Twenty nine years ago, on this day, June 3, 1994, news reached the colonies of an event that had actually happened on Wednesday June 1… – Greenpeace International’s release of ‘The Climate Timebomb’.
Anon, 1994. World is facing a climate time bomb: Greenpeace. Canberra Times, 3 June, page 7
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 360.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was Greenpeace trying to get people to understand that the increasing number of weather disasters and extremes are in fact a climate time bomb. The United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change had been ratified. And by enough countries the UNFCCC itself the text was no great shakes and Greenpeace was well aware that more needed to be done. And were trying to get insurers and reinsurers interested.
What I think we can learn from this is that using “natural disasters” to convince people that climate is a pressing issue hasn’t really worked. Because people have short memories, because of shifting baselines, because people don’t want to stare into the abyss. And because until recently attributing any specific disaster or event to climate was problematic at best.
What happened next
Greenpeace kept trying to do what it could on climate. And you can have criticisms – I do – but they’ve been on the side of the angels as opposed to the fossil fuel shills.
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.