Fifty six years ago, on this day, October 22nd, 1970, Lord Rothschild gives the fourth Royal Society Technology Lecture and studiously avoids mentioning carbon dioxide build-up, something he was very well aware of (having told James Lovelock to not talk about it).
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 Rothschild, as chief scientific officer for Shell, had commissioned James Lovelock in 1966 to write a report about atmospheric futures, and then had told Lovelock to keep schtum about it.
The other broader context is that the UK had between 1967 and 1970 really woken up to environmental problems. You’d had, for example, the Torrey Canyon in ‘67 you’d had various disasters involving pesticides and dead sea birds and all the rest of it in the intervening years. In late ‘69 you’d had Frank Fraser Darling’s Reith lectures, and the Wilson government had promised action in the form of the Department of Environment and a Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which duly happened. But the Heath Conservative Party had narrowly won and unexpectedly won the 1970 election. You’d also had Frank Ireland of the Alkali Inspectorate going off on one in August 1970 about greenhouse ‘doom-mongering’ etc.
What we learn is that environmental concerns have been something that elites have been wringing their hands about and clutching their pearls about for a long time without seriously wanting to change anything.
What happened next Rothschild became the first head of the CPRS, the Central Policy Research Staff. Rothschild then said, as he was leaving that gig, that he wished he’d done more on the environment.
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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).
Forty three years ago, on this day, October 21st, 1983, University of Maine student paper editorial Doomsday revisited
“The news coming from Washington Tuesday was gloomier than usual. The Environmental Protection Agency warned the continued warming of the earth’s climate due to pollution could create serious problems as early as the 1990s. The EPA released its report, titled, “Can We Delay a Greenhouse Warming?” and concluded that regardless of any future restrictions on the burning of fossil fuels, the warming of the earth’s atmosphere is inevitable….”
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 from the late 1960s university publications had been going into depth on global environmental issues, including the possibility of climactic change, either colder or warmer. By the mid 70s, it was pretty obvious it was going to be warmer.
Thespecificcontext was that the Environmental Protection Agency had just released a report called, “Can we delay a greenhouse warming?” with the answer “almost certainly not.” And then two days later, I think after this publication, the National Academies of Science, Academy of Sciences had released the Nierenberg report, basically pouring cold water on everything.
What I think we can learn from this is that this stuff was understood in 1983 though, to be fair, this was the most dangerous and tense part of the Second Cold War, and you could easily be forgiven for not worrying about climate change and the greenhouse effect, because nuclear war was going to get you first.
What happened next. Nuclear war didn’t get us first, which is of course a good thing.
Someone could do a thing about university newspapers and all this shit.?
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
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).
The fifteenth edition of the CO2 Newsletter, 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 here.
The eight page issue has a front page story on what the Florida coast looks like when the world is warmer (as we’re now finding out).
There’s a banger of an editorial – Barbat is beginning to realise that, basically, he’s on his own…
Presently no self-proclaimed environmental-protection groups are clamoring for increased funding for CO2-greenhouse studies. Not one scientific organization has issued a position paper on the CO2 problem, and scientific magazines have yet to treat the CO2 problem with genuine concern, especially in editorials.
The news media frequently have reported on the CO2 problem in articles, but with no real continuity or editorial comment. Congressional hearings on the CO2 problem have been brief, infrequent and not well attended by lawmakers. Other governments have not matched the U.S. government in a substantive fashion in CO2-greenhouse research. (emphasis added)
Barbat imagines that there might be, well – read it and weep –
“If the results of such an effort illustrate the seriousness and urgency which we anticipate, it might be possible to generate a well-funded, international geophysical program comparable to that of the International Geophysical Year (the ‘International Carbon Dioxide Year’), with a long-term funding potential for critical programs.
There’s all the reader has come to expect – excerpts from recent reports, Barbat’s own takes etc.
Seventy one years ago, on this day, October 20th, 1955, a science writer (Joseph Myler) mentions carbon dioxide in an article about smog problems…
“It has been estimated that factory chimneys each year vent six billion tons of carbon dioxide alone. The rise of the motor car with its exhaust fumes and of the chemical industry has added incalculably to the contamination of the once-safe air.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 313ppm. 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 1953 Gilbert Plass had put the carbon dioxide theory on the map, building on the work of Tyndall, Arrhenius, and Callendar. And so there was still a question about whether carbon dioxide was in fact building up, because the accuracy of the measures taken so far was in doubt, and it would, of course, be under Charles Keeling, who had previously done work for the oil companies, that in 1958 accurate measures started to be taken specific context here is dot dot dot.
Thespecificcontext was this article was released to coincide with the run up to the seventh anniversary of the Donora smog incident.
What I think we can learn from this is that the carbon dioxide was popping up hither and thither as a potential problem.
What happened next There’s a series of meetings, there’s the IUG stuff, there’s the International Geophysical Year as well, of course, ah but really, by the early mid 60s there wasn’t that much doubt that CO was rising and would continue to do so. How quickly was it questioned, and that unless the laws of physics were going to be repealed. This would lead to entertaining times. What happened next? Everything that I’ve just said.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
The Oceanside Blade-Tribune was a daily newspaper published in Oceanside, California. The paper originated in 1887 and charged ownership and names over decades until finally ceasing in 2013.
WASHINGTON, July 5 (UPI) —Joseph L. Myler, long‐time Washington science writer for United Press International until his retirement last December, and a pioneer reporter on atomic energy, died here today of cancer. He was 68 years old.
Mr. Myler handled President Truman’s announcement of the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, covered the first postwar test of a nuclear weapon, in 1946, and the first United States drop of a hydrogen bomb, in 1956.
He wrote magazine articles on the atom and was the author of an article on nuclear energy for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Before specializing in science writing, starting in 1957, Mr. Myler wrote many of the lead stories out of Washington, including the Allied invasion of Normandy, the atomic bombing of Japan, the end of the wars in Europe and the Pacific and the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
He leaves his wife, the former Helen Elizabeth Austin.
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).
