after they needed to. The World Meteorological Organisation proposed and hosted a climate conference in 1979, and in a less suicidal timeline that would have led to actual action on carbon dioxide. Oh well.

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).

Also on this day: 

August 5, 1971 – First “South Pacific Forum” happens

August 5, 1997 – “Climate Change Policies in Australia” briefing 

August 5, 1997 – Australian politician calls for “official figures” on #climate to be suspended because they are rubbery af 

August 5, 2010 – academics call for insurance industry to get involved in climate fight 

Categories
United States of America

August 4, 1977- “Workshop on Anticipated Plant Responses to Global Carbon Dioxide Enrichment”

Forty nine years ago, on this day, August 4th, 1977,

Duke University in Durham, North Carolina on August 4-5, 1977 for “Workshop on Anticipated Plant Responses to Global Carbon Dioxide Enrichment”….  Five years later, on May 23-28, 1982, a similar “International Conference on Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Productivity” was held in Athens, Georgia.

(Idso, 1982: 72- 73)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 333ppm. 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 from the mid 70s conferences, especially in the US and Europe, about carbon dioxide build up and the social, economic, biological, military implications it was becoming a known fixture on the circuit, the carousel.

The specific context was that the biologists have been banging on about CO2 build up for a long time. See, for example, 1948 Evelyn Hutchinson at the AAAS, and Lamont Cole in the 60s, and so on and so on.

What I think we can learn from this So this is a point I make regularly; You can’t just look at what the climatologists and meteorologists are saying. You also have to look at the ecologists and biologists, George Woodwell, for example.

What happened next There was another conference in 1980 andSherwood Idso wrote a truly demented article that somehow got published in Science. And this came up in the 1980 hearings, [insert quote from co2 newsletter], and Idso kept on being a nut job denialist, unable to accept that he had been wrong, so just doubled down and kept being wrong (see also Reid Bryson) until he died.

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).

Also on this day: 

August 4, 1978 – “A Terminal Mesozoic ‘Greenhouse’: Lessons from the Past” 

August 4, 1980 – “Towards a Troubled 21st Century” reports Time Magazine 

August 4, 1988 – Hawke Cabinet asks for “what can we do?” report on climate.

August 4, 2004 – Australian farmers nervous about climate change. Ignored 

August 4, 2008 – Police pepper spray #climate campers 

Categories
CO2 Newsletter

CO2 Newsletter Vol. 2, no.5 – “A 1 degree C warming is generally expected to be reached shortly after the turn of the century if the CO2 buildup continues as in the past”

The 11th edition of the CO2 Newsletter, (Vol. 2, no. 5) published bi-monthly by American geologist William N. Barbat between 1979 and 1982 is live. You can download a pdf and see the full text CO2 Newsletter Vol. 2, no. 5.

The eight page issue has a front page story that is a typical wrist-slasher – “Arctic Warming Resembles the 1930s.”

In his editorial, explaining that he had had dealings with a physicist who seemed not to “get” the basics, Barbat argues that

The goal of the CO2 Newsletter has been to bridge this communications chasm on CO2  between scientists, political leaders and the energy industry without sacrificing too much time from our income-producing business. (We regret the one-month slippage this issue due to the press of business.)

Also of note is the fact that the Geophysics Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton were reading the Newsletter –

Models and Analogs Agree: Warming Makes Wider Dry Belts

The scientific group of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton cite two recent reports of theirs to correct an inaccurate and misleading statement of ours on the editorial page of the previous issue of this newsletter, namely: “If greater warming has resulted in ever widening desert belts (based on studies of all the warm climates of the geologic past), this differs from the model results which infer that continued warming may cause an overall increase in precipitation.”

The Newsletter contains the usual mix of excerpts from recent reports –

From ‘Adaptation to Global Environmental Change’ by Karl W. Butzer, published in Professional Geographer, volume 32, number 3, pages 269-278 (1980): 8

From “Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”, by J. Hansen, D. Johnson, A. Lacia, S. Ledeoff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Ruscell, SCIENCE 28 August 1981, 12

From ‘Comments on “Aerosol Cloud Reflectivity and Climate” ’, by William W. Kellogg, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, volume 38, 13

From ‘Reply’, by Thomas P. Charlock and William D. Sellers: 15

From ‘Global Energy Futures and the Carbon Dioxide Problem’, Council on Environmental Quality (Gus Speth, Chairman, January 13, 1981). 15

From ‘The Albedo Effect’, advertisement by General Motors Corporation in SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (July 1981) and other popularized science magazines: 19

From ‘Recent glacier variations and volcanic eruptions’, by Stephen C. Porter, NATURE 14 May 1981: 20

From “Biological export of shelf carbon is a sink of the global CO2 cycle’, by John J. Walsh, Gilbert T Rowe, Richard L. Iverson & C. Peter McRoy, NATURE 21 May 1981: 20

From ‘Historical Nile Floods and Their Implications for Climatic Change’, by Fekri A. Hassan, SCIENCE 5 June 1981: 21

From ‘CO2: Proceed with caution’, by Frank Barnaby, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 1981:

and closes out with an essay from Barbat.

