Thirty five years ago, on this day, May 5th, 1990, Australian coal merchants have to pretend to give a damn,
1990 Australian Coal Association conference dominated by environmental issues
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the 1988 conference (they had started in 1978, were bi-ennial) had not had environment on the agenda – the issue of climate change only properly broke through later that year. By 1990 though, international negotiations were pending, and the Australian government had already considered signing up to the “Toronto Target” of a 20 per cent reduction in emissions by 2005. The coal lobby had, therefore, to show what Good Corporate Citizens they were. There was even talk of carbon capture and storage.
What I think we can learn from this
You can use trade association publications and trade conferences as a barometer of what is going on – not necessarily of what the leading actors think, but of what they are worrying about, and what they want other people (regulators, publics, boycott-considering NGOs etc) to think.
What happened next
The fightback against any meaningful climate policy began at about this time and has continued – with remarkable success – down unto this day. Australia’s coal exports grew and grew and grew and plenty of people got rich. During the commodity super-cycle of the 2000s John Howard used the profits accruing to the state (not as much as they could have been) to bribe middle-class voters so he could stay in power. It’s a bit like Thatcher’s use of North Sea Oil in the 1980s to fund unemployment benefits… And here we are.
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.
12. New approaches and strengthened international co-operation are essential to anticipate and prevent damage to the environment, which knows no national frontiers. We shall co-operate in order to solve pressing environmental problems such as acid deposition and air pollution from motor vehicles and all other significant sources. We shall also address other concerns such as climatic change, the protection of the ozone layer and the management of toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes. The protection of soils, fresh water and the sea, in particular of regional seas, must be strengthened.
13. We shall harness both the mechanisms of governmental vigilance and the disciplines of the market to solve environmental problems. We shall develop and apply the “polluter pays” principle more widely. Science and technology must contribute to reconciling environmental protection and economic growth.
14. Improved and internationally harmonized techniques of environmental measurement are essential. We invite the environmental experts of the Technology, Growth and Employment Working Group to consult with the appropriate international bodies about the most efficient ways for achieving progress in this field.
15. We welcome the contribution made by the Environment Ministers to closer international co-operation on environmental concerns. We shall focus our co-operation within existing international bodies, especially the OECD. We shall work with developing countries for the avoidance of environmental damage and disasters world-wide.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 346ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that carbon dioxide had first appeared on the G7 agenda in Tokyo, 1979. The following year (Venice) the G7 had promised to double coal burning. Go figure. Through the early 1980s though, more and more reports about what was coming came out, and some clearly managed to percolate up to the senior sherpas at these summits.
What I think we can learn from this
Information has not been our problem, for a very long time. Power was our problem, and will – inevitably – be the death of us (Hannah Arendt would say the question is not power but domination. I would point Hannah to her support for segregation and decline to listen to her maunderings on power. But that’s just me).
What happened next Five months later, in next-door Austria, scientists gathered in Villach. From there and then they started to run around pushing every button and pulling every lever they could.It still took until mid-1988, with an enormous drought in the US, for the issue to break through. Then the kayfabe properly started.
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.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, May 4th, 1992, in the great southern land…
The Federal Opposition will seek to exploit the Government’s embarrassment over its on-again off-again resource security legislation by prolonging debate in the Senate until after Tuesday’s meeting of the Labor Caucus.
Garran, R. 1992. Opposition to exploit resource indecision. Australian Financial Review, May 4, p 9.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the new Keating government was busy burying any residual “green” ambitions, and the opposition, ahead of an election less than a year away, was punching the bruise and trying to peel away voters from Labor who had got Labor over the line in 1990 (not by attracting them to the LNP, but by making Labor look hopeless).
What I think we can learn from this
Two things – the game is the game and that “Moments” where everyone pretends to care about The Environment are almost by definition fleeting – normal service resumes fairly quickly.
What happened next The LNP managed to lose the unloseable election in March 1993 – Keating’s “sweetest victory”. John Hewson, LOTO at the time, has reinvented himself as a Nice Sane Guy on environment.
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.
