Twenty six years ago, on this day, March 14, 1997, a Liberal senator spews his usual nonsense.
Senator Parer seems to be an exception. For instance, at the Australasian Institute of Minerals and Metallurgy Annual Conference at Ballarat Senator Warwick Parer said: “I don’t have any figures to back this up, but I think people will say in 10 years that it [greenhouse] was the Club of Rome” and “The attitude of this government is to look for ways to allow projects to go ahead.” The SMH (14.3.97 ‘Greenhouse effect? No worries says Parer’.).
(Duncan, 1997:83)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 364.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Warwick Parer – and I can say this because he’s dead – was a shonk and he caused political problems for Howard. He was the kind of old white man who wants to believe that physics doesn’t exist. And so he came out with that idiotic line about in 10 years, dot, dot dot. And Howard was busy, by this time, trying to do nothing or commit Australia to nothing around the Kyoto Protocol.
What I think we can learn from this
Old white men who don’t like the consequences of industrialization will try to wish it away. And they will predict that the whole fad will die. And it hasn’t, and it won’t
The basic question of how we’re supposed to survive the 21st century behaving as we do, has not yet been answered.
What happened next
Parer was sacked as Minister in 1998. He produced an anti renewables report in 2002. He died in 2014.
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 one years ago, on this day, March 13, 1992, advocates of climate action made one last plea to the (Labor) government to take climate change seriously as both a threat and an opportunity.
A study [“Energy Futures: Efficient Energy Scenarios to 2020” ] by the Commission for the Future to examine the cost of reducing greenhouse gases found that Australia can break even if it enters the market for energy-efficiency equipment.
Announcing the findings last Friday [13th], commission director Archbishop Peter Hollingworth said, “The report highlights the urgent need for Australia to find a way through the difficult problem of maintaining economic growth and protecting the environment.
Anon, 1992. How Australia can break even on greenhouse. Greenweek, March 17, p.3.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context
This one of the last desperate attempts by the pro climate action people in Australia to influence Australian Government thinking before the Rio Earth Summit.
The Commission for the Future had been set up when Barry Jones was still Science Minister. It had played a blinder in the late 1980s, relatively speaking, but by now was a shadow of its former self. It released a report that said energy efficiency would at least allow a breakeven on hitting the Toronto target. Paul Keating had become prime minister in December 1991, and had made sure that all of the previous (Hawke) administration’s environment policies were buried in 17 committees and left to rot. And this was among them.
If you were even more of a geek than me (not possible) you could do a comparison of the rhetoric and argument in the Feb 4 1990 document I wrote about here [LINK]
I suspect that it was commissioned before the end of 1991. Because otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted their breath.
What I think we can learn from this
Policy Windows close. Not necessarily because there’s been an election, just because there are new people at the top saying what is and what is not important.
What happened next
The Tasman Institute – rightwing “think” tank set up in 1990 to combat green groups – came out with a rapid rebuttal. Over the past year they had become quite good at doing rapid rebuttal reports. The Tasman Institute was wound up a victim of its own success by 1998.
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...
Sixty years ago, on this day, March 12, 1963, in New York
“Dr. Keeling was concerned enough about rising carbon dioxide levels to participate in a panel by the Conservation Foundation on March 12, 1963 “Implications of Rising Carbon Dioxide Content of the Atmosphere”, the report issued being among the first to speculate that anthropogenic global warming could be dangerous to the Earth’s biological and environmental systems. It includes on page 6: “many life forms would be annihilated” [in the tropics] if emissions continued unchecked in the upcoming centuries. They also projected that carbon dioxide emissions could raise the average surface temperature of the earth by as much as 4°C during the next century (1963-2063)”
Probably the first gathering of scientists and policymakers devoted specifically and explicitly to carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Conservation Foundation had been set up in New York in 1948
The International Geophysical Year was now 5 years in the past, a lot of data had been collected. In January of 1961, there had been a five day scientific conference organised by the American Meteorological Society and the New York Academy of Sciences with plenty of people talking about carbon dioxide buildup, and alongside that there had been other scientific efforts. So the Conservation Foundation, which had been aware of CO2 buildup as a potential problem for a while, held a gathering, the first ever carbon dioxide build up conference
What I think we can learn from this
Well, these sorts of events are fascinating for the legacy they leave. And for several years – really till the end of the 1960s – the publication about this meeting was cited whenever in writing about carbon dioxide buildup for years, and it only really fell away entirely after the 1971 study on the man’s impact on climate.