“Inflation Disrupts the Capital Marketplace”

which begins “The option of converting from fossil fuels to nuclear energy to halt the CO2 buildup has been strongly opposed by some writers as being far more costly than the option of reducing energy usage and supplanting fossil fuels solely with solar, wind and biomass.”

Categories
Australia Denial

August 3, 2013- How commentators and the blogosphere treat climate sceptics

Thirteen years ago, on this day, August 3rd, 2013,

Robyn Williams: Did you hear Tom Griffiths the historian on Late Night Live last Tuesday on those who deny climate change? As if it’s a matter of belief.

Tom Griffiths: Yes, isn’t that a very interesting way of undermining understanding of what is a scientific theory. Scientific theory is not a matter of negotiation, it’s not a matter of voting, it’s not a matter of belief. Dissent is only credible if it’s founded on testable evidence and has an alternative holistic theory. And I believe that the IPCC has probably made a mistake in using the word ‘consensus’, which we hear a lot, because consensus sounds like politics, not science. It evokes compromise and negotiation, it suggests somehow the majorities are instrumental and possibly temporary. And it seems to allow space for contrary or dissenting opinions without need for new evidence, that you can have a political stance or an emotional stance or a stance on belief. And sceptics and contrarians will often use those terms about belief, about dissent, about being an agnostic on this issue, as if it is a matter for personal belief.

Redfearn, G. 2013. How commentators and the blogosphere treat climate sceptics, 3 August. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/how-commentators-and-the-blogosphere-treat-climate-sceptics/4858714#transcript

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 397ppm. 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 climate denial had not gone away, and was continuing to be funded where necessary. But also we should never forget there are just people who have resolutely decided that 19th century physics must be some gigantic conspiracy, and that if a problem involves collective action via states, then it must automatically be a hoax. 

The specific context was that journalists and academics always like to have something to write articles about, because published articles is how you keep score, how you get grants, how you get professorships, how you get corner officers, and PhD students you can bully/steal from, and so forth. 

What I think we can learn from this: sceptics, like the poor, will always be with us

What happened next. Well, the bullshit just keeps on bullshitting, doesn’t it? And the academics keep on scribbling.

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).

Also on this day: 

August 3,1958 – under the pole goes the Nautilus 

August 3, 1970 – Nixon warned about climate change and icecaps melting 

August 3, 1988 – Exxon tries to downplay “the greenhouse effect.” Again. 

August 3, 2019 – another eco-fascist massacre 

Categories
United Kingdom

August 2, 2002 – Crispin Tickell editorialises

Twenty four years ago, on this day, August 2nd, 2002,

2002 Communicating Climate Change, Tickell editorial

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 Crispin Tickell had been switched on to the problem of carbon dioxide build up while at Harvard on a sabbatical in 1975-76. In 1976 his paper was circulating around Whitehall, and this was a good year for it, given the drought, but ultimately it came to nothing. Tickell was, by 79-80,  working for the European Commission and had tried to get a more detailed paper on carbon dioxide to be discussed at the Venice G7. He had failed and he had kept plugging away through the 80s and had eventually convinced Margaret Thatcher, who was impressed by Tickell and his sang froid, to take up the issue. But the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change had hit the rocks, and by 2002 the fact that the president selected by the Supreme Court, President George W. Bush, had pulled out of Kyoto meant that the entire concept of international agreements around emissions reductions was on life support.

What I think we can learn from this is that Tickell had spent a very long time trying to get this issue on the agenda, poor sod, and had seen it beaten back many times. 

What happened next The UNFCCC process staggered on. The Russians ratified Kyoto, making it international law. That’s L A W, rather than LORE, though the latter applies, and then the last chance to save the world conference in Copenhagen ended in failure, so they held another last chance to save the world conference in Paris in 2015 and that ended in glorious success, as we all know. 

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).

Also on this day: 

August 2, 1970 – LA Times runs #climate change front page story 

August 2, 1972, Paul Goodman dies

August 2, 1991- Pledge and Review…

August 2, 1992 – Canberra Times reporting that Jastrow idiot #RelevanceDeprivationSyndrome 

August 2, 1994 – Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating says greenies should ignore “amorphous issue of greenhouse” 

August 2, 2000 – BHP shows its true colours

August 2, 2007 – Russia plants a flag on the Arctic sea-bed.