Author: drmarchudson

Categories
Economics of mitigation United States of America

December 2, 2023 – Exxon’s boss vs IEA, planet

One year ago, on this day, December 2nd, 2023,

DUBAI, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods on Saturday rejected the International Energy Agency’s recent claim that using wide-scale carbon capture to fight climate change was an implausible “illusion”, saying the same could be said about electric vehicles and solar energy.

“There is no solution set out there today that is at the scale to solve the problem,” Woods told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 423ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the oil industry chief execs were turning up in force to COP28, the one with the so-called “Stocktake”. And the chief executives have a habit of saying inconvenient things or truthful things.

What I think we can learn from this. From the mouths of babes. And not-terribly-bright greedheads…

What happened next

MARC TO WRITE IN DECEMBER

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: 

December 2, 1964 – Mario Savio’s “bodies on the gears” speech at Berkeley..

December 2, 1981 – “Is the world getting warmer?” (YES)

December 2, 1991 – “Ecologically Sustainable Development” bites the dust…

Categories
Australia Economics of mitigation

December 1, 1995 – bullshit modelling put out by Keating Government

Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, December 1st, 1995, bullshit “ABARE” climate modelling put out by Australian government, as part of its push for special treatment internationally.

1995 Release of “Global Climate Change” report by Keating Government, based on ABARE AND DFAT “modelling”.

This was hardly a surprise. At the beginning of the year a front page story on The Australian (back when it was still almost a newspaper) had said as much. From January 18, 1995.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) had happened in Berlin in March. Australia was one of the nations that, thanks to the Berlin Mandate, was expected to turn up a couple of years later, with a plan for emissions reductions. But Australia had already comprehensively failed to take any action towards its first proposed target, the Interim Planning Target of October 1990. And so it was going to need other ways of responding to the challenge, as in denying the challenge and trying to push it on to other people. ABARE had already done some idiotic plant modelling and now the Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade were happy to take ABARE’s modelling and create an argument that said Australia shouldn’t have to x. In essence, this was not under that wicked, wicked man, Liberal John Howard. It was under St. Paul Keating. 

What we learn is that the Australian political elites’ mendacious and rapacious hostility towards climate ambition is essentially bi-partisan and has been going on for 30 however many years and here we are, 

What happened next? Keating lost office in March of 1996. Howard simply turbo-charged the hostility to all things environmental and especially climate. 

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: 

December 1, 1976 – Met Office boss still saying carbon dioxide build-up a non-issue

December 1, 2005 – David Cameron says “low carbon living should not be a weird or worthy obligation”

December 1, 2008 – Climate Change Committee fanboys carbon capture

Categories
Carbon Capture and Storage United States of America

December 1, 1984 – they’re talking about CCS already…

Forty years ago, on this day, December 1st, 1984, Carbon Capture and Storage got an early study,

 Systems study for the removal, recovery and disposal of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel power plants in the US

Abstract

This report examines the feasibility of preventing man-made CO/sub 2/ from entering the atmosphere. Utilities produce about 30% of the emissions of CO/sub 2/, therefore, the system is first applied in this study to the power plant effluents. An absorption/stripping stack gas scrubbing and regeneration process was chosen for the present system study. An improved solvent process is used and the process is integrated with the power plant operations to improve the efficiency of the combined plant. Three methods of disposal are selected and appropriately applied, depending on geographical proximity to the source power plants. The US Department of Energy Federal Region Divisions for utility power plants was utilised to aggregate and design the disposal system. The energy requirement to drive the various parts of the system is estimated. This is a first order design and cost estimation system study, made primarily for the purpose of determining the order of magnitude feasibility and economic costs for the removal, recovery, and disposal of CO/sub 2/ from power plant stacks in the US. The base year chosen for the systems analysis was 1980 and all capacity and costs are indexed to that year.

Authors: Steinberg, M; Cheng, H C; Horn, F

Publication Date: 1984-12-01

Research Org.: Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA)

OSTI Identifier: 6084354 published 2 years later as https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ep.670050409?saml_referrer

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 345ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that CCS had got its first serious push in 1977, with the publication of an article by Cesar Marchetti, an Italian physicist who had been asked to think about the issue by our good friends a the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis,t IIASA, never-knowingly out-technofixed. Albanese had done some work in the late 1970s, and this was a follow-up

What I think we can learn from this is that CCS has been talked about for almost 50 years. Still not delivering any detectable-compared-to-annual-emissions ‘savings’ (EOR doesn’t count, for obvious reasons).

What happened next. There was a spasm of interest in the late 1980s, but for real hype, you have to wait until the early 2000s.

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: 

December 1, 1976 – Met Office boss still saying carbon dioxide build-up a non-issue

December 1, 2005 – David Cameron says “low carbon living should not be a weird or worthy obligation”

December 1, 2008 – Climate Change Committee fanboys carbon capture

Categories
Cultural responses United States of America

November 30, 2014 – US TV show The Newsroom tackles climate change

Ten years ago, on this day, November 30th, 2014,Aaron Sorkin’s drama show The Newsroom “does” climate change.

“The person has already been born who will die due to catastrophic failure of the planet.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 399ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Sorkin has tried to get people thinking about climate change before. Check out “The American President” from 1995.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_President

What I think we can learn from this

We ignored all the warnings, because to not do so would require collective action, and we really suck at that.

What happened next

Which then got chided by various “lefties” for, oh the usual – insufficiently hopey-changey blah blah blah

https://grist.org/living/aaron-sorkin-tackles-climate-change-on-the-newsroom-and-oy/  

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/11/climate-desk-fact-checks-aaron-sorkins-climate-science-newsroom/

The emissions kept climbing and the predictions came closer. Some of them have arrived. Others, well, they’re pending. 