It also seems to have been the “last gasp” in climate science for Gilbert Plass whose statements and work from 1953 had been so important for the growth of acceptance of the carbon dioxide theory.
And in all probability, it was where Lewis Herbert aka Murray Bookchin got his facts for the section in his book written in 1964 and published in early 1965, called Crisis in our Cities, which will be discussed soon.
And the reason I say this is that the event was in New York, Bookchin was in New York and it’s impossible to imagine that he wasn’t aware of the Conservation Foundation’s activities. Bookchin’s politics were not of the technocrats. But just because he didn’t agree with the funders does not mean he’d have ignored what was happening under their auspices.
What happened next
Plass dropped out.
Roger Revelle and Charles Keeling kept doing what they were doing.
And the closing statement – well, it came to pass…
Fifty four years ago, on this day, March 11, 1969, some NASA scientists mention the (non-controversial) build-up of C02
John E. Naugle, Donald Hearth at hearing on NASA budget
“If we are to understand our own atmosphere and to evaluate the long-term consequences of man-made changes (such as the increase in carbon dioxide content), we need to conduct comparative studies of the atmospheres of the other planets.”
“As we look at our planet, as we look at the population that is increasing, we know that man is not only polluting, but possibly beginning to change the very fundamental nature of our atmosphere on the earth.”—John E. Naugle
So it’s really no surprise to the NASA folks would be aware of carbon dioxide buildup because well it’s fairly basic science
What I think we can learn from this
This is just one more example of how, by the late 1960s, scientists were informing politicians about the basic facts of what was being done to the planet. It was not a theory, it was just a fact.
What happened next
NASA put men on the moon. Apollo 13 showed for anyone who was paying attention the dangers of carbon dioxide buildup. Man didn’t get beyond low Earth orbit. The Space Shuttle was done on the cheap, and it showed twice. Now it looks like 50 years later, we are going to put Whitey on the moon. In the words of Gil Scott Heron.
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..
Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 10, 2010, Maurice Newman, a neoliberal warrior from the 1970s onwards, gave a climate denial speech to senior ABC staff. Prime Minister John Howard had appointed him as chair in January 2007.
In a speech to senior ABC staff on 10 March 2010 he said climate change was an example of “group-think”. According to an ABC PM account of the speech: “Contrary views had not been tolerated, and those who expressed them had been labelled and mocked. Mr Newman has doubts about climate change himself and says he’s waiting for proof either way.”
(wikipedia Maurice Newman)
and
“The media hasn’t been good at picking these things up and it’s really been the question of what is conventional wisdom and consensus rather than listening perhaps to other points of view that may be sceptical.
“And I brought in as well in that vain what’s been going on in climate change where there’s been clearly a point of view which has been prevailing in the mainstream media, and the fact that again perhaps consensus and conventional wisdom may not always stand us in good stead.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 391.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
People like Maurice Newman, long time neoliberal soldier, want to be within the commanding organisations such as universities and media, for obvious reasons. And he did what he (was) set out to do….
What I think we can learn from this
What’s interesting, what we can learn is that these terms like “groupthink” gets thrown around as if there’s some sort of profound statement. And they’re a shortcut for avoiding actually engaging with the fact that the science around the basics of climate change has been settled for a very long time. Unable to combat that. Newman and his ilk resort to name-calling and pseudo profound smears. But it’s quite effective…
What happened next
In an article in The Australian on May 8, 2015, Maurice Newman, chairman of the Prime Minister’s business advisory council, said that the United Nations is behind the global warming hoax. The real agenda of the UN “is concentrated political authority. Global warming is the hook,” Newman said. “This is not about facts or logic,” he added. “It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN. It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.”
The ABC has continued to be a site of struggle, and has been almost entirely hollowed out by the neoliberals and their chums. You can always track individual journalists and stack the board with non entities and lackeys and if they persist in being independent, reduce their funding until they get the message.
See also organisational decay.
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...
Thirteen years ago, on this day, March 9, 2009, Stefan Rahmstorf, climate scientist and oceanographer at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research spends time and readers’ bandwidth unpicking the trickery of Bjohn Lomborg, ace lukewarmist.
