What with (waves at everything) and El Nino about to smack us really hard, it seems like a good time to up my “We’re in the Fafocene, people” campaign.
Please feel free to use any of the images below, make your own etc.
Comments, critiques welcome.
See here for more Fafocene
Affect and the Fafocene: kayfabe, hypernormalisation and Leonard Cohen
Four “Quatrains” for the FAFOcene
PS David Pope is a seriously brilliant cartoonist. You can read an interview he kindly did here.
Forty seven years ago, on this day, June 9th, 1979, the Grey Lady made herself useful…
Increase of Carbon Dioxide in Air Alarms Scientists – The New York Times
WASHINGTON, June 8 — It is invisible, odorless and poses no immediate threat to human health. Government policies to combat air pollution ignore it completely: But the rapid increase of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is arousing growing alarm among scientists and environmentalists and could impede this country’s efforts to solve its energy problems.
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a gas released by the burning of fossil fuels. Burning oil produces carbon dioxide, and burning coal produces even more. Unlike other gases released into the air by combustion, such as sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide, or dust particles, it does not make people sick or reduce visibility.
The Government, therefore, has not regarded carbon dioxide as a pollutant and, aside from one small research operation in the Department of Energy, has not paid any attention to it.
Concerned for 20 Years
But that research office recently issued an interim report that stated, “It is the sense of the scientific community that carbon dioxide from unrestrained combustion of fossil fuels is potentially the most important environmental issue facing mankind.”
Scientists have been concerned with the increasing carbon dioxide in the air for the last 20 years. But in the absence of any hard evidence about the consequences of its presence, the issue was more for speculation and the Sunday supplements than for Governmental action.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 336ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 that the New York Times had been reporting intermittently carbon dioxide buildup since 1953 under then reporter Waldemar Kaempfert, and had picked up the wire service report in 1955 of the GE scientist John Hutton giving testimony. This reporter, Walter Sullivan, was pretty famous. He’d written a book about the International Geophysical Year and was fully aware of carbon dioxide build up. In 1972 he had met Stephen Schneider, and presumably the two had stayed in touch. And here we are.
The specific context was that by this stage, the Department of Energy, I think, from when it was still called the ERDA had been holding conferences and to a lesser extent, releasing reports about carbon dioxide build up. (That reluctance to release reports had been the final spur for William Barbat, btw.)
What I think we can learn is this: Really by the late 1970s this issue of CO2 build up was not controversial in that people admitted it was happening and that it could cause problems. There wasn’t really, yet an active, coherent denialist lobby.
What happened next: In August of 1981 Sullivan wrote up a study led by James Hansen, it was front page news in the New York Times, and it had two interesting consequences. One is that the New York Times editorialised on CO2 to build up, and the other that Hansen found his funding withdrawn for a grant that had already been issued. That was how the Reagan administration did things.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
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 9, 1966 – Lovelock’s report
June 9, 1967 – New York Times reports on temperature drop…
June 9, 1989 – the Australian Labor Party versus the unions versus the planet #climate
There’s a story we have told which goes something like this. Once upon a time, everybody was stupid, superstitious, and prone to poor judgement. Then, out of the unwashed masses, a new and brilliant breed of human emerged: the modern scientist. They could see further and with greater clarity than pretty much anyone else, and had a particular calling; to reveal – and thus subdue – anything which fell into the category of ‘nature’. Their endeavours would no doubt be for the good of humanity, but humanity in general could hardly be trusted to participate – after all, most of them can’t count very high. They would simply have to leave the scientists to it if they wanted their nasty, brutish lives to see any improvement.[1] Thus, a split reality was born. Over here is the scientist, their data, and the closest we can get to unfiltered truth. Over there is everything else.
To be fair, this story is probably about 50% true. I know I hit the universe’s jackpot when it comes to the time and place of my birth, and a lot of that is thanks to the work of myriad scientific discoveries, the majority of which I never think about long enough to question. And of course, there are plenty of scientists who do their best not to separate scientific research from the messy rest of humanity. But the divide is nevertheless real, and I’m not convinced it’s actually doing scientists any favours.
