Eighteen years ago, on this day, September 4th, 2007,
“4Change, formerly known as the Climate Change Coalition (CCC), was an Australian political party, which was formed in 2007 with a view to accelerate action by politicians from all parties on global warming and climate change. Its position on working towards addressing climate change, stresses cooperation with big business in order to achieve significant progress on the issue. The party therefore advocates a close working relationship between environmentalists and the business community. The CCC was registered as a political party with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) on 4 September 2007 and deregistered on 25 March 2010.”
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 was that Australia was a year into its Great Climate Awakening. Kevin Rudd was surfing to victory over John Howard’s LNP. But people knew, in their heart of hearts that Rudd wouldn’t deliver enough. (They were right – in the event, he delivered half of eff-all.)
What I think we can learn from this. The game is rigged, y’all…
What happened next. The party deregistered in 2010. What did it achieve? I don’t know.
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: