Author: drmarchudson

Categories
Activism United States of America

October 1, 1964 – The Free Speech Movement kicks off in Berkeley

Sixty years ago, on this day, October 1st, 1964, the Free Speech Movement is launched on the campus of University of California, Berkeley.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2024 it is 4xxppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the black civil rights movement was underway. The upsurge had been going on, especially since sort of ‘57, didn’t pause: the sit ins and SNCC. And white people had gone (in relatively small numbers) to the Deep South, to help with voter registration, and education, and so forth. And then these people had come back and wanted to continue campaigning on university campuses. And those in control of university campuses, especially University of California Berkeley, weren’t having any of it. And this confronted the activists with a dilemma. They were battle-hardened. They had been arrested and brutalised in the South. So what campus cops and so forth could dish out was not as big a deal as it had been. They’ve also been battle-hardened by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and its roadshow, which by the way, had not come to California since 1960 because they’d been basically beaten out of town with their tail between their legs. But I’m digressing.

What we learn is that the histories and I think they’re right, suggest that the Free Speech Movement on Berkeley campus is that kind of bridge incident and bridge organisation between the black civil rights movement and what would come next. Of course, people involved didn’t know what would come next, but it would be anti-war, feminism, gay rights. And yes, also the environment, not to mention Indian rights, Puerto Rican rights, etc. And these bridge moments, you don’t know that you’re in them, probably.

What happened next, Mario Savio gave his “throw your body on the gears of the machine” speech. 

The issue became not just free speech on campus, and black civil rights, but also the war in Vietnam, which in a few months would pick up serious momentum with Operation Rolling Thunder. 

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: 

October 1, 1957 – US Oil company ponders carbon dioxide build-up…

October 1, 1997 – Global greens gather in Melbourne, diss Australian #climate policy

Categories
Activism

Winton, Fanon and what is to be done: On climate, capture, Cesaire…

The Australian author Tim Winton has written an essential, bound-to-be-controversial essay (1) about climate change and why the kids are so upset.  And why all of us are, except we can’t really name it or see it.  Winton borrows some language and ideas to help us see the world differently. It’s bold, and uses an analogy – with colonialism – that might get him in a lot of trouble (we shall see).

In this essay (blog post, article – someone please PAY ME to think) I want to explain what Winton says, why it matters, where he might be wrong or misconstrued, why that matters, what is missing from his essay (not much – it’s really good. But one crucial piece…). Finally, crucially, I try to suggest what “we” are supposed to do differently now.

I can’t match Winton’s eloquence, so I won’t even try. (2) What follows may come across as bland, boring, hectoring, irritating. It is probably all of these things and more.  But this isn’t an aesthetic argument he is making, nor me. It’s an existential one.  Please attack the content not the form.

What Winton says

You should read it. It’s not long, but it may take you a while.  The title is clickbait (presumably not chosen by Winton – headlines rarely are) 

“Our leaders are collaborators with fossil fuel colonialists. This is the source of our communal dread”

Calling people kapos tends to get their backs up (even if – especially if – they are, in fact, kapos) and lead to tedious Godwin’s Law invocations etc etc.  Get past that.

In a nutshell Winton says 

  • There are tedious attacks on young people for being “out of sorts”
  • It’s not an “it was ever thus” situation – the kids ARE NOT alright (mood, despair)
  • They are out of sorts because they know their parents and grandparents have utterly fucked the planet and that all that is left to an impossible hellscape that makes Mad Max look like the Alps in Sound of Music before the Nazis rock up  (I paraphrase, but not by much)
  • To understand all this, says Winton – why everyone feels gutpunched, sucker-punched and helpless, we could turn to the experience of colonised people, for example in Algeria (North Africa) in the mid-20th century.  Winton then uses a French-Algerian thinker, psychiatrist and resistance figure called Frantz Fanon, who wrote a famous book called “The Wretched of the Earth” and was a crucial figure in helping colonised people figure out what was being done not just to their bodies, but their heads 
  • There’s a lot of work to be done.  Hoping for technomiracles or kvetching about Labor politicians being no better (worse, in fact) than the Liberals won’t help anyone or anything.
  • Winton then closes out with some suggestions, but since I am going to expand on them, “problematise” (4) them etc, I will save that for later.