The editorial in Vol. 2, no.2 of the CO2 Newsletter complains about precisely the effects of this split reality; the findings of climate science simply aren’t landing in public, despite the best efforts of some very earnest people. This is partly because some public officials don’t want to know. But it is also partly because some scientists refuse to join everybody else at the table. There is the meteorologist who opposes the use of his work by policy makers, or a report by SRI International which argues for delaying the release of information until a more ‘credible’ case can be brought. In the climate conversations of the 1980s, a healthy number of scientists (enough to spark a debate) seemed to believe that there are research findings which ought to remain private even when they are at least partially publicly funded; it is better that the public do not know, and they – the scientists – are uniquely qualified to make such a judgement.
Barbat’s editorial suggests that this communication problem stems from the recent ‘politicisation’ of environmental sciences. But what if the opposite is true – what if the problem is that science has not historically been political enough? The attempt to purify science via the closed doors of the laboratory has not protected scientific research from the influence of humans being human. Instead, it has given a free pass to everybody who would like to ignore scientific research when it is convenient to them. Now, when a climate scientist tries to protest the actions of a political party funded by a fossil fuel corporation, they can be told to ‘stick to the science’ (or have the truth of their research rejected entirely) because they have transgressed the invisible science/politics line.
Have we learnt anything since 1981? Perhaps a little. The growing enthusiasm for citizen science projects is good, exciting, and might offer us a route into genuinely public scientific conversations about the future of the earth. Scientists have also started to change their tune. A few years ago, science communicator Joe Duggan ran a project called ‘Is This How You Feel’, asking climate scientists to – well – talk about their feelings. His premise was simple; climate scientists ‘are not robots… they are real people’.[2] Many of the contributions are moving calls to greater public engagement. But it’s striking to note that some of the scientists involved still felt the need to separate their research from the rest of their experiences. Here’s a quote from one professor at a leading British university:
“As a climate scientist I feel privileged to be alive when things are changing so fast… as a research scientist that is exciting! As a human-being, and especially as a parent, I feel concerned that we are doing damage to the planet. I don’t want to leave a mess for my children, or anyone else’s children, to clear-up.”
When scientists do their research, are they still human beings? Perhaps – in the year of our Lord 2026 – we might want to insist that scientists are people, too, and that their work belongs at the public table with everybody else.
Bio
Revd Dr Hannah Malcolm is a priest in the Church of England. Her academic research is concerned with felt human responses to anthropogenic loss and their relation to moral reasoning. She sits on the board of the climate charity Operation Noah, best known for their campaign for church divestment. Her first monograph on theology and ecological grief is due to be published later this year.
[1] Special thanks are due to Robert Boyle and Francis Bacon for getting the ball rolling on this one. For really good commentaries on this story, see Bruno Latour and Hannah Arendt.
[2] https://www.isthishowyoufeel.com/this-is-how-scientists-feel.html
Seventy three years ago, on this day, June 8th,
“Flint-Worcester Tornado Outbreak Sequence.” On 8 and 9 June 1953, two of the deadliest tornadoes in US history destroyed their eponymous towns in Michigan and Massachusetts.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 313ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 that after World War Two, with its enormous technological advances, including atomic bombs, but also jet engine development, radar, sonar, you name it, the idea that you could control the weather was becoming plausible. In 1946 there had been a secret meeting about weather modification (that, two days later, had ended up on the front page of The New York Times). And there was all sorts of talk about deliberately melting ice caps, etc, etc. There was huge public alarm at atomic bombs and also hydrogen bombs, which were a thing by this stage.
The specific context was that there had been atmospheric atomic bomb tests in New Mexico, a week earlier, and now these two tornadoes. People took the boffins at their word and said that it was possible to influence the weather.
What I think we can learn is this: your rhetoric of control will be heard, and then you will be held responsible or blamed for stuff that you actually didn’t do, couldn’t have done.
