Thirty five years ago, on this day, December 19, 1988, celebrities get on board an Ark, for a star-studded launch…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there was this exuberant ex-Greenpeace director (who had been a Daily Mirror hack) and had written in the early 70s about environmental depletion. He had gotten some money to put together a big manifesto. They had celebrities on board and it was going to be all-singing all-dancing. There were going to be little Arks, it was going to combine the business end, the social movement end the celebrity end – all singing all dancing all of the time.
And it did not come to pass
What I think we can learn from this
People get high on their own supply. People get drunk thinking that what needs to happen will therefore happen because it needs to happen. But that’s circular and it doesn’t reflect reality. But then reality is no fun.
What happened next
By July 1989 Ark had collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.
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..