Why it matters

Winton is onto something (a lot, imo).  The “debates” about climate change – and who is supposed to do what – are sterile, repetitive and have allowed us to DO LESS THAN NOTHING FOR THIRTY SIX YEARS. We were warned, very very clearly, by scientists. From 1988 we’ve been allowing politicians and business (and civil society figures) to blow smoke up our asses. It was easier than taking actual action, and we liked the ticklish sensation, I guess.

Other people (not white, not male, not Western) have been pointing out the horrific colonial nature of climate inaction (who is causing the problem is not who has been on the pointy end) and the implications of the “solutions” being proposed (white comfort continues, black death escalates) for all that time, louder and louder.

What Winton is doing is actually using good tools developed by people of colour to analyse (to an extent, to an extent) our impasse.  It matters. 

“Where Winton might be wrong,” or at least, how he will probably be misconstrued, attacked.

Winton is sticking his shaggy head above the parapet (not for the first time. The man has a track record). He won’t just be shot at from one direction. 

If he’s not ignored, he will be attacked from the “right” (Australians can fill in a long roll-call of mouths–if-not-actual-brains-for-hire media commentators here) for being a woke snowflake fruitloop Luddite hysterical alarmist who wants us living in caves gnawing on bones of our neighbours [continues in this vein for several paragraphs at least] who is making excuses for slacker kids “we’ve always had it tough. Interest rates were 17% thanks to Paul Keating” etc etc

More significantly, I think he may be attacked from the position of some people of colour and their allies. (5)  To paraphrase, something like this – 

“FFS. Another white guy who is trying to colonise “decolonisation.” Another white guy who can’t even just keep his hands off other people’s ideas about other people’s struggles/oppression/identity.  White People ALWAYS gotta play the victim card, even when they are the ones with the goddam boot on everyone else’s neck, even when they are the overseer of the Plantation(ocene), the whips, the slave ships. They will not be happy until they have eaten and destroyed everything, forever.”

This is a grotesque caricature of a solid argument that could be made against Winton’s use of Fanon. I am not saying anyone will make it. I am putting it up as the polar opposite of the right attack.  The actual responses (such as they are) to Winton will probably have more hand-wringing. Sorry “nuance”.  (but also, Fuck Nuance).

Why that matters if Winton is misheard, smeared

It’s an important thing Winton is grappling with – the fog, the miasma, the sense of futility and helplessness that most of the people reading his article and mine live in.  Most of the time this fog is personalised and then therapised out of its political importance.  Winton is, in my opinion, really on to something here.  

“We” (people of good faith actually wanting to advance both action and strategy) can’t afford for voices and messages like this to be defeated. It deadens thought, and makes future efforts at drawing analogies, expanding the floor of the mental cage more difficult.


What I think is missing from what Winton is saying.

Here’s where I think Winton missed a trick, and could have forestalled the (as-yet-hypothetical) attack. 

The way to do it is… drum roll please… to deploy the insights of ANOTHER black French intellectual, Aime Cesaire.  To quote Wikipedia

Aimé Fernand David Césaire (/ɛmeɪ seɪˈzɛər/; French: [ɛme fɛʁnɑ̃ david sezɛʁ]; 26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a Francophone Martinican poet, author, and politician.[2] He was “one of the founders of the Négritude movement in Francophone literature”[3] and coined the word négritude in French.[4] He founded the Parti progressiste martiniquais in 1958, and served in the French National Assembly from 1945 to 1993 and as President of the Regional Council of Martinique from 1983 to 1988. He was also the Mayor of Fort au France for 56 years, from 1945 – 2001.

The key insight that Winton could have added is that what is done in the colonies, to the colonised ends up ALSO being done to the colonisers back home in the “metropole”.

Techniques of surveillance and repression are tested out among people who can’t resist as easily. They are honed, perfected and… then used on domestic populations.

It’s the same for the psycho-sociological impacts of colonisation. You start brutalising others, well, you’re stepping on rakes like Sideshow Bob.

That’s it. That’s my “insight” (well, my theft of Cesaire’s). That’s all that Winton missed. Perhaps he already was way across it and the Guardian sub blue-pencilled it for reasons of space/tidiness. Tim, if you’re reading, is that what happened?

What is to be done? (by who, when)

So, as mentioned earlier, Winton had some specific suggestions. I’m going to mention those, and then close out with two of my own exhortations. 