“And it is telling that he then goes on to draw an “inescapable” conclusion about a slow-down of sea level rise from just four years of data. This is another well-worn debating trick: confuse the public about the underlying trend by focusing on short-term fluctuations. It’s like claiming spring won’t come if there is a brief cold snap in April.”
Rebuttal in The Guardian of Lomborg´s claim that sea level is not steadily rising, March 9th 2009.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 389ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that denialists were stepping up their campaigns of cherry-picking, doubt-mongering and so on. The so-called lukewarmists – a more sophisticated.version of straight out denial, were stepping up their campaigns of doubt and confusion and spewing out flak, ahead of another big international gathering, this time in Copenhagen.
What I think we can learn from this
The patient work of debunking a set of misleading statements is costly and ineffective. Because the mere attempt to debunk gives the appearance that there are two more or less equal sides in a debate on this issue. There really aren’t, not equal, cognitively or in terms of numbers of working scientists.
But they want to give that impression thus – the Oregon petition, (which comes up in April on this site), and so on.
What happened next
The “Gish Gallop” technique keeps getting used, because it’s a really effective tool in the absence of an educated populace that is able to think for itself.
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..
Cracking interview with Dr Jenna Ashton (aka @heritagemcr) about feminism, archives, etc.
1. Who are you, and how did you come to be an historian?
I am a Lecturer in Heritage Studies and arts-led researcher, in the Dept. of Art History & Cultural Practices, University of Manchester. I’m also Research Lead for Creative and Civic Futures with our “Creative Manchester” platform, and an Associate Member of the Sustainable Consumption Institute. My work largely focuses on place-based community cultural practices and expression, along with evolving (I hope!) feminist theory and methods. As an artist, curator, and producer, I consider artmaking as a process for thinking and analysis (to misquote Mieke Bal, 2022).
It’s funny you describe me as an historian. I never think of myself as an “historian”, but a strange scholarly combination, working across the sociological, historical, visual, material, spatial, ecological. I’ve always wanted to connect the contemporary with the historical and understand things politically. I finally discovered this was called “cultural studies”, so I guess that’s where I have landed now, with a critical angle on all-things “heritage” practice and discourse.
My background education is mostly in the arts; at A Level I took all arts subjects across literature, language, performance, and film (much to the dismay of my science and sociology teachers). At Uni (I took all three degrees, BA (Hons), MA, PhD at Uni of Manchester, not being able to afford to travel elsewhere, and with other family and work commitments), I first took a combined degree across Drama, Literary Studies, Art History, and Classical Civilisation. It was a running joke that I had the longest degree title of any student graduating in my year. But I didn’t want to drop any subjects after A Levels, and I also didn’t know what I wanted to “specialize” in. So, a combined degree fulfilled that. It was horribly organised and combined students were badly supported; we didn’t belong to any one department, so we were pushed around and ignored quite a bit. It’s funny that interdisciplinarity is such a “thing” now. We were doing it via the combined programme, but we didn’t have the lingo or the zeitgeist. I loved it. I could pick and choose the modules I wanted to take and mix it up into a wonderful artsy-soup. I discovered a love of (and knack for) art history and visual studies [AHVS] (which wasn’t available during school), with a focus on feminist and social practices. I took my MA (FT) and PhD (PT) in AHVS. My PhD analysed childhoods through the lens of contemporary sculpture. It was described by the examiners as not a very “traditional” art history PhD, as it brought together visual arts, sociology, spatial theories, and psychoanalysis. To me, it seemed the most obvious thing in the world to use the visual and plastic arts to make sense of socio-psychological experiences given they emerged within a cultural context. Within a cultural studies dept. or school of art this wouldn’t have been at all odd.
Anyway, since 2018 I have been back at that same department as an employee, working mostly with colleagues in the “cultural practices” side of things or with academics in other arts and science disciplines.
So am I an historian? Kind of. “Historian” always seems such a grand title and as if you should have a very precise and defined period of expertise. I don’t have that. But historical methods are important to all scholarship and practice. I always thought it odd the separation between what I would call “straight” history (with a capital H) and “queer” history (aka art history). It still exists; the two disciplines don’t seem to talk to each other. At some point during my education (and also lived experience) feminist activists, histories, and practices helped me fuse all these disparate academic parts together with my concern for social justice issues. Feminism exists on the edges, in the gaps, defies the binaries. Feminism is also hopeful. It can see a way through the quagmire.