Ockham’s Razor [Series 86, Episode 102] – The Greenhouse Effect, Part 2 – Effect – Doctor Brian Tucker [CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research] 19 Oct 1986 – 19 Oct 1986
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 Australian media under the ABC had been doing science programmes on television and radio which mentioned carbon dioxide build up, since the late 1960s. The very first episode of the Science Show with Robyn Williams in 1975 had as guest Peter Richie Calder, and he talked about carbon dioxide build up.
And the Science Show had kept wanging on about carbon dioxide build up, as had various ABC science programmes. Ockham’s Razor had begun in 1984…
Thespecificcontext was that the Villach meeting in October of 1985 had really stiffened the spines of atmospheric scientists. The discovery of the hole in the ozone had given them credibility and entree to elite policy making circles, and in June of 1986 the CSIRO Atmospheric Physics Division Chief Brian Tucker, who had previously written a monograph about carbon dioxide and climate, had briefed the Australian Environment Council. And so within the scientifically aware policy circles, ozone depletion, and especially carbon dioxide build-up and of greenhouse gases overall were becoming things that could no longer be ignored.
What I think we can learn from this is it is forty years since the warnings began getting a bit louder.
What happened next. The warnings broke through in 1988. They have come and gone from the front pages, but the science is ever more certain. The emissions climb, the concentrations climb. That’s all.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
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).
The latest weekly “El Nino Digest” Times (‘END Times’, geddit?) is up as a pdf and a word doc.
Text below
Colour Me
Or “Ocean Colour Scream”…
“Monthly SSTs for September were more than 3°C above average across the central and equatorial Pacific, including much of the Nino 3.4 region. The largest anomalies occurred farther east along the Peruvian coast and west of the Galápagos, reaching 6–7°C above average in those areas.”
In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven…. So I propose to share tiny flashes that have illuminated my sombre life and… have a joke per issue, as far as possible, El Niño or weather-themed.
What do you call a woman who sits at her kitchen table setting fire to her bills, IOUs and council tax demand?
Answer on the last page of this issue.
Welcome to the 5th of at least 7 weekly issues of the ElNiño Digest Times (END Times – geddit?). The why should be self-explanatory, but here’s a FAQ just in case. We are still just about in the first of the three phases of El Niño but not for long…
Here’s the database I’ve begun (but almost certainly will not maintain). It’s largely based on two Google Alerts for “El Niño” and “Impacts” and “Godzilla”. Plus things people (like you) send me.
There are a lot of good El Niño explainers out there – this one, by Al Jazeera is really good and I will link to it at the top of every digest until someone suggests a better one (ideally with the url written on a £50 note).
Editorial
I just today (Saturday 17th) read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” You can find it online here. It was published in 1953 (by coincidence an extremely important year for climate science – Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass made his presentation about the long-term implications of carbon dioxide build-up at the American Geophysical Union in May of that year, and it went ‘viral’). Spoilers ahead: it concerns a family on a vacation trip through the Deep South against the knowledge that there is an escaped – and armed – ‘madman’ on the loose. The family disregard the warnings, fail to do the sensible things and are undone by childish actions (does any of this sound at all familiar?) I am drawing a long bow here, of course. In no reasonable way can this short story be read as “anthropocene fiction” (though doubtless an ambitious honours or Masters student could give it a red-hot try.
Suffice (sic) to say that there comes a point, after an accident, where you can mewl all you like about the unfairness of it all, how it coulda shoulda been different, but whatever you say, you are STILL looking down the barrel of a (literal, in the story) gun, and that is all there is too it, possible moments of grace or not aside. It is what it is.
Next week, I will somehow find a way to editorialise on the book I just bought in the charity shop – the Jungle Book (“Do you like Kipling?” “I don’t know, I’ve never kippled…”)
Well,thisis exciting…
LINK. Short version seems to be “don’t be surprised if Godzilla doesn’t come back more regularly, bringing his friends.”
The three phases of ElNiño
The Antici…pation
From early this year until … (looks at watch)… about now. Scientists saying they’ve double-checked and triple-checked and they’re as sure as they can be. Disaster management folks pleading for money and decent plans. Politicians telling us to stock up, or declaring States of Emergency in advance, with an eye on their 2028 Presidential run… Journalists writing SEO-ed disaster porn speculations. Everyone holding their breath, putting their fingers in their ears to not hear the Doomers gloating “I told you so.”
“Then someone yelled out ‘Contact!’”
The rolling roiling disasters, especially salient when (rich) White People in Peril can be filmed. The shark in the shopping mall meme resurfaces. The re-insurers point to their fine print, and some insurers go belly-up. The rich libertarians squeal for state bail-outs. Food prices through the roof. Hard-to-replace infrastructure washed away.
Back to the perfect paradise
The wreckage is quietly swept away, the global machine reboots, and the important (rich white) people continue their merry way. The End. (Actual outcomes may vary; always read the label).
Colour Me Amazed
Or “Ocean Colour Scream”…
“Monthly SSTs for September were more than 3°C above average across the central and equatorial Pacific, including much of the Nino 3.4 region. The largest anomalies occurred farther east along the Peruvian coast and west of the Galápagos, reaching 6–7°C above average in those areas.”
In these dark days man tends to look for little shafts of light that spill from Heaven…. So I propose to share tiny flashes that have illuminated my sombre life and… have a joke per issue, as far as possible, El Niño or weather-themed.
What do you call a woman who sits at her kitchen table setting fire to her bills, IOUs and council tax demand?
Answer on the last page of this issue.
Welcome to the 5th of at least 7 weekly issues of the ElNiño Digest Times (END Times – geddit?). The why should be self-explanatory, but here’s a FAQ just in case. We are still just about in the first of the three phases of El Niño but not for long…
Here’s the database I’ve begun (but almost certainly will not maintain). It’s largely based on two Google Alerts for “El Niño” and “Impacts” and “Godzilla”. Plus things people (like you) send me.