What happened next: There was an attempt to hold hearings about possible influences of the atomic bombs. This attempt to hold hearings was defeated, but the scepticism and the concern about where the control continued.
“Growing demands that the AEC be held accountable for the disaster prompted a Massachusetts congressional representative, Edith Rogers, to file a resolution calling for a congressional inquiry. The House Committee on Armed Services held a hearing to consider Rogers’s motion on 23 June [1953], in which statements from all the branches of the Armed Forces, the Federal Civil Defense Agency, and USWB unanimously agreed that there was no connection between the two. The committee denied the motion.” https://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/tornado-was-not-bombs-child-politics-extreme-weather-age-atmospheric-nuclear-weapons-testing
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
May 28, 1954 – Will we control the weather?!
December 9, 1955 – Tribune writes on carbon dioxide and Weather Control
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 8, 1981- “the First Detection of Carbon Dioxide Effect” workshop begins – All Our Yesterdays
June 8, 1990 – Greenpeace versus the polluters – All Our Yesterdays
June 8, 1997 – US oil and gas versus Kyoto Protocol, planet – All Our Yesterdays
I’m writing this because I may be wrong.
Of course, that doesn’t narrow down the things I could write about (I mean, everything, other than that I exist: merci, Rene!).
Specifically, then. A couple of days ago one of those ‘things could be much much better than they are’ reports got released. And the Guardian, bless its centrist socks, ran an op-ed by the authors.
I did a keyword search for ‘movements’ on the latter, which came up blank. So then I wrote a two-part thread on BSky.
It ran thus-
Another day, another worthless (worse than useless?) ‘The cat should wear a bell’report about how everything can be wonderful.
No mention of social movements.
Apparently the state and corporates will do all this wonderful stuff un-bidden. Because some academics wrote a report.
1/2
And part two
I can’t take this shit seriously, and I would encourage other people to do likewise.
I search “hey, we can save the world, here’s how” articles for the word ‘movements’. No mentions gets a hard pass from me.
Saves time/bandwidth.
2/2
By my pitiful engagement standards it did well.
The first post got 5 reposts, on quote post, 16 likes and a save.
The second one got some comments, a repost and 4 likes.
It is to these comments that I now turn.
One person on Bluesky typed
How to make it happen is the next step not a replacement step.
There were several things I could have said. I chose to keep it relatively neutral –
In my experience these reports never have an “implementation” sequel. Happy to be proven wrong…
To which came
*We* need to be the implementation sequel.
A map isn’t worthless just because it comes without a car.
To which I replied
A map tells you the terrain. A castle in the air doesn’t.
I suspect we agree on a lot, and could/can fruitfully disagree.
This platform isn’t the format, imo. So I will write A (sic) post and you can respond if you like.
Which brings you up to speed, if you’re still here.
Life is short and there are moorhens to say hello to (it’s been far too long), so I will frame this around a series of questions. (These may be leading questions, they may not be the right questions, and I am happy to be told they are not, and to be told what ARE the right questions.)
Did the report (which you can read here) have anything new about new strategies for a world where hope is dying, where our situational awareness is being destroyed not merely by accelerating corporate propaganda and government secrecy but also AI slop?
Nope. I am sorry, but having only one reference to social movements, and quite a glib one in the introduction, is just not on.
(“civil society” appears not at all. Apparently this is all going to be done by technocrats in bureaucracies. Yeah. Sure.)
Are vague invocations of “we” “being the implementation” helpful?
No. If anything, that sort of statement is more likely to have us staying within our smugospheres, doing things that make us feel good/give us status (or continue to deprive us of status perhaps?) and are easy because we’ve been doing them for ages, independently of their actual or likely success.
Why might someone push back against my performative world-weariness?
Nobody likes some smug performative world-weary asshole who pisses on everybody’s chips and apparently has no solutions of his own. (Actually, I have plenty, at a microlevel, which is what is required to make the meso and macro happen. But I totally understand how somebody might assume I don’t, either because they don’t know my stuff, aren’t interested in finding out or wouldn’t find it convenient to find out because then I would be less easily chided/dismissed).