Here (spoilers) are some of the last lines of Winton’s jeremiad in italics.  My comments in [square caps]

So, while we continue to scoff at each other’s generational follies and insecurities, we remain harmless colonial subjects, not potent, patriotic actors. Bitching about snowflakes and hating on old folks prevents us from becoming a united force of potent citizens.

[MH – The very idea that we will ever become a ‘united force’ of potent citizens seems misplaced.  The striving for ‘unity’ (which people will assume is harmony, consensus, agreement, shared situational awareness) will be a tar pit. This is not an advocacy of ‘vanguard parties’ with an alleged privileged position’, it’s simply to say that using words ‘united force’ ignores the inevitable messiness, confusion, hybridity, whatever, and sets up impossible expectations, and allows the worst among us to have a veto role.]

What we need is the courage to liberate ourselves from these merchants of desolation. 

[MH – yes, but courage comes in many flavours and needs more adjectives. Courage is also a COLLECTIVE VERB, not a personal noun.  We as individuals don’t “have” more or less courage which we then sort of maybe hoard or share.  It’s far more fluid, interactive than that.  Situational, contingent etc..  We need to think in terms of collective emotions, collective intelligence, all that mushy mystic “emergent properties” stuff, all that “dissipative systems” metaphors and models.  Anything else, sticking with courage as an object we “have”,  brings us back to a Hobbesian, neoliberal failurepath.]

It’s a battle being fought on many fronts. 

[MH – It’s not “a battle.” It’s  war. Actually, it’s worse than that. Because it is not just any old World War. Or even a Forever War. Not even a civilisational war. It’s beyond all that – civilisations have risen and fallen, fine. Ozymandias blah blah. This, this is about at least the Sixth Extinction and whether we can haul anything back. This is  possibly about going Full Venus (though, right now, who can know?) And it is not “many fronts” – EVERYTHING is a front.  From the most trivial purchase to the genocides being perpetrated in far off countries and abattoirs nearby, and everything in between.  There’s a scene near the end (spoilers) of the novel “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card where the screen isn’t just discrete dots of the enemy, it’s just a glow. They are everywhere, they are everything.  But that’s the end of me carping about Winton’s choices of words, because a) it’s boring and petulant b) generally Winton’s has all the excellent words in all the excellent order.]

But in joining it, and to sustain it, we must foster new alliances, more creativity and deeper empathy. That means decolonising ourselves, resetting our outlook, so we can adapt to new conditions, and hold each other up in the struggle.

[MH – Joining – you’re already in it, you just don’t know it.
Sustaining – YES.  Everything has been spasms.  With my academic hat on I could bore for Gaia about Multiple Streams Approach/Policy Windows, or “Movement Cycles” or “Hype Cycles”. Happy to do that (too happy), but for now, this – XR says we quit – why radical environmental movements have a short shelf-life (Conversation, 2022)

Foster new alliances 

[MH – yes, but watch out because  to me it’s almost always the people on the pointy end who are asked to bite their tongues and get along with unashamed bigots, assholes and criminals for the sake of “unity”. Am not advocating endless stagings of the Oppression Olympics (obvs – I would keep losing), but when we talk about new alliances, rich white privileged people really need to do better. Thicker skins, and more self-education.  People of colour have enough going on without doing the emotional and intellectual labour at a granular level. White people gotta be better at calling each other out/in/hokey-cokey-shake-it-all–about, while also not just rolling over in cowardice when absolute hustlers (who do exist) guilt them into silence. None of this is easy. See above hybrid/emergent blah blah_

More creativity 

[MH – yep. And that doesn’t mean more colourful creche puppets for the next demo. It means making mistakes, being embarrassed, wrong, outlandish. More tolerance for failure (as long as there are plausible mechanisms for learning from it), more tolerance for ambiguity.  All at, of course, exactly the time our amygdalas are shutting that down.   Oh my the rest of the 21st century – however far we get – is going to be so fun. So fun.]

we can adapt to new conditions, 

[MH – yes, but there will be no new stable normal. There will be a new ‘normal’ that shifts again. And then again. It will be profoundly unsettling.  The systems are “flickering” and they are going to flicker more.

and hold each other up in the struggle.

[MH – yes, of course. But sometimes when you are held up it feels like you are being held back, and vice versa. And people whose amygdalas are getting the better of them (all of us most of the time, some of us all of the time) are good at claiming that any criticism, no matter how praise-sandiwched, no matter how constructive, how Vytosky-and-his-bloody-zone-of-proximal-bloody-development is an imposition. It’s the easiest thing in the world to refuse to accept feedback/support under the banner of “my feelings.”  I say this with a solid half a century and counting of that.