There are a lot of good El Niño explainers out there – this one, by Al Jazeera is really good and I will link to it at the top of every digest until someone suggests a better one (ideally with the url written on a £50 note).
Editorial
I just today (Saturday 17th) read Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” You can find it online here. It was published in 1953 (by coincidence an extremely important year for climate science – Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass made his presentation about the long-term implications of carbon dioxide build-up at the American Geophysical Union in May of that year, and it went ‘viral’). Spoilers ahead: it concerns a family on a vacation trip through the Deep South against the knowledge that there is an escaped – and armed – ‘madman’ on the loose. The family disregard the warnings, fail to do the sensible things and are undone by childish actions (does any of this sound at all familiar?) I am drawing a long bow here, of course. In no reasonable way can this short story be read as “anthropocene fiction” (though doubtless an ambitious honours or Masters student could give it a red-hot try.
Suffice (sic) to say that there comes a point, after an accident, where you can mewl all you like about the unfairness of it all, how it coulda shoulda been different, but whatever you say, you are STILL looking down the barrel of a (literal, in the story) gun, and that is all there is too it, possible moments of grace or not aside. It is what it is.
Next week, I will somehow find a way to editorialise on the book I just bought in the charity shop – the Jungle Book (“Do you like Kipling?” “I don’t know, I’ve never kippled…”)
Well,thisis exciting…
LINK. Short version seems to be “don’t be surprised if Godzilla doesn’t come back more regularly, bringing his friends.”
The three phases of ElNiño
The Antici…pation
From early this year until … (looks at watch)… about now. Scientists saying they’ve double-checked and triple-checked and they’re as sure as they can be. Disaster management folks pleading for money and decent plans. Politicians telling us to stock up, or declaring States of Emergency in advance, with an eye on their 2028 Presidential run… Journalists writing SEO-ed disaster porn speculations. Everyone holding their breath, putting their fingers in their ears to not hear the Doomers gloating “I told you so.”
“Then someone yelled out ‘Contact!’”
The rolling roiling disasters, especially salient when (rich) White People in Peril can be filmed. The shark in the shopping mall meme resurfaces. The re-insurers point to their fine print, and some insurers go belly-up. The rich libertarians squeal for state bail-outs. Food prices through the roof. Hard-to-replace infrastructure washed away.
Back to the perfect paradise
The wreckage is quietly swept away, the global machine reboots, and the important (rich white) people continue their merry way. The End. (Actual outcomes may vary; always read the label).
Quotes of the Week
El Niño’s added ocean heat affects the atmosphere, causing weather patterns around the world to shift. Consider it kind of like a domino run, where one tile starts a chain reaction. Such a major slug of heat in the Pacific will act more like a shove then a light flick on the atmosphere, and the resulting shifts in weather are expected to be generationally intense.
“Since September 20th, when Odalys formed, it’s been berserk,” said Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach, who forecasts and studies storm activity. “This year just everything that forms is just lasting a long time and getting really powerful.”
“For children, El Niño is far more than a weather pattern. It can mean increased displacement, malnutrition, water shortages, and disease outbreaks. Children are also at risk of schools closing, while families could experience added financial hardship,” Catherine Russell, who heads the agency, said.
“Most of us climate change ecology people are kind of perversely excited about it,” says John Bruno, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s an experimental treatment that nature is providing to us.”
Whether this “super” El Niño will translate into superdamage around the world remains to be seen. Other ocean phenomena, such as water temperatures in the Indian Ocean, can either moderate or amplify an El Niño’s effects, says Chris Funk, an applied climatologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara whose work focuses on developing weather forecasting tools to predict drought, famine, and other natural disasters. He says the indicators so far point to a wild ride for people and ecosystems. “The pretty obvious conclusion is that we should buckle up.”
Ian Lisk, a chief meteorologist at the Met Office, warned attendees of a recent Airports UK annual conference that “we don’t get normal weather any more, fundamentally…. None of this is good news. The heatwaves and the events of this last summer had nothing to do with El Niño.”
“If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.”
Noam Chomsky
Money
(always the 5th element, whatever Aristotle thought)
“Developing countries face a triple shock from the energy crisis, El Niño and surging borrowing costs and need urgent support from the international community, the UN’s development arm has warned.
“Speaking before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok this week, the UNDP’s administrator, Alexander De Croo, called for “solidarity and global action”.
“Developing countries, their hands and legs are being pulled in different directions: it’s truly hard for them,” he said.
“Before the meetings, the UNDP published a report, No Time to Recover, which lays out the risks of what it calls the “compounding crises” of energy, climate and debt.”
“BANGKOK — The Philippine central bank is planning for a “Godzilla” El Niño on top of a prolonged oil shock, as the Southeast Asian nation tries to rein in inflation from three-year highs.
Governor Eli Remolona said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas now sets policy using scenarios that factor in oil prices and the severity of the weather event. “We have the regular, ordinary El Niño, which is bad, and then we have the Godzilla El Niño, which is really, really bad,” he said Wednesday on a panel at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.”
“The arrival of the 2026/27 El Niño brings renewed uncertainty to Brazil’s agricultural sector, with regional impacts varying widely. Central and Northern areas face higher risks of heatwaves and below-average rainfall, while the South is bracing for excessive precipitation. These shifts threaten to disrupt planting schedules for soybeans and second-season corn, reduce water availability for pastures, and strain livestock welfare. High temperatures may also jeopardize critical coffee and orange flowering periods as well as sugarcane yields. In response, Brazilian producers should be prepared for elevated input costs, rising insurance premiums, and recurring infrastructure vulnerabilities associated with severe weather events. These financial impacts may have lasting effects well into future harvests, heightening the strain on Brazil’s agricultural sector.”
Brazil: Bracing for Impact – How the 2026 El Nino Affects Brazil’s Agriculture Attaché Report (GAIN) | BR2026-0040
“In this paper I use a new approach to estimating the impulse response functions of El Niños. I find that El Niños pose material upside risk for PCE prices and employment. The longer-run price effects are driven by core services and food prices and depend on whether La Niñas follow El Niños, a very common occurrence. After modest offsetting initial effects, employment increases are widespread in terms of both sectors and states in the year following the El Niño. These results indicate El Niños can have material impacts on the US.”
