NEW South Wales Minerals Council CEO Nikki Williams (later to head up the Australian Coal Association) called on the industry “to get on the front foot in selling its sustainability message.” (see here)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that Australia was in the grip of another awareness of its fragility and of serious trouble ahead. Mining companies were understandably looking to burnish their images with the usual bag of tricks – sponsorships of sports teams, tree planting and the like. Doing it as individual companies is expensive and open to easy sneering. Getting your trade association to do it helps you a) spread costs and b) gain more “respectability,” at least in the eyes who choose not to see what their eyes can see.
What I think we can learn from this
We live in a propaganda-ised society. A major function of trade associations is to pump out propaganda when it is needed, to deflect, slow or soften the actions of the state. See that Chomsky fella, or Alex Carey.
What happened next
Lots of propaganda. Lots of lobbying. The Rudd government spent two years faffing and selling its arse. Its “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” was a farce. Then the Gillard government had to try to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile, the emissions climbed and people got (rightly) cynical about how much politicians would prance and preen while doing nowt.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
This year All Our Yesterdays is going to have at least 52 interviews/guest posts, with at least half being of women, and at least one quarter being people of colour. The first guest post of the year was Jonathan Moylan, an Australian climate activist. Today, it’s a Canadian doctor, Peter Carter, of the Climate Emergency Institute.
1. When did you first become aware of climate change, as distinct from more general environmental issues, and how did you become aware?
It was 1980. Many of us in the peace/nuke disarmament movement were spending time on the global environmental threat to life. In the 80s there was a real general fear of stratospheric ozone pollution holes ending life. Then many of us realized greenhouse gas pollution could end life. Jimmy Carter’s 1988 Global 2000 report [https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/pdf-archive/global2000reporttothepresident–enteringthe21stcentury-01011991.pdf] was great for building awareness and motivation; media covered it well in those early days….
Then in 1988, James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that the Earth was warmer than at any time in the history of instrumental measurements, and that the warming was already large enough to see the cause and effect relationship with the greenhouse effect. Talk about a wake-up call!
In the global warming early time, people were scared and people got engaged. But in 1997, corporations attacked with their Global Climate Coalition, making it even more important and challenging to get the truth out actively and clearly.
2. What specific “gap” was the Climate Emergency Institute (CEI) created to fill, and what actions has it taken that you are proudest of?
Scientists’ communication of the climate change science for the public has been poor to misleading. The Climate Emergency Institute analyzes and synthesizes climate change research for “lay” (nonscientific) audiences: the public, ENGO memberships, government bodies, etc.
CEI also helps the public understand the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) workings and their reports. For example: The IPCC disallows language such as dangerous, disastrous, etc. as well as specific best recommendations. Their economics has been badly biased, projecting “least cost.” The IPCC was projecting the very latest time for mitigation, with only a 50/50 chance of success. They’ve changed their goalposts and used their scenarios to mislead — they did not apply a worst case nor current emissions projections. They’ve described the future in terms of the huge range between best-case and worst-case scenarios. Their reliance on (computer) model projections excluded theoretical science predictions. The IPCC only projects to 2100 (despite the fact that things could still get much worse after 2100.) Their projections do not include any large feedback sources, nor any carbon sink decline. They only apply a single fixed sensitivity metric of 3ºC — so their entire assessment rules out risk. Between unanimity “consensus” of the scientists and then of the national policymakers, risk is ruled out and everything in the reports underestimated. For example, it was assumed that the Global North could ride out — even benefit from — climate change (by 2100) while Africa and low latitudes would suffer.
Then, on top of all that, the UN climate change conferences (COPs, or Conferences of the Parties) are set up for failure due to their de facto and ad hoc decision-making procedure, which is a unanimous vote — but which they call “consensus” (until that is inconvenient because one nation objects, at which time they switch to “consensus minus one”). This system effectively gives every powerful country in the world a veto over the other nations doing the right thing on climate change.
So there is a lot we’re trying to help the world to grasp.
3. Your book “_Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game Changers for Survival_” came out in 2018. What are the game changers for survival, and if you were writing the book now, what would you add?
The “game changers” section of our book (I co-authored it with Elizabeth Woodworth) included tax reform and an end to perverse subsidies; human rights-based legal challenges; market leadership; civil resistance strategies; and, of course, technological innovations in near-zero-carbon energy and transportation.
The agenda of SRM (solar radiation management) cannot prevent planetary catastrophe. The agenda of biomass burning (which is horrid) for carbon dioxide removal is certain catastrophe. Massive resources for Direct Air Capture are a must.
There’s nothing I would add, because we haven’t even taken the simplest step yet: ending the $5.9 trillion in direct and indirect subsidies that governments give (with our tax money) to fossil fuel corporations every year (according to the IMF).
4. Complete this sentence – “The main thing that those striving to help our species cope with climate change can learn from the last 30-plus years is … “
… that we have done practically everything wrong, based on our Euro-American Nature-conquering worldview and our perverse “money power” economics of oppression, exploitation, pollution, degradation and destruction — with future generations written off.
5. Anything else you’d like to say [upcoming events, campaigns, etc.]?
We’re gearing up for our latest mass mailout update on the most dire emergency. The way things are going, globally disastrous 1.5ºC will be reached by around 2030 (being denied by all but James Hansen) and planetarily catastrophic 2ºC by 2050.
We have just started prep for Phase 1: Civil Society ENGOs and Faith Groups. This will be an educational updating with the hope of getting endorsement for our lobbying for a powerful intervention by National Academies and Royal Societies of Science. A call for aggressive United campaign to stop all fossil fuel subsidies would be in the call The IPCC Sixth Assessment stated that global emissions must be put into immediate, rapid decline, but this is not out there. Science Academies and Royal Societies around the world must intervene by advising their governments of this most dire emergency and the urgent need for immediate emergency responses. They have not.
The 2022 InterAcademy Partnership’s Health in the Climate Emergency: A global perspective is by far the best assessment to date on climate change. Sadly, it’s coming too late.
Thirteen years ago, on this day, January 11, 2010 a report appeared about trees….
Contrary to scientists’ predictions that, as the Earth warms, the movement of trees into the Arctic will have only a local warming effect, UC Berkeley scientists modeling this scenario have found that replacing tundra with trees will melt sea ice and greatly enhance warming over the entire Arctic region.
Because trees are darker than the bare tundra, scientists previously have suggested that the northward expansion of trees might result in more absorption of sunlight and a consequent local warming.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
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The context was, well, this is a predictable and predicted outcome. Was it coming faster than expected (as many of the impacts have been)? Don’t know, and for my purposes, it doesn’t matter.
What I think we can learn from this
Blah blah albedo and feedback loops blah blah.
The world is changing, thanks to things we have started, are fully aware of and are so far unwilling/unable to stop. So it goes.
What happened next
Emissions kept climbing. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide kept climbing. It kept getting warmer.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Sanders, R. (2010) .Trees invading warming Arctic will cause warming over entire region, study shows . Berkeley News, January 11. https://news.berkeley.edu/2010/01/11/arctic_warming/
And this from 2022-The march of the Arctic trees and what it reveals about the climate crisis
A climate change website will deliver daily doses of climate history (including science, politics, protest and technology) over the coming year, with a focus on “so, what do we need to do differently?”
The site, All Our Yesterdays (1), has already been going for a year, and covered topics from environmental racism, to carbon capture and storage technology and also climate protests big and small.
Dr Marc Hudson, who established the site said
“This year there will be over 450 posts, covering years from 1661 to 2022, from Austria to Zimbabwe. These posts will be about ordinary people’s efforts to combat the damage, about shiny promises made – and broken- by politicians, about the hard work scientists have done to figure out what damage our fossil-fuel usage has done and will do.
“My dream is people learn about a tactic that has been used in the past, and then when they see the same tactic being used now by denialists or delayers they can say (and tweet!) “oh, this is just a re-tread of what they did [twenty five/thirty years] ago. ” Or that people use the site to think – on their own and with the friends and colleagues – about how protest groups around climate have tended to go up like a rocket and come tumbling down like a stick.”
Although topics have been chosen for all the days of the year (including Christmas Day), Dr Hudson is keen to hear from anyone who has suggestions for events to be covered.
There is also a Twitter account – @our_yesterdays
Notes for editors
(1) The title is a reference to a line in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth – “all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.“
(2) Dr Marc Hudson is currently a Research Fellow at a UK university. This project is his own personal project. He recently had an article about Extinction Rebellion’s “We Quit” statement on the Conversation website.