The UK government’s climate action plan is unlawful, the high court has ruled, as there is not enough evidence that there are sufficient policies in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, will now be expected to draw up a revised plan within 12 months. This must ensure that the UK achieves its legally binding carbon budgets and its pledge to cut emissions by more than two-thirds by 2030, both of which the government is off track to meet.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 425ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the UK government has been making ever-bolder pledges around targets for emissions reduction (60 percent reduction by 2050, no – 80! – no, “net zero” for a couple of decades. Promises are easy, actual policies harder and implementing those policies harder still
What I think we can learn from this. You can (and should try, obvs) to win in the courts. But the megamachine rolls on.
See also Kayfabe.
What happened next
Oh, presumably some new plan will be released at some point, and challenged in its turn.
Meanwhile, the environmental protection rules that we have are about to be fed into the woodchipper.
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.
DeFries, Ruth S .; Malone, Thomas F. National Research Council (U.S.), Committee on Global Change Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future 1989 Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press; 1989. xiii, 227 p. : ill., maps ; 28 cm. Committee on Global Change, National Research Council.
Proceedings of the Forum on Global Change and Our Common Future, held on May 2-3, 1989, at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C., and organized by the National Research Council’s Committee on Global Change. Includes bibliographical references.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the “Our Common Future” report had been released in 1987. It was a sequel/rehash of sorts of the Brandt report of 1980, and sat alongside the Global 2000 report. All these – whisper it – were dancing around the fact that the Limits to Growth people of 1972 were basically right but nobody wanted to admit it so everyone went along with the bright shining lies about Technology or Development or Human Rights or whatever protective incantations were popular and career-enhancing at that moment.
What I think we can learn from this. We were smart enough to spot the problems. Mostly too scared (with good reason) to point out that the maniac sociopaths in charge would never allow the actions required, because it would interfere with their power, prestige, appetites, ideology. Duck and cover? Kinda.
What happened next
In 1989 the Global Climate Coalition was formed – oil companies and auto companies and so on – to fight any meaningful policy response to climate change. They won.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the ferment of the 1960s (i.e. the hard dangerous work of civil rights activists and the hand-wringing of the liberals) was ramifying through the institutions. Here we see Orr Roberts, by all accounts a decent man, trying to carve out some space.
What I think we can learn from this. Institutional racism is a thing. Individuals try to ameliorate it, but you need a system to change a system…
What happened next. The 60s ended in the late 1970s, with exhaustion, repression, and the beginnings of a successful “fightback” (that never ended, but was on the back foot for a bit). By 1981 it was “Morning in America” again…
There’s plenty of books about elements of this – I should make a list I guess.
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.
Former Prime Minister Tony “I actually belong at The Hague” Blair has offered us all some more of his ineffable and ineluctable pearls of wisdom. This time, on climate change. Apparently phasing out fossil fuels is doomed to fail and impractical (we will come back to this).
Labour politicians, most who did not serve under him, are predictably irritated, though Keir Starmer, in a surprise move, says that black is white, ignorance is strength etc and that Blair is aligned with Labour policy (on carbon capture).
Liberals will talk patronisingly and cod-Freudianly about “Relevance Deprivation Syndrome” – of Blair as an antinomian ha-been who once bestrode the world stage like a Poundstore colossus, chumming it up with George and Silvio and is now reduced to palling around with petrostate assholes instead (because, you know, George and Silvio were so much, well ‘classier’.)
Radicals will say “why does the media give this has-been oxygen? Are they just trolling us? Blair is a GODDAM WAR CRIMINAL.”
Reform bosses will say “more of this please, especially ahead of the local elections and that by-election.”
Everyone in between will just sigh, roll their eyes and doomscroll right on past to other less outraging sources of outrage.
I’m writing this simply because I spent a little time this morning working on the indexing (currently slipshod af) of my All Our Yesterdays site, and since Blair popped up a bit, I thought I’d write something brief about Blair, climate and carbon capture and storage and close out with my usual quote about “practicality.”