I keep meaning to put all this shit together in one place, but never do. Anyhoos, one the social movements, incentive structures and our inevitable doom, see here.
Is this report much of a map of the existing terrain?
No.
You haven’t read the whole thing, how can you be sure?
I brown M&Med it.
Eh?
The Van Halen test. I asked some specific questions via my old friend Ctrl F.
Will you find any of these words? (Spoiler: no, so, not much of a map, imo)
Only two mentions of capitalism, and one of those is a reference.
“More generally, the development of Western industrial capitalism since the 18th century is closely linked to a system based on the international division of labour, the mobilization of natural and human resources at the world level, and the European powers’ military and colonial domination over the rest of the planet.” (p.115)
and
Nogues-Marco, P. (2021). “Measuring colonial extraction: The East India Company’s rule and the drain of wealth (1757–1858)”. In: Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics 2.1, pp. 154–195.
Does this report, coming in at 136 pages, have anything other than another international body that will be instantly captured/de-fanged to suggest?
No. I don’t think it does (but I have yet to read all 136 pages)
Do these authors give any indication at all of knowing what a car is?
Not to me they don’t.
Are our metaphors all outa whack?
Why yes, yes they are.
What, ultimately, is the responsibility of intellectuals?
“There’s a huge cultural, intellectual, political battle that is going on. And we all have a role to play,” said Thomas Piketty, a co-director of the WIL and a professor at the Paris School of Economics.
Well, sure. But for me, you can’t go past Noam Chomsky – it is the responsibility of intellectuals to expose lies and tell the truth.
And the truth I keep coming back to is that ”we” (note the quote marks) are losing, and have been losing quite badly since the 70s (not that before then was exactly great).
And if intellectuals are going to spend the bulk off their time building these probably necessary “visions” but NOT offer a fair assessment of how “we” have been failing on these questions for well over fifty years, then I do not think they are either exposing lies (sweet little lies we have been telling ourselves) or telling the truth.
James Baldwin said it best – “not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
The report doesn’t help us face our failures since (before) the 1972 Stockholm conference, at a state, corporate, civil society or social movements level.
This is by technocrats, for technocrats, and will sink without trace. Meanwhile, the emissions will climb, the impacts will hit ever harder.
We are near the beginning of the Fafocene. Buckle up, mofos.
That report, btw –
Chancel, L., Mohren, C., Moshrif, R., Odersky, M., Piketty, T., Somanchi, A., et al. (2026), The Global Justice Report: A Plan for Equality & Prosperity Within Planetary Boundaries, World Inequality Lab (gjp.wid.world).
Twenty years ago, on this day, June 7th, 2006, the Trades Union Council was fanboying ‘carbon capture and storage’ because it would help create ‘Clean Coal Britain’.
www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/framework-clean-coal-britain
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 382ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. 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 that carbon capture and storage had been dreamt up as a potential techno fix solution for carbon dioxide build up in the mid 70s by an Italian physicist called Cesar Marchetti, and a certain amount of speculative work had been done in the late 70s and again in the early 90s, but the costs were prohibitive, and the technological challenges, shall we say, significant. The specific context is that after the signing of the Kyoto Protocol and finally its ratification, it became clear that technological fixes were going to be the favoured rhetorical device, if not literal device, of political and economic elites. And so you’d had things like the carbon sequestration Leadership Forum, which was just another international talking shop with a logo and press conferences. Meanwhile, in the UK, support for CCS was coalescing.
The specific context was that the Trades Union Council and especially the miners unions and friends of miners desperately trying to interest politicians. This is under Blair, still in the mindset that carbon capture and storage can ensure that domestic coal mining can continue, and the burning of coal for electricity can continue.
What I think we can learn is this: there are all sorts of constituencies for a technology, and that technologies bat about for a long time before they become quote plausible, unquote or implausible, but still implemented.
