Forty three years ago, on this day, August 1, 1980, The Wall Street Journal ran a seriously good report on the problem of climate change. It included professors (inc David Rose) and also the view from trade bodies like the National Coal Association. You will be shocked, shocked to learn that they were not sold on the idea that their product was gonna create global chaos… And here we are…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm , but check here for daily measures.
The context was that more and more scientists were coming out and saying carbon dioxide was going to be a serious factor in climate change. There had been the NAS report in 1977, but more recently, the First World Climate Conference, the Charney report and the G7 meeting in Tokyo, and the Global 2000 report.
So it’s unsurprising that the business press, (the Wall Street Journal fancies itself as the equivalent of the Financial Times but it’s not even close, would want to cover the issue). What’s a little surprising is just how good the article was. There’s a lovely dismissive quote from the coal lobby.
What I think we can learn from this is (1) as ever, if you really want to understand what’s going on in the world, quality business press is the way forward and (2) that the National coal Association was all over the issue. Of course they were.
What happened next
Three months later, Jimmy Carter lost the presidency and America and the world lost the momentum though it continued to some extent in Europe.
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.
2 replies on “August 1, 1980 – Wall Street Journal does excellent #climate reporting”
1980 was approaching the end of the time when “quality business press”, or any legacy media, was able to publish views independent of the interests of the global corporate-military-political complex. By 1990 neo-liberaliasm had started to take hold, history had “ended”, and the uni-polar hegemony was falling into place.
Sadly there is now virtually no effective debate or alternative to the power-consensus view able to be published in legacy media of any sort. The best you can get there is a kind of limited hang-out which is designed to distract you from the underlying issues.
Incidentally since 2007 the WSJ has been owned by Rupert Murdoch through News Corp.
Yes to all this! You really do see a marked decline in intelligence in the business press. Not total – there are always still some bits and pieces worth finding, but quite marked. I still like the FT, for what it’s worth. They’re less (openly?) mad, and have some fine writers and analysts…
Thanks for very useful comment.