Roth Tran, Brigitte 2026. “In Hot Water? The Macroeconomic Impacts of El Niño.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 2026-21. https://doi.org/10.24148/wp2026-21
Don’t go visiting waterfalls…
“Heavy rainfall fuelled by a supersized El Niño weather pattern briefly forced Argentinian authorities to close tourist access to the famed Iguazu Falls, amid fears that rapidly rising water levels would cause the river to burst its banks.”
The effects are already being felt. In Somalia, heavy rains have flooded parts of Mogadishu and damaged health facilities, echoing the El Niño-linked floods of 2023 that displaced 1.2 million people.
PETALING JAYA: The meteorological department has forecast scorching weather between March and May next year due to the Super El Nino phenomenon, potentially breaking Malaysia’s record high temperature of 40.1 degrees Celsius.
Its director-general Hisham Anip said Malaysia’s maximum temperature could exceed 41 degrees Celsius based on an analysis of the current El Nino phenomenon, alongside the impacts of climate change and global warming.
“If we look at current climate change trends, the rate of temperature increase in the country is approximately 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade.
The degree of difficulties may vary between states, but the fact that around 40 per cent of India’s landmass spread over 15 of the 36 states and Union Territories received less than normal rainfall will remain a matter of concern…
“India is well placed with its foodgrain stocks — a massive pool of 602 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and rice — three times the prescribed buffer stock. Food will not be a problem even if India experiences a rare second successive failure of SWM season in 202, as a section of meteorologists fear. India’s real problem is drinking water supply in states that ended up with serious deficit rains and irrigation for agriculture.”
International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva told AFP she is “very concerned” about El Niño’s global impacts, particularly on food security. The IMF is “getting ready” to offer support to countries that may struggle to absorb the impact, she added. The United Nations Development Programme also warned Sunday that the combined impacts of higher borrowing costs, surging energy prices and the powerful El Niño created “a perfect storm that could throw tens if not hundreds of millions of people back into poverty.”
Londoners are being urged to sign up for flood warnings amid growing concern that extreme weather fuelled by a “Godzilla” El Niño will batter the UK this winter.
Flood action online is designed as a one-stop shop for people to understand the flood risk to their homes and take action to reduce it, as well as providing easy access to weather alerts from the Met Office during incidents.
Up to 1.7 million UK households will not turn on their heating this winter in an effort to save money – as a record El Niño threatens to unleash extreme weather this winter.
A poll for Uswitch suggested that as many as 1.7 million households will turn off their heating to save money on costs, with only 40% planning to turn it on if they get too cold.
“Colder, calmer weather in UK winters is known to present a challenge for energy production from renewable sources, especially when it is also cloudy. Wind power generates 40% or more of the UK’s electricity during winter, and cold, calm periods can require more gas power to make up for lower wind generation and increased demand for heating.”
UK weather tends to be less directly affected than other areas of the world, but due to the strength of this El Niño the extent of the forecasts suggest there is an increased likelihood of wetter and stormier conditions during autumn and early winter, alongside a slightly increased risk of colder weather and cold snaps later in winter.
What’s likely around the winter peak from October to December 2026:
Increased likelihood of stormier conditions
Increased likelihood of heavy rainfall and flooding
Early 2027:
Slightly increased likelihood of ‘cold snaps’
In the UK this could cause:
Flooding
Power cuts
Damage by high winds
Snow and icy conditions
These events are something the UK experiences every year. While El Niño does not directly cause individual storms, floods or cold weather events, forecasts suggest it could increase the likelihood of some weather patterns that make these impacts more likely.
With around 50% of UK food imported, including 80% of fruit and vegetables from countries such as Spain and Morocco, supply could be impacted by events in countries of origin, which would have a knock-on effect for UK shoppers of driving up prices and scarcity. This is especially true for foods that can only be grown and cultivated in certain areas of the world.
“We are a long way behind in terms of what is needed for adaptation as a country. The very hot summer we have just had has alerted people to what has been coming for a long time. It is going to get worse than this,”
James Richardson, the chief analyst at the Climate Change Committee
Not long ago the idea of a book on Amazon forest fires would have seemed as absurd as a book on Amazon snowstorms, according to Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate in Oxford University and Lancaster University and an expert on human-driven disturbances in the world’s biggest tropical forest. “Fires just didn’t happen before because the forest was too humid,” she explains.
But decades of deforestation and climate disruption have changed that completely. Swathes of the Amazon are now drier and more flammable, particularly in El Niño years which are associated with lower rainfall.
Synopsis: Every Tuesday, we discuss how environmental issues intersect with business, politics and society.
After three years of clear skies, the haze is back in Singapore. One contributor to the pollution is the El Nino weather phenomenon, which causes drier, hotter weather in South-east Asia.
Science Talk: In this episode of Science Talk podcast, we sit down with Dr. Zeke Hausfather (https://thebreakthrough.org/people/ze…, a leading climate scientist known for translating complex data into clear, accessible insights. While not a “typical academic,” he holds a PhD and has played a major role in advancing public understanding of climate science. He is currently affiliated with Berkeley Earth (https://berkeleyearth.org/team/) and is also working in the private sector on carbon removal solutions.
This wide-ranging conversation tackles some of the most urgent and debated questions about our planet’s future. What exactly is happening to Earth’s climate—and why? Do we now have enough evidence to definitively prove that climate change is real? We also explore the growing discussion around whether 2027 could become the warmest year on record, especially in the context of a potential Super El Niño.
I am not a climate scientist. I am mostly collating what other people say, not pushing my own “angle”. I will get things wrong – when I do, I’ll fess up, no fuss. I will quote from “reputable” sources, but sometimes the truth is an outlandish outlier.
Blah blah information provided for lulz only. No responsibility taken for your failure to create broad-based social movements that prevent shit getting even worse and instead leading us into the pit of Sarlac.