Exhortation the First

Learn from people of colour. There is nothing “magical negro” here.  It’s not that – in my opinion – African people are inherently superior/stronger/smarter. It’s Darwinism, in the sense of natural selection – thanks to what they’ve been on the receiving end of, their intellectuals have had to be that much smarter, that much tougher.  Audre Lorde, June Jordan, James Baldwin, Aime Cesaire, Fanon, lots and lots and LOTS. For the most part, white people ignore them, or “at best” use them as a prop to signal their own virtue (6).

Exhortation the Second

Be brave.  That means getting out of the rut of laughing/shouting at deniers, at criticising the state for being a plaything of the corporate death machine.  All that is necessary but insufficient. The key thing now is what “we” – civil society (neighbourhoods, professional bodies, education groups, unions, religious outfits, social movement organisations etc) DO.  We can fall back onto the scraped knee theory, that someone else is going to come save us.

We can ignore the fact that for thirty five years we have failed to build the pressure on states and corporations for non-blowing-smoke-up-our-asses action.

We can ignore the fact that social movement activism has come and gone in spasms (or waves, if you’re being super-generous) because we SUCK at holding meetings, recruiting people for more than marches and into sustained activism that is incapable of being ignored, co-opted, repressed.

If we were good at those things, we would not be in quite the funk that Winton so brilliantly describes.

We. Have. Failed. Lots of reasons for that. This stuff is really difficult. We were having kids, careers, breakdowns, breakups.  Fine.  We were forced to work horror jobs by kapos with whips, that left no time for anything but momentary escapes and pangs of hope for a less fucked world and now the bills are due.

Fine.  All good reasons.  But right now, if we don’t discuss why we failed, propose some ways to try things differently, and then DO those things, then we absolutely 

  1. Waste our own time
  2. Destroy the last shreds of credibility in our own and anyone else’s eyes
  3. Really nail down the extinction not just of our own species but the so-many other species on this planet.

Links below to a small fraction of the stuff I have proposed and done over the years. It’s so pathetically inadequate that I cry about it.  But if we all cry and post, maybe we can float our boats, our arks, on salt tears, and something can be salvaged.

We have to take a look at civil society. We have to find, name and combat the ways it has been failing. Everything else is a waste of the few breaths (Cheynes-Stokes ones at that) that we have left.

So, finally, what do you think? What did Winton get wrong? What do I get wrong? What do “we” actually need to do

Footnotes

  1. This essay was kindly brought to my attention by a new Twitter follower of my All Our Yesterdays twitter feed. It is a pale horrible shadow of its best, but Twitter 
  1. Further excuses – I’ve had both medical and computer ailments, neither fully resolved. And I am trying to get this up and circulated before Australia properly wakes up.
  2.  Fanon deserves a far better gloss than this, but a) time b) my various limitations, both temporary and permanent).
  3. I know, I know. You have my permission to cyber-slap me for that. Hard as you like. Ideally you’ll provide post-slap balm and also alternative words for same.
  4.  And if/when I see it,  I will have much more sympathy for this position while still, for reasons stated above not thinking it is a fatal impact on what Winton is trying to do)
  5. Not me, obviously. Noooo, not at aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll.

Those promised suggestions etc.

I have road-tested some of these. They “work” in the moment. But long-term? The incentive structures are all wrong. Check out the Cher blog post.

On meetings not sucking

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this”

Meet is murder: “Where do we meet?” is not the only question #oldfartclimateadvice #potemkinclusivity #shoddyneologisms

Our unwillingness to see the cycles

SMOTE – (social movement organisation transcience and emptiness.) Why “we” refuse to see it, say it. #ClimateTwitter

XR says we quit – why radical environmental movements have a short shelf-life (Conversation, 2022)

Specifically on XR and JSO

Has XR got the right tactics – a debate

Debate: XR has done more harm than good

Just Stop Oil – anthropologically fascinating, politically terrifying

Cher, incentive structures and our inevitable doom

2019: How we blew it again (written in 2017 and published in Peace News

Dear New Climate Activist – unsolicited advice  (2018) – Hashtag was #OldFartClimateAdvice

How to hold a rally (from a 2011 marriage equality rally)

How to hold a film showing and discussion

How to hold a REALLY big climate meeting full of people who don’t know anyone and may not come back: Global warming, local swarming; or “Does this clown EVER shut up?” #oldfartclimateadvice

The need for accountability and commitment mechanisms and what those might be.