I have a parallel story of work and everyday life that intersects with my uni education and academic development that was/is as equally important as the learning undertaken in the Ivory Towers, but that’s for another interview.
2. Why do we need a feminist analysis and practice around archives and archiving? (Imagine I am asking that in my best Daily Mail voice, muttering about woke Corbynista stalinist social justice warriors)
Archives are part of structures of power and oppression. This is not a “woke-snowflake” interpretation, but a fact acknowledged by archivists and archival science. Archives are not neutral or objective containers of artefacts and documents but, like museums, have evolved through a process of careful (or not so careful) construction – led by the “victors” and those with power. Feminist practices seek to redress or expose structures of power relating to sex and gender (and its intersectional issues), and to evidence and promote differently gendered or sexed experiences and materialisations that have been oppressed or eradicated via oppressive patriarchal systems. Importantly, feminist practices are not just concerned with the historical record, but feed back into our contemporary cultural and social systems, reimagining, shaping, and enacting societies that are fair, equitable, and just. Feminism in the archives makes space for evidencing the marginalised and oppressed; it also enables the documenting and evidencing of its own heritage (feminism as heritage). Where women’s rights are still under threat (along with wider LGBTQ+ peoples), and our bodies are at risk from violence, poverty, and ill-health, feminist analysis and practices are required across all areas of cultural production and its materialisation and systems.
Since 2016 I have been focusing on feminist archival and curatorial practices as methodologies, working with numerous archives and collections, archivists, artists, and women’s organisations to explore these issues through practice and publishing.
In 2017 I published “The Feminists are Cackling in the Archive: A Manifesto for Feminist Archiving (or disruption)” with Feminist Review (download here). It was an invited submission, following an event on archiving women’s performance practice. The Manifesto brings together all the things I still try to do: working collaboratively with people, develop new forms via creative practice, publish varied and interesting pieces that embody the practice (not merely representative or dissemination), and work through serious issues playfully.
3. Are women still being written out of the history? If so, how, and what should people (including ‘male allies’ – because, you know, ultimately everything has to be about them) be doing about that?
First, start by reading (and citing) all the great feminist work that is being done to diversify histories and contemporary accounts of women’s experiences and practices. Second, support women-led initiatives and research aiming to “cackle” and disrupt the record (including providing the funding and infrastructure.) Third, get on and disseminate that work. Fourth, pay women decent wages across all sectors so they are not struggling to survive. Fifth , stop killing women (ideally, this should be first). Sixth, just because she’s a woman with power doesn’t mean she’s a feminist and cares about other marginalised or at-risk women (see various examples in current Conservative Government). But, stories of those women are as equally important to evidence, to remind us that social justice is the work of feminist practice, not simply putting women into powerful positions.
4. What are you working on at present/near future?
Publishing wise, I’m working on an edited collection for Routledge on “Heritage and Gender”, and an experimental authored book for Intellect on “Feminist Co-Production: as a Crochet Textile Playground” (using the work of Japanese artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam as a textile metaphor). Practice-wise, I am working in North Manchester (in neighbourhoods with high indices of multiple deprivation) leading an interdisciplinary research project making sense of community resilience under climate change stresses, and exploring the potential of arts practice for supporting social justice. Plus, I’m working on another research project supporting work around riparian treescapes for climate adaptation, land stewardship, and species reintroduction. Now (and in the near future) my work is mostly ecological, a natural progression from feminist cultural work. I also have an adopted archive of an ageing female photographer I want to work on at some point …
5. Anything else you’d like to say.
Amongst the raging at inequalities and injustice, I witness, daily, very ordinary people doing extraordinary things for humanity and other living beings. I hold onto bell hooks’ call for people to practice love and to love each other well. Feminism is hope.
Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 7, 2001, the US news network CNN showed what is “normal” and what is “bad” in its cosmology, when reporting on old white men in suits versus protests…
7 March 2001 CNN reports on climate protests “marring” (pointless) climate talks – Protests mar climate talks
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there were climate negotiations in Italy, at which the Americans were – surprise surprise – basically saying “fuck you.” This was shortly after George Bush was selected as President.