The digest is inspired by the awe-inspiring and heart-breaking “CO2 Newsletter published by American geologist William Barbat from 1979 to 1982.
That joke!
Bernadette! Ba-doom, tish.
What do you call a hairless murder ape using its opposable thumbs to dig up coal and set fire to it?
3. What is “Drilled”, how did it come to be and why should everyone listen to it?
Drilled started out as a true-crime podcast about climate change and is now a global newsroom producing both the podcast and cross-border investigations into climate obstruction with a wide range of partner outlets.
It started out because I had been a longtime climate reporter in print and was wishing I could do radio and then thought well I probably could if I learned how, so had gone to work for a radio station. They had trained me in audio reporting, but I was still working as a climate reporter, at the time mostly for The Guardian where I worked on retainer for several years. There was a bit of a narrative podcast boom at the time, driven primarily by the podcast Serial, and I thought there should be something narrative on climate–only a handful of climate pods existed and they were all interview-based, not stories. But I couldn’t think of something that could carry a whole podcast season either.
Then I got assigned to cover one of the early climate liability cases in California, where the cities of Oakland and San Francisco were suing some of the world’s largest oil companies for their role in delaying action on climate change and thus increasing the costs of adaptation for cities. The judge in that case had called for a climate science tutorial — he was an eccentric guy, known for such things – and both legal teams showed up in San Francisco prepared to present on who knew what, when, and what they’d done with that information. All the characters were there: The eccentric judge, the scientists, the slick oil company lawyers, the activists, and I thought “aha! that’s it, I’ll make a true-crime podcast about climate change.”
At the time, people weren’t really talking about climate as a crime so it was somewhat novel and I thought it was a great idea, but none of the podcast companies were interested. They all said there wouldn’t be enough of an audience. I was really convinced they were wrong so I made it anyway with an audio engineer friend and a small seed grant from a nonprofit, and we wound up getting a million listens to our first season, so that proved that there was an audience. By that point I had ideas for the next three seasons and now we’re working on Season 18.
4. This book – how did it come to be? What is it trying to achieve? What does it do that other books (Ross Gelbspan, Oreskes and Conway) that have looked at climate propaganda didn’t do?
It had a very circuitous path!… The idea I initially pitched him was a whole book on Herb Schmertz, the legendary VP of public affairs for Mobil, and one of these days I still want to write that book. BUT understandably he thought it was a bit too niche. So we bounced ideas around for about a year and basically co-wrote the proposal for the book. Which is highly unusual! I felt like other books had focused on one particular type of propaganda — science denial or PR or lobbying — but none had looked yet at how it all works together. I also thought there’d been this tendency to frame this issue as though one industry figured this stuff out and then another industry copied it, which didn’t jive with the documentation I’d seen. I think it’s helpful for people to see how this works across industries and how these strategies were really concocted to help all industries and companies avoid regulation and get around democracy in a variety of ways.
6. I’ll give you five minutes with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Let’s say he’s read your book. What ELSE would you say to him?
I’d tell him to talk to Tessa Kahn of Uplift about why everything he’s said about North Sea oil is wrong
8. Any shout outs to other climate journalism, journalism full stop – people who deserve more attention than they are getting?
Always! Let’s see, well first I want to make sure to shout out all the other reporters working with Drilled – Alleen Brown, Royce Kurmelovs (who is single-handedly producing a massive amount of Australia’s investigative climate journalism), Nina Lakhani, Diana Taremwa-Karakire in Uganda, Rishika Pardikar in India, Alice de Souza an excellent Brazilian journalist living in the UK, Ana Dominguez in Argentina, Jose Catalayud in Spain, Alex Brutelle in France. Then I think the folks at the Intercept Brasil are some of the best journalists around. Sharon Lerner does incredible work at ProPublica. Hilary Beaumont all over the place, Sara Sneath at The Guardian. Kendra Pierre-Louis has been doing amazing climate reporting for years. I know I’m immediately going to kick myself for forgetting someone.
El Niño’s added ocean heat affects the atmosphere, causing weather patterns around the world to shift. Consider it kind of like a domino run, where one tile starts a chain reaction. Such a major slug of heat in the Pacific will act more like a shove then a light flick on the atmosphere, and the resulting shifts in weather are expected to be generationally intense.
“Since September 20th, when Odalys formed, it’s been berserk,” said Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach, who forecasts and studies storm activity. “This year just everything that forms is just lasting a long time and getting really powerful.”
“For children, El Niño is far more than a weather pattern. It can mean increased displacement, malnutrition, water shortages, and disease outbreaks. Children are also at risk of schools closing, while families could experience added financial hardship,” Catherine Russell, who heads the agency, said.
“Most of us climate change ecology people are kind of perversely excited about it,” says John Bruno, a marine ecologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “It’s an experimental treatment that nature is providing to us.”
Whether this “super” El Niño will translate into superdamage around the world remains to be seen. Other ocean phenomena, such as water temperatures in the Indian Ocean, can either moderate or amplify an El Niño’s effects, says Chris Funk, an applied climatologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara whose work focuses on developing weather forecasting tools to predict drought, famine, and other natural disasters. He says the indicators so far point to a wild ride for people and ecosystems. “The pretty obvious conclusion is that we should buckle up.”
Ian Lisk, a chief meteorologist at the Met Office, warned attendees of a recent Airports UK annual conference that “we don’t get normal weather any more, fundamentally…. None of this is good news. The heatwaves and the events of this last summer had nothing to do with El Niño.”
“If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that. What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organizations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time.”
Noam Chomsky
Money
(always the 5th element, whatever Aristotle thought)
“Developing countries face a triple shock from the energy crisis, El Niño and surging borrowing costs and need urgent support from the international community, the UN’s development arm has warned.
“Speaking before the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok this week, the UNDP’s administrator, Alexander De Croo, called for “solidarity and global action”.
“Developing countries, their hands and legs are being pulled in different directions: it’s truly hard for them,” he said.