Thirty two years ago, on this day, January 10, 1991, the New York Times ran a story that has become very very familiar.
The earth was warmer in 1990 than in any other year since people began measuring the planet’s surface temperature, separate groups of climatologists in the United States and Britain said yesterday.
A third group, in the United States, reported record temperatures from one to six miles above the earth’s surface. These were recorded from balloons from December 1989 through November 1990.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was that the US had finally been forced to agree to take part in negotiations for a world climate treaty (what became, in June 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change). The denial and delay campaigns were kicking into gear (the so-called ‘Global Climate Coalition’ doing its predatory delay thing). Part of the context for the whole climate awakening was how warm the 1980s had been (mild by today’s standards, of course).
What I think we can learn from this
The “warmest year ever” meme does not, on its own, ‘wake up the sheeple’. If you want to have effective long-term action, you need effective long-term social movement organisations.
Fifty years ago, on this day, January 9, 1973, British Prime Minister Ted Heath sets up a Department of Energy.
On December 13th 1973, Prime Minister Edward Heath announced a 3-day working week to ration electricity use. Parliament was recalled on January 9th 1974 to hear that a new Department of Energy was being set up to co-ordinate the government’s response. However, the crisis brought down the government the following month. The incoming Labour government, under Harold Wilson, settled the miners dispute, and the new Energy Secretary, Eric Varley, ended the 3-day week on March 7th 1974. Mallaburn & Nick Eyre (2014)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The “environment” had been considered important enough to have its own Department in 1970, and now it was the turn of “energy”.
What I think we can learn from this
When governments set up new departments, it can be a serious and long-lasting move, or it can be, well, the appearance of action. Even if they set it up for appearance sake, sometimes it creates new opportunities for an inconvenient rash of sanity to break out
What happened next
The oil price hike saw the end of the so-called thirty glorious years of “unproblematic” (ha ha) economic growth, followed by stagflation, all sorts of difficulties, the collapse of the Keynesian consensus. And then, in the late 1970s, the coming of Thatcher and then 18 months later, of Reagan… as celebrated (? mourned?) in the REM song Ignoreland, of which more later.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References and See Also
Is The UK Heading For 1970s-Style Organised Blackouts?
Ten years ago, on this day, January 8, 2013, soon-to-be-ex Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard pointed out the obvious…
“the Australian Bureau of Meteorology released an interim special climate statement on the extreme January heat Australia is currently experiencing. Record temperatures both day-time maximum and night-time minimums continue to be broken. The extraordinary heatwave has also been the scene for catastrophic fires, especially in Tasmania. The Prime Minister Julia Gillard saw the devastation in Dunalley and among her many interviews and press conferences made a brief statement connecting the intensity of bushfires with climate change.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 396ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that Gillard had been politically slaughtered by the “carbon tax” battle of 2011, thanks to the Murdoch press, the effectiveness of Tony ‘wrecking ball’ Abbott (soon to be exposed as a terrible Prime Minister) and the white-anting of the pro-Kevin Rudd forces in her own party.
Gillard was far from perfect (as we shall see later in this series) but she definitely got a raw deal. And her comments, and the connections she made, they should have helped wake more people up. But, well, here we are…
What I think we can learn from this
There comes a point where even if you’re right, thanks to what has gone before, you’re not gonna be listened to. So your choices sort of become shut up and resign yourself to the fact that your experience/wisdom is going to be ignored and the same mistakes will be made, with nobody listening, or find a new audience/new ways of expressing, and perhaps a proxy with less baggage (this wasn’t an option for Gillard, obvs).
What happened next
Gillard was toppled by the guy she had toppled (Kevin Rudd). Tony Abbott became the next Prime Minister and was clearly the worst Prime Minister ever. At least for a few years. There’s always a way to stop scraping the barrel, move it to one side and keep on digging….
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Twenty years ago, on this day, January 8, 2003, the US business press reports on what we now call “carbon capture and storage”
“A potential solution to global warming could lie two miles deep, both underground and in the ocean.”
Global warming has been linked to emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the by-product of burning fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal. So, some scientists are examining ways to curb the gaseous emissions: burying them underground or injecting them into the ocean.