Will you marram me? Of “grassroots” and the need for commitment mechanisms.

See also

The Smugosphere

The Emotacycle

Ego-fodder

Categories
Canada Carbon Capture and Storage

September 30, 2014 – a big CCS demonstration project opens.

Ten years ago, on this day, September 30th,2014 

Boundary Dam ccs goes online (ribbon cutting on 2nd October – source The Guardian)

And it hasn’t gone quite to plan or promise (aka hype)… Of course.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 399ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that despite FutureGen having failed, people were still banging on about CCS as The Way Forward. And were willing to put vast sums of taxpayers’ money where their mouths were…

What we learn is that not all pilot projects work. CCS advocates are remarkably schtum about Petra Nova, Boundary Dam and Gorgon. Instead they bleat on about Sleipner Field…

What happened next? Boundary Dam really hasn’t worked.

See for example 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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

September 30, 1969 -US activist publication mentions climate change

September 30, 2009 – Tony Abbott says #climate science is “absolute crap”

Categories
United States of America

September 30, 1977 – “Carbon Dioxide and climate: carbon budget still unbalanced”

Forty seven years ago, on this day, September 30th, 1977, the journal Science tells the truth, for those who want to listen, with an article with the title “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: Carbon Budget Still Unbalanced.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the 2 year study “Energy and Climate” had been released a couple of months before. 

What I think we can learn from this – we knew, we knew we knew. Also, the idea of “carbon budgets” is an older one than most would understand.

What happened next In 1979, their ad hoc panel Charney panel met and did the numbers again and said “yeah, this is a thing.” Climate change then popped up in the Global 2000 report, as well as the Council on Environmental Quality Report that made Carter’s Chief Scientific Adviser Frank Press somewhat unhappy. And then came Reagan; thus it was another eight years before the issue finally finally broke through. 

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

September 30, 1969 -US activist publication mentions climate change

September 30, 2009 – Tony Abbott says #climate science is “absolute crap”

Categories
Nuclear Power United Kingdom

September 29, 2007 – World’s first nuclear power station is demolished

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 29th, 2007, a nuclear power plant goes kaboom, but in an okay way.

Calder Hall, the world’s first commercial nuclear power station, is demolished in a controlled explosion

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that nuclear power was gonna signal a renaissance for British industry, global industry. It had been a very expensive nightmare, but had given us supply chains for nuclear weapons and the technology and the workforce to keep those going. So that’s the most important thing; keeping the UK seat on the Security Council as a nuclear power. 

What do we learn? Is that all good things come to an end and so does Calder Hall. Compare the end of Concorde in 2003…

What happened next? Well, this was 2007. This was in the midst of yet another attempt to go nuclear. By this time Blair had been successfully lobbied. And here we go, planning to spend yet more money on nuclear energy and it’s not going to work. 

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.

References

Compare the last flight of Concorde on October 24 2003

Also on this day: 

September 29, 1969 – British Prime Minister Harold Wilson blah blah “second industrial revolution” blah blah pollution blah blah

September 29, 2000 – On campaign trail, George Bush says power plants will require carbon dioxide cuts

Categories
Activism

Attack of the killer pro-bots! Asinine, anodyne bandwidth bandits. Here’s my actions – what are yours?

Post topic: a new (?) social media tactic from denialists/predatory delayers seems to be underway. I call it the “killer pro-bot” technique. Here I explain it, speculate on who is behind it, talk about the consequences of responding/not responding and then lay out what my response will be from now, asking you what your experiences and perspectives are. Five minute read? Ish.

Over the last weeks/months I’ve noticed, especially on the Twitter feed for this site (@our_yesterdays) various new followers or regular commenters who have very little personal info available, a bland photo/bio with an “inoffensive” “positive” strap line. Examples below. What is interesting is they all seem to have been set up in mid-2022, have very few followers and seem to have humans (chained up in a botfarm somewhere, given food in exchange for a certain number of responses per day) doing the responding. The responses are too specific for the current generation of AI, I think.

Here are some examples.

What might be going on?