Blair and hot air
First of several fun facts – Tony Blair was born on May 6 1953, which was the day that newspapers around the world (US, Australia etc) carried news of a warning by Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass that the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels, would mean a rise in global temperatures, melting ice-caps and all the rest of it. For the next thirty five years, scientists would beaver away. Ultimately, Plass was right….
Tony Blair was a new keen MP when the climate issue “broke through” in 1988. These were the days of Neil Kinnock as Labour leader. Already it was obvious that Blair – by all accounts not exactly the sharpest tool in the box – was doing what all his fellow politicians were doing – seeing the climate issue (existential, super-wicked) as another opportunity for political games.
The Thatcher government, thanks to her speech in September 1988 to the Royal Society, was having to grapple with what to do about the “greenhouse effect.” There were some within the civil service and government saying “well, you know, we tax things we think are bad, to discourage them… soooo….” This was not a popular view within government, and either to kill it or boost it, somebody leaked it to the media. It was covered on the front page of the Independent on June 1 1989. And, well
In the aftermath of John Smith’s sudden death, Blair became Labour leader thanks to The Infamous Dinner. Climate change was really not an “issue” for the electorate in 1995-1997 (though of course it could and should have been, but this is the world we live in.
Blair’s deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, was at the Kyoto COP in December 1997 and much was made of the UK promise to go “beyond” Kyoto in terms of carbon emissions cuts. The simple reality was that these were, to paraphrase Dire Straits, “Reductions for Nothing” – they were an artefact of a) the “dash for gas” (i.e. the partial phasing out coal-burning for electricity generation – though that phase out is clear in retrospect – until early 2010s the plan was for coal to stick around and b) deindustrialisation – factories getting exported to India, China etc.
Blair managed not to hold businesses feet to the fire on a climate levy, and generally continued with lipservice and all the rest of it. Sometimes uttered some Fine Words like these at the Sustainable Development summit in September 2002
Mr President and colleagues. We know the problems. A child in Africa dies every three seconds from famine, disease or conflict. We know that if climate change is not stopped, all parts of the world will suffer. Some will even be destroyed, and we know the solution – sustainable development. So the issue for this summit is the political will.
But it wasn’t until 2004 that Blair really started leaning into the pieties. What happened? Well, there was the small matter of the attack on Iraq that wasn’t going so well, and the impending G8 summit, the one the UK was hosting. Rather like Richard Nixon going “green” in 1969 to try to change the topic from Vietnam All The Time, Blair wanted to have a different mood music for his various crusades.
What is now plain is that the emission of greenhouse gases, associated with industrialisation and strong economic growth from a world population that has increased sixfold in 200 years, is causing global warming at a rate that began as significant, has become alarming and is simply unsustainable in the long-term. And by long-term I do not mean centuries ahead. I mean within the lifetime of my children certainly; and possibly within my own. And by unsustainable, I do not mean a phenomenon causing problems of adjustment. I mean a challenge so far-reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence.
As best I can tell,it’s the first time carbon capture and storage got a run from him.
“And carbon sequestration: literally capturing carbon and storing it in the ground, also has real potential. BP are already involved in an Algerian project which aims to store 17 million tonnes of CO2.”
[Fun fact – BP had to end the Algerian jaunt because the carbon didn’t stay stored]
So Blair got his wish – the 2005 G8 Gleneagles was about “Make Poverty History” and some long-forgotten promises on climate – and the launch of all the tosh about carbon capture and storage.
Blair by then was on borrowed time, and his pivot towards nuclear, cloaked as climate concern, came as no surprise.
Praktisch
Blair is one of those “politics is the art of the possible” kinda guys. Always happy to remind you that some things are impossible and unrealistic- feeding people, decent housing, preparing for climate change while others – starting wars, ignoring climate change – are the normal behaviour of ‘responsible’ people.
‘Responsible’ people like him. They have known about climate change for four decades. We are living in the world they are responsible for. They are going to be – inevitably now I think – quite literally the death of us all.