What happened next: Well, the lobbying effort worked in that in late 2007 the first CCS competition was announced by Gordon Brown, Prime Minister, at an event in London, hosted by the WWF. That competition fell apart. Another competition was launched with confidence that lessons had been learned, and then at the last minute, in 2015 Treasurer George Osborne pulled the plug ; not because he was an opponent of CCS, he just didn’t think it was important, and he wanted to be able to boast about having put more bobbies on the beat. It was that banal. And then a third competition was launched in 2018 or ‘19 or whenever. And you can read all about it in my first and last book.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
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 7, 1959 – another letter about carbon dioxide build up in the Times of India
June 7, 1971 – Australians warned, on television, about ecological breakdown. #ABC
June 7, 1984 – UK diplomat pushes for more environmental action
June 7, 1989 – Money to be made from the Greenhouse, says the Fin
June 7, 1990 – Tasman Institute and a Nature letter about weathering
On this day, June 6th, greenies, business and trades unions hold hands…
“Weather forecast for the world of our children”.
Address to the joint Australian Conservation Foundation/ Business Council of Australia/ Australian Council of Trade Unions forum on sustainable development in Melbourne on 6 June 1990
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 354ppm. 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 for this was that there had been periodic flashes of warning about carbon dioxide build up through the 70s and early 80s, but the issue had really exploded in 1988 especially in Australia, (related to ozone depletion and so forth). And what you saw was a whole bunch of organisations scrambling to catch up.
The specific context was that here you see we’re still in the “hold hands and sing Kumbaya and have a collective response” phase, while the Business Council of Australia, was beginning to flex its muscles on counting the perceived costs it hadn’t yet publicly broken bad. Meanwhile, the ACTU had released a couple of nice sounding reports and. But the ACTU problem was that they allowed the CFMEU (not called that yet) to dominate the Union response. So, the mining union, in bed with the owners of the mines, decided that coal exports and coal mining were more important than well anything else
Meanwhile, the Australian Conservation Foundation was having a good time of it, with loads of Members, loads of money, loads of publicity, looking sexy. That went well.
What I think we can learn is this: there is always, there’s often a brief period within a policy window, or part of the issue attention cycle, when organisations who were enemies and will be enemies again, stand on a stage and say the nice stuff. And at the moment, maybe they even believe that nice stuff (or they hope it will become true anyway).
What happened next: The BCA started pushing harder and harder against any climate responses. The ACTU continued to allow the coal miners union to dominate its response. The ACF went along with the Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process, all the while knowing that it would probably end in tears. And yes, indeed, it did, in fact, end in tears.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
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 6, 1978 – Exxon presentation about carbon dioxide build-up
On this day, June 6th, 1957, Charles Keeling submits a paper.
Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta Volume 13, Issue 4, 1958, Pages 322-334 Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
The concentration and isotopic abundances of atmospheric carbon dioxide in rural areas
Charles D Keeling ∗ Division of Geological Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California U.S.A. Received 6 June 1957, https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7037(58)90033-4
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 313ppm. 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 for this was that after World War Two, it became possible to study the world with more precision and broader scope, thanks to radar, sonar, jet engines etc.
The specific context was that in 1950 the idea of an International Geophysical Year was proposed. And also by the mid 50s, people like Gilbert place, Charles Keeling, Roger Revelle and the Swedes, Ericsson and Rossby and so forth, were talking about carbon dioxide build up as a possible influence on the atmosphere, and this submission of this paper is part of that context.
What I think we can learn is this: by the mid-late 50s, it was obvious that CO2 was indeed building up and that some people could foresee that there might be serious trouble ahead.
What happened next:
Four months after this, Sputnik was launched…
Roger Revelle was able to shake the money tree and get funding for measurement of carbon dioxide build-up, with stations in Hawaii and Antarctica (it was not necessarily expected that global levels would be increasing).
