Twenty one years ago, on this day, October 13th, 2005,
Inevitable open letter to IPCC head Rajendra Pauchauri from Australian “skeptic” Ian Castles on 8 Nov 2005. No I am not linking to it.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 380ppm. As of 2026, 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 the IPCC had been a target for denialists, pretty much from day one, (see my Conversation piece) and especially from the Second Assessment Report with the attacks on Ben Santer (1995-6). Here we have the usual kind of day-to-day mundane “warning shot firing” bullshit from a bullshit denialist aimed just to take up time, as per Toni Morrison, it’s to take up time and energy and to distract/exhaust.
What I think we can learn from this is the “Morrison protocol” that we need to obey.
What happened next. The attacks on Pauchari continued, and the attacks on the IPCC continued, the attacks on climate scientists continued, and what else continued was the profits for the oil companies, the emissions, and the concentrations of CO in the atmosphere, and the consequences.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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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:
October 13, 1990/97 – Ros Kelly defends the Interim Planning Target vs Australia does nothing
October 13, 1993 – IIASA and the IAMs – Gaia help us all
October 13, 1990/97 – Ros Kelly defends the Interim Planning Target vs Australia does nothing
October 13, 2005 – “Climate Change: Turning up the Heat” published