And so I will close out with a quote, one I use often, but probably not often enough, from a wonderful memoir about World War 2. The author, an American doctor serving in Europe in late 1944, encounters a young German, called Manfred. Manfred had offered his services to the Allies, who put him in a German army uniform, parachuted him behind the German lines. His job was to gather as much useful military intelligence as he could, get captured by the advancing American troops and then spill everything he knew. Given that the Gestapo and Abwehr etc knew about this, and were on the look out for the Manfreds, this was, ah, mildly brave.
Manfred hears some of the American troops talking about “being practical” and starts muttering to himself. The author of the book, asks-
“… the word praktisch had been a two-syllable club he’d been beaten with by fellow students and teachers and businessmen and clergy all through the nightmare years. “Stop being such a god-damned idealist! Be practical!”“Practical means I know right from wrong but I’m too fucking scared to do what’s right so I commit crimes or permit crimes and I say I’m only being practical. Practical means coward. Practical frequently means stupid. Someone is too goddamn dumb to realize the consequences of what he’s doing and he hides under practical. It also means corrupt: I know what I ought to do but I’m being paid to do something different so I call it practical. Practical is an umbrella for everything lousy people do.”
There is a thing called the Keeling Curve (see my tattoo of it here).
It measures the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
When Blair was born, 6 May 1953 the C02 level was about 310ppm (we didn’t have the Keeling Curve then – it starts in 1958. We have ice cores, though…)
When Blair took office in 1997 the C02 level was 363ppm
When Blair left office in 2007 the C02 level was 384ppm
Today it is 430ish, and climbing fast. It could have been different. If Blair had had courage, or principles – which he would only have had if forced to by unflinching social movements capable of pushing back against State and Corporate power – then it might have been different
Things I will read someday, if only to understand Blair more
Leo Abse- “Blair the man behind the smile”
There’s also these – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/05/biography.politicalbooks
Thirty two years ago, on this day, April 30th, 1993, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, then at CERN, publishes the protocols for what would become the “World Wide Web.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that ARPANET and Darpanet were already “a thing”, but getting computer to speak to computer was not necessarily that easy. Berners-Lee’s genius was in the codification but also in refusing to patent it.
What I think we can learn from this is that there is such a thing as an intellectual commons, but that commons requires rules and governance. This is possible, despite what actual racist scumbags like Garrett Hardin may have though. Having said that, the AI slop and the broligarchs are making Hardin’s view plausible.
What happened next
1995-96 the internet for public consumption begins to kick in. You have email, then you have Hotmail, web based email. You have websites, internet cafes, Hollywood making websites for things like the movie Independence Day and so on, and I was relatively young back then. I’m very glad that I hit my adulthood, if you can call it that, before the internet and certainly before social media, and certainly, certainly before smartphones. Because those things are like the blood in Alien they are acid, and they will burn through any container you care to mention.
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.
The great Australian cartoonist Jon Kudelka kindly agreed to an interview.
1. Who are you and how did you come to be a cartoonist (where grew up etc).
I grew up in Hobart and after completing an undergraduate degree in molecular biology and chemistry in the early 90s realised that opportunities to do actual research were mostly in the area of weapons research or mining or forestry and decided that it wasn’t for me. I had supported myself through uni illustrating for various clients and decided to give that a go as if it failed I could probably get into teaching.
2. When and how did you first hear about climate change?
I heard about climate change in grade ten which would have been the mid eighties, so only 90 years after Arrhenius published his first paper on the topic, establishing my ability to be right on the ball with important news.
3. Your “scientist tapping the microphone ‘is this thing on'” cartoon from 2013 pops up intermittently in my feed and on sites – any recollection of how it came to be? If you were doing a sequel, what would the scientist be saying now?
The scientist one was done in a tearing hurry as I had taken in far too much work with various papers. I intended to have the sea level rising in each panel but somehow managed to forget it so was kicking myself the next day. If I did a sequel it would probably involve a scientist swearing a great deal.
Also I would probably go with a female scientist because the only people in my uni year who stuck with science turned out to be female. Probably should have done that with the first one but like I said, I was right on deadline and details weren’t a priority.