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
May 20, 1960 – Spengler suggests decline of the … whole shebang – All Our Yesterdays
References
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 6, 1978 – Exxon presentation about carbon dioxide build-up
Nineteen years ago, on this day, June 5th, 2006, 70 brave people put their bodies on the line…
June 5, 2006, and Nov. 3, 2007: Rising Tide boat blockades of Newcastle port
On June 5, 2006, in a Rising Tide Australia action, 70 people used small boats to blockade the port of Newcastle, Australia, which exports 80 million tons of coal each year. The protest aimed to call attention to a planned expansion that would allow the port to export twice that amount.[1] The action was repeated by 100 people on Nov. 3, 2007: at this second action, participants attempted to block ships from entering the port for four hours, but police boats managed to escort three ships into the port. At one point, a police jetski rammed one woman’s kayak, resulting in her hospitalization.[2][3]
Citizen action and protests against coal in Australia – Global Energy Monitor
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that all the petitions, marches and begging of politicians had not worked. Emissions climbed, fossil intensive infrastructure projects kept getting approved (and still get approved).
The specific context was that the Howard government (like the Keating and Hawke governments before it) had mouthed occasional platitudes about “the environment” but were hell-bent on saying yes to whatever fossil extraction and export was proposed.
What I think we can learn from this is that brave people have had the foresight and clarity – it hasn’t been enough. What was needed was broad-based movements. Oh well…
What happened next was that the exports and burning went on, the emissions and concentrations went up and up. The mainstream politicians have mostly given up pretending to give a shit.
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:
June 5, 1963 – JFK says yes to SST – All Our Yesterdays
June 5, 1967 – Working Group on Atmospheric Pollution and Atmospheric Chemistry – All Our Yesterdays
June 5, 1994 – that referendum idea is back again… – All Our Yesterdays
June 5, 2000 – Liberals pushback against Kyoto, a UN conspiracy… – All Our Yesterdays
June 5, 2001 – NSW Premier Bob Carr promises a climate advertising blitz – All Our Yesterdays
June 5, 2006 – IPA sets up astroturf outfit – All Our Yesterdays
On this day June 4, 1992
Australian signs the UNFCCC R Kelly (Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories), Australia signs UNCED climate change convention,
media release, 4 June 1992.
and
The opposition’s delegate to UNCED in 1992, for example, had criticized the Labor Government’s willingness to give away Australia’s sovereign rights and had emphasized the debilitative economic costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.48 CPD, Senate, 4 June 1992, p. 3350.
Matt McDonald, 2005 Fair Weather Friend
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 356ppm. 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 for this was that Australian political elites had been warned about climate change from the 1970s onwards, but it had only taken action when forced to and initially, for example, at The Hague in 1989 had made the right noises.
The specific context was that by the time Ros Kelly went to Rio, there had been fierce battles against doing anything substantive on climate change, and most of those battles, frankly, had already been won before December 1991, when Keating toppled Hawke. But the coup de grace was Paul Keating becoming Prime Minister and setting fire to any remaining proposals or hopes that Australia would respond adequately as part of the international effort. Keating just thought it was a load of green crap.
Keating should have been at Rio; e was the only OECD leader not to go, and he sent Kelly instead.
What I think we can learn is this: that other futures were possible, but they didn’t happen, and Paul Keating is as responsible for, frankly, the destruction of Australia, thanks to carbon dioxide build up as the more public villain, John Howard.
What happened next: Kelly continued in post for a couple more years, but was brought down by the so-called sports rorts scandal. She was married to, perhaps is married to, some guy who was at the head of Westpac and Westpac did that ridiculous case for early business action on climate change in April of 2006 the emissions climbed. The concentrations climbed, the impacts began to arrive.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
September 4, 1990 – Industry whines about environment minister’s speech
October 13, 1990/97 – Ros Kelly defends the Interim Planning Target vs Australia does nothing
January 28, 1992 – Ros Kelly versus Industry commission on greenhouse plans
April 26, 1992 – Ros Kelly abjures a carbon tax
References
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, 1984 – John Houghton of the Met Office wants research – 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…
June 4, 2001 – Australians ‘get’ climate change (??) – All Our Yesterdays