Nine years ago, on this day, January 19th, 2016,
Taylor, L. 2016.Outgoing chief scientist Ian Chubb says tougher greenhouse gas targets inevitable. The Guardian, 19 January.
Chubb also says hostility towards climate science may be easing but scientists still have a duty to offer unflinching advice
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 404ppm. As of 2025 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australia had had chief scientific advisers since 1988 and they had all been saying, “you got to do more on climate,” Including, of course, the first female, and only female so far, Chief Scientific Adviser, Penny Sackett, who quit om 2011 once she realized that Julia Gillard was not going to try to do more than was legislatively on the table.
What we learn is that scientists are definitely on tap, but they’re never on top, and that anyone who thinks they are is deluded.
What happened next
Advice kept getting given. We’ve bucket loads of the stuff.
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.
References
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Also on this day:
January 19, 1968 – Engineers are not ecologists…
January 19, 1976 – The carbon consequences of cement get an early discussion.
January 19, 1992 – they gambled, we lost
January 19, 2015 -Four utilities pull out of an EU CCS programme…