“Before the meetings, the UNDP published a report, No Time to Recover, which lays out the risks of what it calls the “compounding crises” of energy, climate and debt.”
“BANGKOK — The Philippine central bank is planning for a “Godzilla” El Niño on top of a prolonged oil shock, as the Southeast Asian nation tries to rein in inflation from three-year highs.
Governor Eli Remolona said Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas now sets policy using scenarios that factor in oil prices and the severity of the weather event. “We have the regular, ordinary El Niño, which is bad, and then we have the Godzilla El Niño, which is really, really bad,” he said Wednesday on a panel at the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.”
“The arrival of the 2026/27 El Niño brings renewed uncertainty to Brazil’s agricultural sector, with regional impacts varying widely. Central and Northern areas face higher risks of heatwaves and below-average rainfall, while the South is bracing for excessive precipitation. These shifts threaten to disrupt planting schedules for soybeans and second-season corn, reduce water availability for pastures, and strain livestock welfare. High temperatures may also jeopardize critical coffee and orange flowering periods as well as sugarcane yields. In response, Brazilian producers should be prepared for elevated input costs, rising insurance premiums, and recurring infrastructure vulnerabilities associated with severe weather events. These financial impacts may have lasting effects well into future harvests, heightening the strain on Brazil’s agricultural sector.”
Brazil: Bracing for Impact – How the 2026 El Nino Affects Brazil’s Agriculture Attaché Report (GAIN) | BR2026-0040
“In this paper I use a new approach to estimating the impulse response functions of El Niños. I find that El Niños pose material upside risk for PCE prices and employment. The longer-run price effects are driven by core services and food prices and depend on whether La Niñas follow El Niños, a very common occurrence. After modest offsetting initial effects, employment increases are widespread in terms of both sectors and states in the year following the El Niño. These results indicate El Niños can have material impacts on the US.”
Roth Tran, Brigitte 2026. “In Hot Water? The Macroeconomic Impacts of El Niño.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Working Paper 2026-21. https://doi.org/10.24148/wp2026-21
Don’t go visiting waterfalls…
“Heavy rainfall fuelled by a supersized El Niño weather pattern briefly forced Argentinian authorities to close tourist access to the famed Iguazu Falls, amid fears that rapidly rising water levels would cause the river to burst its banks.”
The effects are already being felt. In Somalia, heavy rains have flooded parts of Mogadishu and damaged health facilities, echoing the El Niño-linked floods of 2023 that displaced 1.2 million people.
PETALING JAYA: The meteorological department has forecast scorching weather between March and May next year due to the Super El Nino phenomenon, potentially breaking Malaysia’s record high temperature of 40.1 degrees Celsius.
Its director-general Hisham Anip said Malaysia’s maximum temperature could exceed 41 degrees Celsius based on an analysis of the current El Nino phenomenon, alongside the impacts of climate change and global warming.
“If we look at current climate change trends, the rate of temperature increase in the country is approximately 0.13 degrees Celsius per decade.
The degree of difficulties may vary between states, but the fact that around 40 per cent of India’s landmass spread over 15 of the 36 states and Union Territories received less than normal rainfall will remain a matter of concern…
“India is well placed with its foodgrain stocks — a massive pool of 602 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and rice — three times the prescribed buffer stock. Food will not be a problem even if India experiences a rare second successive failure of SWM season in 202, as a section of meteorologists fear. India’s real problem is drinking water supply in states that ended up with serious deficit rains and irrigation for agriculture.”
International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva told AFP she is “very concerned” about El Niño’s global impacts, particularly on food security. The IMF is “getting ready” to offer support to countries that may struggle to absorb the impact, she added. The United Nations Development Programme also warned Sunday that the combined impacts of higher borrowing costs, surging energy prices and the powerful El Niño created “a perfect storm that could throw tens if not hundreds of millions of people back into poverty.”
Londoners are being urged to sign up for flood warnings amid growing concern that extreme weather fuelled by a “Godzilla” El Niño will batter the UK this winter.
Flood action online is designed as a one-stop shop for people to understand the flood risk to their homes and take action to reduce it, as well as providing easy access to weather alerts from the Met Office during incidents.
Up to 1.7 million UK households will not turn on their heating this winter in an effort to save money – as a record El Niño threatens to unleash extreme weather this winter.
A poll for Uswitch suggested that as many as 1.7 million households will turn off their heating to save money on costs, with only 40% planning to turn it on if they get too cold.
“Colder, calmer weather in UK winters is known to present a challenge for energy production from renewable sources, especially when it is also cloudy. Wind power generates 40% or more of the UK’s electricity during winter, and cold, calm periods can require more gas power to make up for lower wind generation and increased demand for heating.”
UK weather tends to be less directly affected than other areas of the world, but due to the strength of this El Niño the extent of the forecasts suggest there is an increased likelihood of wetter and stormier conditions during autumn and early winter, alongside a slightly increased risk of colder weather and cold snaps later in winter.
What’s likely around the winter peak from October to December 2026:
Increased likelihood of stormier conditions
Increased likelihood of heavy rainfall and flooding
Early 2027:
Slightly increased likelihood of ‘cold snaps’
In the UK this could cause:
Flooding
Power cuts
Damage by high winds
Snow and icy conditions
These events are something the UK experiences every year. While El Niño does not directly cause individual storms, floods or cold weather events, forecasts suggest it could increase the likelihood of some weather patterns that make these impacts more likely.
With around 50% of UK food imported, including 80% of fruit and vegetables from countries such as Spain and Morocco, supply could be impacted by events in countries of origin, which would have a knock-on effect for UK shoppers of driving up prices and scarcity. This is especially true for foods that can only be grown and cultivated in certain areas of the world.
“We are a long way behind in terms of what is needed for adaptation as a country. The very hot summer we have just had has alerted people to what has been coming for a long time. It is going to get worse than this,”
James Richardson, the chief analyst at the Climate Change Committee
Not long ago the idea of a book on Amazon forest fires would have seemed as absurd as a book on Amazon snowstorms, according to Erika Berenguer, a senior research associate in Oxford University and Lancaster University and an expert on human-driven disturbances in the world’s biggest tropical forest. “Fires just didn’t happen before because the forest was too humid,” she explains.
