Fourteen years ago, on this day, November 12th, 2012
Letter to the government
URGENDA
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 395ppm. 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 Dutch had been warned by their queen about climate change in 1988 in her Christmas address, and her husband had been warning about it in 1970. So it’s not like the Dutch weren’t acutely aware of all this. Dutch capital had done what Dutch capital does, made money in the short term, and there had been a failed energy transition because the academics had sat down with Shell and done what they were told.
The specific context was here we see Urgenda having woken up and smelt the coffee, writing to the government.
What I think we can learn from this is that states, however good their PR is, are ultimately about the accumulation of capital these days, and to some extent, military prowess (depends where you are). And they will say whatever needs saying, but they are often institutionally and almost always I would argue cognitively captured by the needs of capital.
What happened next Urgenda won a court case, for what that was worth.
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:
November 12,1976 – “Greenhouse Effects due to Man-Made Perturbations of Trace Gases” in Science
November 12, 1998 – USA signs Kyoto
November 12, 1999 – John Howard and mates say “nope” to renewables
November 12, 2012 – Greenpeace smeared by Queensland extractors, of course