The technology, known as carbon sequestration, is used by energy firms as an oil-recovery tool.
But in recent years, the Department of Energy has broadened its research into sequestration as a way to reduce emissions. And the energy industry has taken early steps toward using sequestration to capture emissions from power plants.
Even some environmentalists support carbon sequestration, although they generally object to the ocean-storage method. Partly because of environmental concerns about the ocean, government researchers are leaning toward underground storage as a preferred procedure.
Loftus, P. 2003. Energy Firms Bury Carbon Emissions. Wall Street Journal, 8 January.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.
The context was that US President Bush, shortly after being awarded the Presidency by his dad’s mates on the Supreme Court, had reneged on a campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions and then pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol process (not that the US had ever been likely to ratify!). Therefore he had need of technofixes so that people who wanted/needed to believe him but who also needed to pretend (including to themselves) that they cared about climate action, could sleep at night.
The whole CCS caravan was beginning to move – there had been a meeting in Regina, Canada in November 2002, and the IPCC was about to start ball rolling on its CCS special report.
What I think we can learn from this
Stories of techno-salvation are very very important. They will have a lot of friends, a lot of inertia. Turning those stories into reality, or exposing those stories is trickier, however.
What happened next
Dumping carbon dioxide in the deep oceans is now legally a no-no. London Protocol etc. Actual working CCS that doesn’t involve enhanced oil recovery? Still waiting…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Australian activist Jonathan Moylan recalls the non-violent climate action that could have sent him to jail
Ten years ago today, at the age of 22, I hit send on a media release before brewing a pot of coffee. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that spoof release, which was intended to paint a picture of a better world, ended up causing ripple effects that reverberated around the world.
At stake was the Leard State Forest, the largest intact area of native vegetation in the heavily-cleared Liverpool Plains, the centre of a critical biodiversity corridor that was part of the Nandewar-Brigalow bioregion, providing connectivity for species between the Kaputar ranges to the north and the Pilliga to the south. Habitat for koalas, regent honeyeaters and an incredible array of bats and microbats, the forest was being targeted by three large open-cut mines that would rip the forest apart.
I hadn’t heard of the Leard Forest or the neighbouring community of Maules Creek until the previous year, but for years the community had been working together to protect their region from open-cut mining. They were not opposed to mining per se, and would have tolerated an underground mine, but were worried about losing road access to Maules Creek during floods due to the planned closure of Leard Forest Road, as well as the threat of ten metres of aquifer draw-down, property devaluation, noise and dust.
Yet despite their reasonable proposals, thousands of dollars spent on independent consultant reports and some political support across the spectrum, the mine was approved by the NSW Government in late 2012 – all that remained was a determination from the federal government.
At the time, Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project was the largest new coal mine being considered in NSW and would increase coal tonnages through the world’s largest coal port in my hometown of Newcastle by ten percent. Yet despite the contention around the mine and its enormous contribution to climate change, the mine also secured a $1.2 billion loan facility from ANZ bank.
While it was rare at the time, in the ten years following 2013 we’ve seen a growing number of banks worldwide rule out finance for new coal projects following pressure from communities, shareholders and regulators given heightened awareness that climate change poses acute, chronic and systemic risks to the financial sector and the economy as a whole. Cracking down on companies making misleading claims about their climate credentials is now a priority for ASIC, the corporate regulator.
That would have been unimaginable in 2013, when the press release I sent out on ANZ’s letterhead – which was quickly revealed to be a hoax – announced that ANZ was withdrawing its loan to Whitehaven on ethical grounds. I only realised how serious things would get after a call from a journalist at the Washington Post who told me that Whitehaven’s share price had dropped by 9% – before recovering some twenty minutes later. Soon what start as a small protest camp in the forest with a handful of people became a two-year-long effort bringing thousands of people from all walks of life – doctors, lawyers, a former mining engineer and even former Wallabies flanker turned senator David Pocock – to take action in an effort to prevent the damage the mine would bring. More extraordinary was the incredible alliance of Gomeroi traditional owners, farmers and environmental groups who found common cause in a way that has probably permanently transformed the social fabric of the region.