But decades of deforestation and climate disruption have changed that completely. Swathes of the Amazon are now drier and more flammable, particularly in El Niño years which are associated with lower rainfall.
Synopsis: Every Tuesday, we discuss how environmental issues intersect with business, politics and society.
After three years of clear skies, the haze is back in Singapore. One contributor to the pollution is the El Nino weather phenomenon, which causes drier, hotter weather in South-east Asia.
Science Talk: In this episode of Science Talk podcast, we sit down with Dr. Zeke Hausfather (https://thebreakthrough.org/people/ze…, a leading climate scientist known for translating complex data into clear, accessible insights. While not a “typical academic,” he holds a PhD and has played a major role in advancing public understanding of climate science. He is currently affiliated with Berkeley Earth (https://berkeleyearth.org/team/) and is also working in the private sector on carbon removal solutions.
This wide-ranging conversation tackles some of the most urgent and debated questions about our planet’s future. What exactly is happening to Earth’s climate—and why? Do we now have enough evidence to definitively prove that climate change is real? We also explore the growing discussion around whether 2027 could become the warmest year on record, especially in the context of a potential Super El Niño.
I am not a climate scientist. I am mostly collating what other people say, not pushing my own “angle”. I will get things wrong – when I do, I’ll fess up, no fuss. I will quote from “reputable” sources, but sometimes the truth is an outlandish outlier.
Blah blah information provided for lulz only. No responsibility taken for your failure to create broad-based social movements that prevent shit getting even worse and instead leading us into the pit of Sarlac.
The digest is inspired by the awe-inspiring and heart-breaking “CO2 Newsletter published by American geologist William Barbat from 1979 to 1982.
That joke!
Bernadette! Ba-doom, tish.
What do you call a hairless murder ape using its opposable thumbs to dig up coal and set fire to it?
3. What is “Drilled”, how did it come to be and why should everyone listen to it?
Drilled started out as a true-crime podcast about climate change and is now a global newsroom producing both the podcast and cross-border investigations into climate obstruction with a wide range of partner outlets.
It started out because I had been a longtime climate reporter in print and was wishing I could do radio and then thought well I probably could if I learned how, so had gone to work for a radio station. They had trained me in audio reporting, but I was still working as a climate reporter, at the time mostly for The Guardian where I worked on retainer for several years. There was a bit of a narrative podcast boom at the time, driven primarily by the podcast Serial, and I thought there should be something narrative on climate–only a handful of climate pods existed and they were all interview-based, not stories. But I couldn’t think of something that could carry a whole podcast season either.
Then I got assigned to cover one of the early climate liability cases in California, where the cities of Oakland and San Francisco were suing some of the world’s largest oil companies for their role in delaying action on climate change and thus increasing the costs of adaptation for cities. The judge in that case had called for a climate science tutorial — he was an eccentric guy, known for such things – and both legal teams showed up in San Francisco prepared to present on who knew what, when, and what they’d done with that information. All the characters were there: The eccentric judge, the scientists, the slick oil company lawyers, the activists, and I thought “aha! that’s it, I’ll make a true-crime podcast about climate change.”
At the time, people weren’t really talking about climate as a crime so it was somewhat novel and I thought it was a great idea, but none of the podcast companies were interested. They all said there wouldn’t be enough of an audience. I was really convinced they were wrong so I made it anyway with an audio engineer friend and a small seed grant from a nonprofit, and we wound up getting a million listens to our first season, so that proved that there was an audience. By that point I had ideas for the next three seasons and now we’re working on Season 18.
4. This book – how did it come to be? What is it trying to achieve? What does it do that other books (Ross Gelbspan, Oreskes and Conway) that have looked at climate propaganda didn’t do?
It had a very circuitous path!… The idea I initially pitched him was a whole book on Herb Schmertz, the legendary VP of public affairs for Mobil, and one of these days I still want to write that book. BUT understandably he thought it was a bit too niche. So we bounced ideas around for about a year and basically co-wrote the proposal for the book. Which is highly unusual! I felt like other books had focused on one particular type of propaganda — science denial or PR or lobbying — but none had looked yet at how it all works together. I also thought there’d been this tendency to frame this issue as though one industry figured this stuff out and then another industry copied it, which didn’t jive with the documentation I’d seen. I think it’s helpful for people to see how this works across industries and how these strategies were really concocted to help all industries and companies avoid regulation and get around democracy in a variety of ways.
6. I’ll give you five minutes with Prime Minister Andy Burnham. Let’s say he’s read your book. What ELSE would you say to him?
I’d tell him to talk to Tessa Kahn of Uplift about why everything he’s said about North Sea oil is wrong
8. Any shout outs to other climate journalism, journalism full stop – people who deserve more attention than they are getting?
Always! Let’s see, well first I want to make sure to shout out all the other reporters working with Drilled – Alleen Brown, Royce Kurmelovs (who is single-handedly producing a massive amount of Australia’s investigative climate journalism), Nina Lakhani, Diana Taremwa-Karakire in Uganda, Rishika Pardikar in India, Alice de Souza an excellent Brazilian journalist living in the UK, Ana Dominguez in Argentina, Jose Catalayud in Spain, Alex Brutelle in France. Then I think the folks at the Intercept Brasil are some of the best journalists around. Sharon Lerner does incredible work at ProPublica. Hilary Beaumont all over the place, Sara Sneath at The Guardian. Kendra Pierre-Louis has been doing amazing climate reporting for years. I know I’m immediately going to kick myself for forgetting someone.
This page contains content authorised by a previous Minister of a former Department and is available for archival purposes only.
18 October 2010
Media Release
Joint media release The Hon Wayne Swan MP Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer
The Government announced today the membership of the new roundtable that has been established to engage the business community on the Government’s climate change policies.