If I were running “predatory delay” campaigns for an oil major or whoever, I’d be moving away from outright denial. It’s too crude and alienating to the “middle-ground” folks you’re trying to influence. Funders of the predatory denial campaigns eventually wise up to the fact that what they are paying for is not working. If you don’t offer a new strategy, your contract for shit-fuckery doesn’t get renewed. Adapt or die etc.

So I think the new pitch is something like this.

Pitcher: “We are going to continue to try to confuse and demoralise the activists online, obviously. But instead of just abuse, we are going to try to distract them. They’re desperate for affirmation, so we can set up loads of low-maintenance accounts that just churn out bland stuff.

  • Some activists will ignore it.
  • Some will suspect something but shrug their shoulders
  • Others, so desperate for any engagement, especially if it SEEMS positive, or neutral, will engage in long attempts to “educate” our bots. This will take up their time and energy that they might otherwise spend more usefully, and ALSO make them seem condescending and patronising to third parties. If they eventually lose their shit, even better, they look bitter and unhinged.”

Funder: we keep up with the hater stuff, but add this to?

Pitcher: Yup. We’ve been flood the zone with denial, bullshit and hate. For ages. It has worked to keep the haters riled up. But they are ageing, and as the real-world evidence of climate change piles up, it’s becoming harder, even for them, to deny reality. And doing that alienates those who are not quite as indoctrinated. If you want to distract/confuse, you need a more emollient ‘reasonable’ set of stooges/avatars.)

Funder: go ahead. Let me know how you get on.

What happens if we ignore?

Eventually, these accounts might start to gain more followers, albeit semi-passively. Then they can be deployed with more ‘credibility’ as voices of “moderation” at critical junctures (though frankly, everything is a critical juncture these days, has been for decades. Oh well).

Crucially, if your opponents are testing out a new strategy (as I suspect they are), it’s usually a good idea to name that strategy and discuss how to respond, before things get out of hand.

So, what I am going to do.

  • Screengrab the account bio
  • Add it to this post
  • Block these pro-bots until Twitter removes the block function.

Once Twitter removes the block and mute functions (apparently scheduled for December?) reduce Twitter engagement to absolute bare minimum.

What experiences to you have?

What actions have you taken?
What do you think of my analysis, actions? What else would you say?

Categories
United Kingdom

September 28, 1977 – John Mason being an idiot again.

Forty-seven years ago, on this day, September 28th, 1977, the Met Office’s John Mason covers himself in glory yet again…

In one of the earliest indications of Cabinet-level interest in climate change, Hunt took the opportunity to quiz Mason on climate issues during his visit to the Meteorological Office in September 1977. Over the course of the visit, Mason made his views on CO2 climate change, as well as his exasperation with ‘‘alarmist United States views’’ clear.54 Whilst Hunt agreed that the voices coming out of the United States were unduly scaremongering, still he insisted that the Meteorological Office devote more attention and resources to climate questions and directed Mason to coordinate with the Central Policy Review Staff—orders Mason could not ignore.55

Source: Martin-Nielsen “Computing the Climate.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the US National Academy of Sciences had just released its two year report on Energy and Climate. It’s not clear whether Mason had seen a copy yet, probably not. But he had read press clippings, no doubt, and Mason was continuing his failure to engage with CO2 as a problem, something that he had been doing at least since 1967. Possibly earlier. 

What we learn is that important, influential scientists within the British establishment were arrogant and complacent (this will come as a big shock to you). And that this arrogance and complacency had monumental consequences. 

What happened next Mason continued to be a dick. And he was especially a dick. At the First World Climate Conference in Geneva in February of 1979. 

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

September 28, 1997 – Australian denialist spouting tosh to his US mates.

September 28, 2000 – Liberal MP goes full cooker on Kyoto as threat to sovereignty.

September 28, 2008 – “Wake Up Freak Out” posted online

Categories
technosalvationism United States of America

September 28, 2007 – Bush invokes “technology” to fix climate. Like morons everywhere.

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 28th, 2007, George Bush showed what he was capable of. Again,

28 September 2007 Bush speech

We’ve identified a problem, let’s go solve it together. We will harness the power of technology. There is a way forward that will enable us to grow our economies and protect the environment, and that’s called technology. We’ll meet our energy needs. We’ll be good stewards of this environment. Achieving these goals will require a sustained effort over many decades. This problem isn’t going to be solved overnight. (Bush 2007)

(Scrase and Smith, 2009:707-8).