Cracking down on companies making misleading claims about their climate credentials is now a priority for ASIC, the corporate regulator. That would have been unimaginable in 2013,
As I quickly learnt, any misleading statement that could impact on the sharemarket carried severe consequences. Officers from the securities regulator ASIC flew up to camp to seize my phone and computer and ordered me to appear for compulsory questioning – with no right to silence. Four months later I was charged with an offence that carried a maximum penalty of 10 years jail or $750 000 in fines. They were entitled to do this – although nobody had previously been charged under that false and misleading provision of the Corporations Act – it was a strict liability offence, which meant that the fact that I didn’t expect or intend an impact on the share price or wasn’t a participant in the sharemarket was irrelevant to the charge.
Suddenly I found myself in the middle of an incredibly high-pitched and polarising debate that played out in the media and in parliament for weeks. In some minds, I had deliberately set out to cause damage to the market. The bigger issue of the irreversible harm that would be caused to the world’s life support systems – on which we all depend – was at risk of being lost. For many others though, the notion of jailing a young man for drawing attention to a destructive new coal project galvanised support.
For its part, Whitehaven is no stranger to being on the wrong side of the law, having been penalised for illegal mining, illegal dumping, water theft, failure to declare political donations and illegal land-clearing. Yet the penalties meted out in those cases have never come close to meeting their gravity.
The broad-based campaign did more than delay the mine for several years. Public opinion has finally started to turn amidst a realisation that global coal demand has already peaked and renewables will win the race – the only question is when. The community continues to hold out against proposed coal expansions and coal seam gas threats in North-West NSW.
Throughout the ensuing court case, I was told by lawyers that the most likely outcome was a prison sentence of around a year. I was willing to accept the consequences, even though it was virtually unheard of for anybody to face prison time for a protest action in NSW. Ultimately I was sanctioned with a suspended sentence.
Throughout the ensuing court case, I was told by lawyers that the most likely outcome was a prison sentence of around a year
What’s harder to accept is the notion that with everything we know about the consequences of mining and burning fossil fuels, some companies are still entertaining significant new coal, oil or gas expansions. Yet as a United Nations panel determined last November, any bank that continues to claim it is committed to net zero emissions while lending to companies pursuing fossil fuel expansions is misleading the public.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge in ten years. But there is still much more to do.
All Our Yesterdays exists to inform people about the long histories of climate change – the science, the politics, the technology, the protest movements. It hopes to spark discussions among citizens’ groups about what we need to do differently to make the radical rapid changes required,…If you are someone, or know someone who should be writing a guest post/giving an interview, please say so in the comments below…
Ten years ago, on this day, January 7, 2013, an Australian climate activist sent out a press release pretending to be a bank…
Jonathan Moylan of Front Line Action on Coal … purported to be ANZ’s Group Head of Corporate Sustainability, Toby Kent. Mr Moylan falsely claimed that ANZ was cancelling its $1.2 billion loan facility for Whitehaven Coal’s open-cut mine project in Maules Creek, NSW.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 395.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was that, as ever, state governments were bending over forwards, backwards, sideways to make it easier for companies to dig up and sell coal to people who would burn it. And activists had tried all the legal means to try to stop it, getting tied up in consultations, petitions etc etc. And then they branched out, into other non-violent (but certainly illegal) tactics…
Moylan had been living in the forest for months. He’d started the Maules Creek blockade in the hopes of stopping the mine. The protest made headlines when Wallabies star David Pocock was arrested for chaining himself to a bulldozer. But when the New South Wales government gave it its final tick of approval, Moylan’s hopes were dashed.
“The only two legitimate options were to try and get the (then) federal environment minister Tony Burke to protect the critically endangered woodland in the Leard State forest or to get the ANZ Bank to try and change its decision about financing the project.”
What I think we can learn from this
Making fun of money gets you in trouble. See that early Michael Haneke film “The Seventh Continent”, where well, spoilers, cash is destroyed
What happened next
On Friday 25 July 2014 Jonathan Moylan was sentenced by the Supreme Court: 1 year 8 months, suspended with the condition of good behaviour for 2 years.
Non-violent protest continues in Australia, despite the best efforts of State and Federal governments to chill it with ever more draconian policing and sentencing
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
McVeigh, S. (2017) “I wanted to stop the mine”: Jonathan Moylan and the $300 million hoax. ABC 3 October https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/jono-moylan/9010874
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