The Hague negotiations in November 2000 had ended in such a disaster that the meeting wasn’t finally closed. And so with your big Cheney as his vice president, it looks pretty perilous for international climate negotiations.
What I think we can learn from this
What’s important here is the framing that protest activity by civil society would besmirch the nice, cool, rational debates of our lords and masters. Now, if you put it bluntly, the journalist who wrote it, or the sub-editor who wrote it, would either say, “Well, look, it’s just a headline. And we don’t have much space.” They might agree with the point about the politics at a superficial level. But if pushed, they would say “No, why should the mob be able to influence what the smart technocrats are doing?”
And that hatred of ordinary people, and their involvement is persistent. And it’s the case that if you don’t abide by that, then you don’t get your role as a journalist or as an academic or whatever.
If you’re interested in this stuff, then obviously, reading Chomsky is a good idea, but also the life and times of Randolph Bourne who died just after World War One. Obviously Gramsci on the power of hegemony. If and how the popular press works, and any number of publications by the Glasgow Media Group etc
What happened next
Bush pulled out of Kyoto, an entirely sane and rational decision “marred” by protest.
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 five years ago, on this day, March 7 (or thereabouts) 1988 at a conference on Gaia running from 7 to 11 March…
Richard Gammon of the US government’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory at Seattle in Washington state, seems to have been the first off the starting blocks. After seeing the complete data for 1987 and the first results for 1988, he told a conference in March 1988: “Since the mid-1970s we have been in a period of very, very rapid warming. We are ratcheting ourselves to a new warmer climate.”
(Pearce, 1989:3)
[“The Gaia Controversy: AGU’S Chapman Conference” in San Diego was from March 7 to 11.]
Rarely has a hypothesis immediately sparked such a passionate response. There is something in it for everybody, from hard core scientists to philosophers, ultraconservationists, students of world religions, mystics, politicians, and space enthusiasts; they were all there in San Diego, March 7–11, 1988, for the AGU Chapman Conference on Gaia Hypotheses. For 4 days an impressive list of specialists presented and debated the pros and cons of Gaia Hypotheses from diverse perspectives: modern and ancient biology, ecology, biochemistry, the physicochemical systems of the Earth, oceans, and atmosphere, and the evolution of the solar system.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 352.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that “earth systems” scientists were very interested in the Lovelock and Margulis Gaia theory, enough to have a conference about it. And from the October 1985 Villach meeting onwards, the scientists and politicians were all getting more interested in just how soon the signal would emerge from the noise on climate change…
What I think we can learn from this
James Hansen was not an outlier in his June 1988 testimony. Sure, there wasn’t necessarily a majority, but what Hansen said was not all that unusual or surprising (see Schneider’s Greenhouse Century for accounts of how journalists kept looking for quotes from him to try to set up a “Hansen/Schneider split” story.)
What happened next
Within months climate change would become unavoidable for politicians. No more long grass…
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 one years ago, on this day, March 6, 1992, US Public Radio had a segment with polar opposite views on its environment segment with Fred Singer (denialist idiot) and Anil Agarwal, of the Center for Science and the Environment, in New Delhi [link]. Agrawal made the point that while the West was talking about its luxury emissions, the mere survival emissions of poor people were being ignored, or worse, thrown into the mix as something that must be reduced. Oh how times have changed…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that negotiations for the text of a climate treaty were entering the end game, centred on US intransigence on the question of targets and timetables versus the desire of the Europeans to have a stronger treaty.
Singer had just orchestrated an open letter (see Feb 27 1992)
And National Public Radio was trying to educate people about all aspects of the debate, the science, the policy, etc. Agrawal made the point that there are such things as necessity, “survival emissions” versus “luxury emissions”, and that countries like India should have capacity to increase their emissions. Singer was just spewing the usual shite.
What I think we can learn from this
We should remember that what we now see, as a matter of fact, text of a climate treaty has been, from the beginning, intensely fought over. And the battles that were won by the evil bastards in 1992 have made it much easier for the opponents of climate action to continue to win, though they have never, to my knowledge, rested on their laurels, or taken their ongoing victory for granted.
What happened next
The French and Europeans blinked. There were no targets and timetables in the treaty. And here we are 31 years later.
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...