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Bali meeting of the UNFCCC was impending. And there was a lot of pressure about getting a “Roadmap to Copenhagen.” On adaptation mitigation, technology transfer, a deal would be stuck at Copenhagen that was going to Save The World. And Bush had spent his time as president as a meat puppet for Dick Cheney and the oil companies. He was not in favour of any meaningful action on climate change because it might constrain his fossil fuel buddies. And so, when you can’t do full on denial what other fallbacks do you have other than a bit of lukewarm-ism, (“it’s not as bad as the hysterical activists are saying”) and of course, our old friend technology; technology will save the day. 

What we learn is that technology will not save the day. It’s one of the most reliable instruments for the opponents of meaningful climate action. 

What happened next? Bush stopped giving much of a shit about anything. And there is the famous so long from the world’s biggest polluter comment at the G7 meeting the following year. 

The Bali COP did start the gun on negotiations. And Copenhagen was a complete failure. Pretty much a complete failure. And Bush? Bush was just an asshole. 

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: 

September 28, 1997 – Australian denialist spouting tosh to his US mates.

September 28, 2000 – Liberal MP goes full cooker on Kyoto as threat to sovereignty.

September 28, 2008 – “Wake Up Freak Out” posted online

Categories
Australia

September 27, 1995 – Greenhouse progress in Australia? None. Zip. Zero. 

Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, September 27th, 1995, the government has to admit that there has been no progress on reducing emissions.

The Keating Government’s action plan to curb emissions of harmful greenhouse gases has failed to produce any significant benefits in the almost three years since it was endorsed by the Commonwealth and all State and Territory governments.

Despite the plan, and a further commitment for action in this year’s Greenhouse 21C, independent analysts can find no evidence that any measure is working.

Six months after the launch of Greenhouse 21C, no director has been appointed to run its key initiative. Interviews were held only last week.

The director’s position carries only a middle-management grade in the Public Service, even though that person’s task will be to hammer out voluntary agreements on cutting greenhouse gas emissions with the heads of some of Australia’s biggest companies.

Gilchrist, G. 1995. Greenhouse Project Fails To Curb Gases. Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September, p11.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian governments had been making big promises about climate action, for some years. The most notable had been the “Interim Planning Target” in October 1990. And here we were five years later, with the carbon tax defeated in February, with new coal-fired power stations, new freeways. It was totally clear that the Australian Government was not pressing industry, and that the upward trajectory and emissions would continue. 

What we learn is that getting governments to make promises is not actually that difficult. Getting them to keep those promises is. 

What happened next? Well, two months after this story in December of 1995, the Keating government started promulgating ridiculous ABARE modelling on the global level to try and be more aggressive against the Berlin Mandate. In March of 1996, John Howard took office. And then the fun and games on climate delay and denial really kicked in. 

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.

References

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Also on this day: 

September 27, 1962 – “Silent Spring” published as a book

September 27, 1988 – Margaret Thatcher comes out as a lentil-eating greenie…

September 27, 1988 – UNEP should become world eco-regime

Categories
Australia

September 26, 2007 – GetUp spoof Howard’s climate greenwash

Seventeen years ago, on this day, September 26th, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard gets mocked for his climate change “position.”

FANS watching Saturday’s grand final can be sure of a political hit with their footy.

Activist group GetUp! is spending $70,000 on a 30-second advertisement sending up the Government’s Climate Clever ads.

Grattan, M. 2007. Spoof sinks the boot into climate clever ads. The Age, 26 September

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had spent 10 years being a complete douche on many issues, including climate change. Now, there was a federal election pending and he had released some ridiculous television adverts. A then new and exciting-ish group called Get Up dd spoof adverts. It’s easy to look powerful when kicking a man when he’s down. What’s more interesting with Get Up is how its model has fallen over since 2019. But there you have it. 

What we learn is that satire could look powerful against a weak and wounded politician. When they’re in their pomp, it seems to bounce off. Maybe it does, maybe it suddenly undermines them. There’s that line in Somerset Morton’s Then and Now (an account of an ageing Machiavelli), where people can survive any hatred but they can’t survive mockery. 

What happened next Howard not only lost government, but he lost his own seat as an MP. First time in 70 years. Labor’s Kevin Rudd became prime minister and screwed the pooch on many things, especially climate change. 

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.

References

Xxx

Also on this day: 

September 26, 1989 – Australian Union body tries to add green to red…

September 26, 1998 – Howard decision only to ratify Kyoto if US does leaks.