Thirty six years ago, on this day, November 16th, 1990,
George Bush the 1st signed the “U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990:”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 354ppm. 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 George H. W. Bush had won the 1988 election, and among his promises was that he would use the White House effect to deal with the greenhouse effect.
Once he had power, he changed his tune – what a surprise. He had to be sort of forced into seeing the need for a global treaty: his chief of staff, John Sununu, who’s still alive, was instrumental in stopping the US rather having anything approaching a sane position
The specific context was that even within this there was still a wing of the Republican party that believed in, you know, “environment stuff,” Russell Train, William Reilly, etc.
What I think we can learn from this is there’s always, if you choose to look for them, signs of “hope”. I would call those false, false hope, a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on.
What happened next Bush successfully stopped there being targets and timetables in the climate treaty, and that has doomed us all.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
November 16, 1982 – development aid and the greenhouse effect…
November 16, 1995 – another skirmish in the IPCC war
November 16, 2009 – who is going to PAY for CCS? Well, you, obvs.
November 16, 2021 – Chancellor cuddles up to oil bosses, of course.