The Roundtable will include business leaders from right across the economy, including major sectors like mining, transport, manufacturing, energy, retail and banking. The Roundtable will also include leading peak bodies, such as the Business Council of Australia, AI Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
This new Roundtable will play a critical role in providing advice to the Government on the economic and business issues surrounding climate change.
The introduction of a carbon price will reshape the business environment for all Australian companies, providing businesses with the certainty they need to begin the transition to a low pollution economy. This new Roundtable will ensure that the views of the business community are front and centre as we progress this important economic reform.
Business leaders around the country understand that if we are to remain internationally competitive over the long term, then our industries must become less carbon intensive. The best way of doing this is by establishing a carbon price in the economy.
The simple fact is that in order to promote business certainty and to underscore Australia’s long-term competitiveness, introducing a carbon price is the only economically responsible thing to do.
The roundtable will also discuss how the Government’s climate change policies intersect with our other economic policies, including tax reform.
The Roundtable will be co-chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency, Greg Combet. The Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, will also be a member.
The composition of the roundtable reflects extensive discussion with business leaders and peak bodies. To keep the Roundtable to a manageable size, the Government has not been able to accommodate all interested parties. Ministers will continue to be available to discuss issues with all parties as we develop our policy position.
Member organisations of the Business Roundtable and their representatives include:
Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Peter Anderson
Lend Lease, Maria Atkinson
National Australia Bank, Cameron Clyne
BHP Billiton, Hubrecht (Hubie) van Dalsen
Investor Group, Nathan Fabian
National Farmers’ Federation, Ben Fargher
AGL Energy, Michael Fraser
Qantas, Alan Joyce
Origin, Grant King
Woolworths, Michael Luscombe
BlueScope Steel, Paul O’Malley
Energy Supply Association of Australia, Brad Page
Rio Tinto, David Peever
Shell, Ann Pickard
Australian Industry Group, Heather Ridout
Business Council of Australia, Maria Tarrant
Woodside, Don Voelte
Clean Energy Council, Matthew Warren
Toyota, Masahide (Max) Yasuda
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 337ppm. 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 ALP had spent a chunk of the 2000s trying to turn climate change into an issue they could use to peel away voters from the Liberals under Prime Minister John Howard. In late 2006 their luck had changed and new leader Kevin Rudd was able to club Howard with the issue. Rudd had then absolutely destroyed his credibility, and – fatally – allowed his chief of staff to brief against Julia Gillard, his Deputy. Gillard finally snapped and Rudd slunk away without even a vote (he knew he’d be hammered). Gillard had then called a slightly-early Federal election.
The specific context – Gillard managed to promise “no Carbon Tax” in the last days of the campaign. Then, oops, didn’t win a majority and so needed the support of Independent MPs to form a government. And those who were up for supporting her wanted… a carbon price. Which would be hard to distinguish from a “carbon tax.” (It probably COULD have been done, but, well, for reasons, it didn’t happen). So here we see Gillard trying to get business on board…
What I think we can learn from this is that business will turn up for a “grip and grin” but will basically play dead if things get too hot around a policy issue, as they did the following year, when Tony Abbott, Liberal leader, launched his “great big tax on everything” campaign.
What happened next 2011 was a blood bath. Gillard got her legislation through, but it was a very Pyrrhic victory.
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).
Seventy two years ago, on this day, October 17th, 1954,
According to Ginsberg’s bibliographer and archivist Bill Morgan, it was a terrifying peyote vision that was the principal inspiration for Howl. This occurred on the evening of October 17, 1954, in the Nob Hill apartment of Sheila Williams, Ginsberg’s girlfriend at that time, with whom he was living. Ginsberg had the terrifying experience of seeing the façade of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in the San Francisco fog as the monstrous face of a child-eating demon. As was his wont, Ginsberg took notes on his vision, and these became the basis for Part II of the poem.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 313ppm. 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 so-called McCarthyite terror of the late 40s and early 50s. It actually predates and postdates McCarthy (he was just a useful avatar) and had rendered the United States an even more conformist and authoritarian place than previously (see also the immediate aftermath of World War One) and people like Allen Ginsberg were trying to find a way of thinking and being and doing that didn’t end up with them capitulating and lobotomizing themselves. This also involved drugs.
What I think we can learn from this is that Howl came from drugs. This will come as a shock to you, I am sure.
What happened next Howl was an enormous success of sensation, and it made Ginsberg’s name. Hey, in 1967 Ginsburg was in London and got switched on to the climate issue, carbon dioxide build up, and in a letter to Gary Snyder referred to it as a general lemming situation.
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 amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 310.5ppm. 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 1938 British steam engineer Guy Callendar had presented his paper at the Royal Meteorological Society in London, and received a fairly lukewarm response.
Thespecificcontext was his proposition – that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were rising thanks to humans burning coal, and this was already causing an identifiable warming – gained the attention of biologists and ecologists as well as meteorologists (the carbon cycle is kinda important, so changes in the amount of carbon – in air or water – matter).
What I think we can learn from this – we need to look for awareness of carbon dioxide build-up NOT JUST among the meteorologists, but also among the ecologists, biologists, oceanographers etc.
What happened next – Hutchinson was a big-wig in the Conservation Foundation (not yet created) and it was on his suggestion that the Conservation Foundation held its meeting in March 1963
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 five years ago, on this day, October 16th, 1981, the Financial Times reports on a warning by chief scientist of the Department of Energy, Hermann Bondi, about anti-nuclear protests and protestors.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 339ppm. 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 chief scientist at the Department of Energy, Herman Bondi, was very well aware of carbon dioxide build up, and didn’t want it to be a public issue per se. And he also wanted to try to win debates with the anti-nuclear crowd, and so here we see him reaching for the standard “you want black people to starve line,” which is pushed it out all the fucking time.
What I think we can learn from this – concern for the poor of the world is a tried and tested rhetorical flourish, from people who almost certainly do not give a rat’s arse.
What happened next ? Nuclear for dealing with greenhouse gas became a talking point again in 1988-89 and it’s still there to this day.
xxx
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).