4. Your Rusted On Bingo is pure genius – what was the motiviation/straw that broke the camel’s back? Presumably you do encounter these responses from people in real life, where the block function is not possible. What do you do then?
I always got a lot more snark from Labor for the mildest criticism whereas the (slightly more) conservative parties were cranky in a more buffoonish manner. I think the trouble was that Labor types wanted to be Tories but didn’t want to be seen as Tories and didn’t react at all well to it. The prevailing attitude was to promise something centrist then roll over at the slightest pushback. I picked this rank cowardice during the run-up to Bill Shorten’s failed campaign against [then Prime Minister Scott] Morrison in 2019 where there were some good ideas that didn’t go far enough and the whole campaign was handed over to risk averse spin doctors. More effort seemed to be put into making excuses (mostly blaming the Greens for not passing Rudd’s CPRS in 2009) rather than actually following through with a consistent platform.
This is not to say that the Coalition weren’t people you’d touch with a barge pole (unless you were trying to push them off a boat) and a lot of the groundwork in ruining the country was done during the John Howard era. In fact I even published a book to that effect. It all got to the point where despite the succession of absolute clowns put forward by the Liberals starting with Tony Abbott, it became clear that Labor’s cowardice from opposition was clearly enabling the Coalition and the two party system was the entire problem. Pointing this out unleashed a deluge of spitefulness from the party faithful to the point where I just made a bingo card based entirely on their excuses for failure.
I was going to leave it at that but they just kept at it to the point where I rejigged the card into a teatowel and put the profits into sponsoring the endangered red handfish which I named “Rusty” which I quite enjoyed. I get a few requests to do another teatowel but have retired from cartooning due to a terminal brain tumour and don’t really have to time, inclination or funds to do another print run. Also the original seems to have held up pretty well.
These days people are generally too scared to make these comments to me in person but back in the day I would be increasingly polite to the point where they became quite cross. This may or may not have been deliberate. Anyway, I probably rambled on a bit there but I am somewhat bewildered as to why anyone would cling to any of the major parties these days but I haven’t really been paying attention since I retired late last year.
5. Who are your favourite cartoonists, living or dead?
6. Anything else you want to say – shout outs to activists, outlets, news of upcoming projects etc etc.
I’ve moved to being a more non-political artist because politics makes me a bit cranky these days as you’ve probably noticed. I recently attended the Takayna artist residency run by the Bob Brown Foundation and they do great work attempting to look after the place because they generally do what they say which would these days seems to be frowned upon by the media and the time-serving careerists who infest the major political parties.
Our only hope for getting the urgent changes needed to give the next generation half a chance after the long period of making the environment much worse in the case of the coalition or arguably slightly less worse under Labor is a minority government with sizeable crossbenches of people who are willing to actually work to make things better in both Houses of Parliament though it’s pretty much at the stage where if this occurred the Liberals and Labor will stop pretending they’re not defending their duopoly and band together to defend their donors.
Thirty six years ago, on this day, April 29th, 1989, the ABC radio programme the “Science Show” had this as its running line up.
The Science Show [Episode 658] – Reply to David Suzuki from Barry Jones; Greenhouse Effect Consequences; New Scientist Editor; Research Used for Biological Weapons; Lichens; Bopplenuts
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Science Show had, from its first August 1975 broadcast, been alerting listeners to the threat of climate change. Science Minister Barry Jones had been on the case too, and his “Commission for the Future” had worked with the CSIRO on a highly effective “Greenhouse Project.” The Australian Federal Government was grappling with ‘what to do’… David Suzuki, the Canadian science communicator, was making frequent trips to Australia and had recently lectured on the Amazon.
What I think we can learn from this was that the late 1980s really was a burst of awareness/fear around climate change, but that people can only cope with so much fear and then they turn away, happy to be told that every little thing’s gonna be alright, even (especially) when they know that really, it won’t be…
What happened next
We turned away – the green groups were unable to maintain the momentum, sustain their capacity. It was always going to end like this. It’s how every story ends…Or has ended so far. Who knows, maybe next time will be different. Sure.
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2025 it is 430ppm, but check 
