On this day June 4, 2001, 24 years ago – bureaucrat for the “Australian Greenhouse Office” (unlamented, frankly) told senators what public opinion appeared to be….
In the next fortnight just as Parliament has risen for winter a $23 million climate change campaign will be broadcast, mailed, and plastered in newspapers. It’s not the first. In May 2001, the viewing public enjoyed a six-week ”burst” of ads on the greenhouse effect featuring gardening guru Don Burke. It cost almost $5 million. On June 4, 2001, in the hush of Senate committee room 3, floor 2, in Parliament House, Canberra, a Greenhouse Office bureaucrat revealed, ”In a six-week period, we had 425 60-second advertisements, 375 30-second advertisements, 660 15-second advertisements and a further dozen advertisements, and my figures seem to have some problem qualifying whether those were 60 or 30 seconds.” The same officer revealed that post-campaign research of 1000 respondents showed that 88 per cent of respondents considered the greenhouse effect to be a real problem and only 9 per cent considered it a myth.
Campbell, C. 2007. Back to the future with ad blitz. Canberra Times. 25 June.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 384ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was Australians had – thanks to the efforts of the “Greenhouse Project” – a combined effort of the Commission for the Future and the CSIRO Atmospheric Physics folks, been very well informed about climate change (at that time known as “the Greenhouse Effect”) in 1987-89. There was an effort to continue this work (Greenhouse Action Australia), but it ran into the sand.
The specific context was John Howard was trying to give the APPEARANCE of taking action, while avoiding any real commitment. By the time the bureaucrat spoke, President Bush had pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, and it was obvious that Howard would do the same, sooner or later (he finally did on World Environment Day, June 5, 2002).
What I think we can learn is this:
As human beings – we can all agree that x is a problem. And it is caused by THEM over THERE.
As “active citizens” – public opinion/attention/concern rises and falls. It means very little unless it is harnessed, nurtured etc. But that’s hard – much harder than organising a march…
Academics might want to ponder… how they might communicate these cycles….
What happened next: Howard went on to win two more elections. Australians voted for climate action in 2007 and Kevin Rudd ratfucked everyone. The emissions kept climbing.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
(as academic as possible, with DOIs if they exist.) hyperlinks.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
June 4, 1979 – Daily Mail reports on climate change without losing its mind – All Our Yesterdays
June 4 , 1989, 1992, 1996 – from frantic concern to contempt for everyone’s future…
June 4, 1998 – A New South Wales premier signs a carbon credit trade…