Eighteen years ago, on this day, February 13th, 2006. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Four Corners documentary on “Greenhouse mafia”
You can see a bit of it here
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a lobbyist, Guy Pearse had written a really interesting PhD thesis. The Millennium drought seemed never-ending, as did Australian Prime Minister John Howard‘s opposition to any climate action unless it was loose and clearly, phoney talk of nuclear as a solution. And so Four Corners, which is a bit like Horizon, was looking to return to an issue that they had covered extensively in the 1990s.
And it latched on to recently published research by Guy Pearse. The program was a crucial weakening of Howard’s legitimacy/hegemony which would be dealt killer blows through the rest of 2006.
What we learn is that academic research can sometimes – if the stars align – make a difference, at least in the agenda-setting phase, possibly, in the implementation phase, who knows?
What happened next
A very good book – “High and Dry” came out the following year, based on (but also extending) Pearse’s PhD. Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister. And you know the rest…
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.
Also on this day:
February 13, 2007- Industry is defo allowed to silence scientists…