References/further reading

Black, M. (2017). Environmental Deadpan: New Scales and Sensations of Ecological Fallout. American Quarterly 69(2), 397-409. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/aq.2017.0033.

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: 

November 30, 1978 – House of Lords debate on Atmospheric Changes…

November 30, 1998 – Exxon and Mobil merge

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing Denial

November 30, 1994 – Another denialist dolt – “Global warming a clouded issue”

Thirty years ago, on this day, November 30th, 1994,

ANDREW McINTYRE finds that the gap is just getting wider between the politicians and the scientists.

Greenpeace has just made a submission to Federal Cabinet claiming greenhouse gases should be subjected to the same stringent regulations as other damaging materials. Cabinet will make a decision early in December, and is likely to consider measures including the introduction of a carbon tax. But will it base its decisions on the facts or the fictions?

McIntyre, A. 1994. Global warming a clouded issue. Canberra Times, 30 November, p.16.

and

Meanwhile, the BCA has eschewed the denial angle, and sends a letter to Keating-

The brief introduction explains the purpose of the letter. The Business Council presents its argument in the next five paragraph and refutes [well, maybe] the view of pro-carbon tax lobbyists in the following seven paragraphs. (Worden, 1998, p133)

It concludes “Costly policies such as a unilateral carbon tax or an environmental levy are not necessary for Australia to make an equitable contribution to global emission abatement. On the other hand we believe that complementary industry and government action within a no regrets framework provide good scope for further emission abatement.” (cited Worden 1998, p130)

Letter to the MP from BCA 30 November 1994 (Wordern, 1998, ch 6)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the day before the IPA had had GB Tucker writing gibberish, and now the Canberra Times was running a denialist screed. It was the second time that year, at least, by an IPA hanger-on. 

What we learn is that even a fundamentally okay newspaper like the Canberra Times was still running denialist tripe out of a misplaced sense of “balance” (See also Boykoff and Boykoff article about bias as balance). 

What happened next? The carbon tax was defeated. The IPA is still with us. The Tasman Institute was abolished – surplus to requirements, job done, mission accomplished. And then Prime Minister John Howard delivered everything that the fossil fuel lobby could expect. The emissions kept climbing…

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: 

November 30, 1978 – House of Lords debate on Atmospheric Changes…

November 30, 1998 – Exxon and Mobil merge

Categories
Australia Denial Uncategorized

November 29, 1990 and 1994 – Australian denial fools (Fred Singer and Brian Tucker)

Thirty-four and thirty years ago, on this day, November 29th, 1990/1994, two climate denialists who really ought to have known better (and did, before idiocy overtook them) were spouting their nonsens.

29 November 1990 Fred Singer The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming: Fact or Fiction? Tasman Institute Seminar

and

29 November 1994 – Canberra Times piece IPA whining about greenhouse, wheeling out Brian Tucker, who had been head of the CSIRO’s Atmospheric Sciences Division.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm/359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is this: We have two examples of high status dickheads, one American, one Australian, denying the reality of climate change. What were both sort of relatively crucial moments in history. So in 1990, Ros Kelly had just come back from the Second World Climate Conference. The negotiations for a climate treaty were about to begin in earnest within a couple of months. In the second case, there was a battle going on about whether to have a carbon tax. And in both cases, the denialists will have said, “Oh, it’s all a scare. It’s all hysteria. Nothing should be done, needs to be done. And any action that is taken is merely rent seeking and appealing to silly ill informed portions of the electorate.” 

Gee, that went well didn’t it? And I want to say this again. Fuck you, and burn in hell you pricks. 

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: 

November 29, 1973 – Australian politician warns of climate change

NOVEMBER 29, 1974 – SWEDISH PRIME MINISTER SAYS “RISK OF A CHANGED CLIMATE DUE TO HUMAN ACTIVITIES … [IS] OF UTTER IMPORTANCE”

November 29, 1988 – Australian parliamentarians taught climate

Categories
Australia

 November 28, 2001 – “Stellar team for sun-powered debate” in Adelaide

Twenty-three years ago, on this day, November 28th, 2001,

FOOTBALLERS, media identities, politicians and scientists have little in common but tonight they unite for solar energy. They will be at the Adelaide Convention Centre for a public debate from 6pm on the future of solar power.

The debate features ABC science presenter Robyn Williams, former Adelaide lord mayor Dr Jane Lomax-Smith, CEO of UK solar electric power company Solar Century Dr Jeremy Leggett, Griffith University professor Ian Lowe, Advertiser youth columnist Mia Handshin, author of more than 90 publications on solar power and energy Don Osborne, and AFL player and politics student Che Cockatoo-Collins.

Freeborn, A. 2001. Stellar team for sun-power debate.Adelaide Advertiser,28 November 2001 P. 20

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that South Australia was back under Labor control. And therefore, it was trying to be more progressive on climate than the Liberals had been. And one thing to do was to get a bunch of celebrities together, hold hands, have a few PowerPoint. I’m being cynical because that’s who I am. But ultimately, it’s this sort of event that creates a “buzz.” 

 What happened next, South Australia kept acting on some of the green issues. Premier Mike Rann created the “Thinker in Residence” post and a couple of those people were very explicitly environment focused, for example, Stephen Schneider. South Australia has been making the running, especially penetration of renewables. So you know, you can be cynical if you want, (and I do) but sometimes something comes from the celebrities and the PowerPoints. They’re necessary, perhaps, but not sufficient. But maybe they’re not necessary. Maybe there’s correlation, not causation.

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: 

November 28, 1976 – climate modelling workshop in USA

November 28, 2008 – somebody shuts down a coal plant, solo

Categories
Australia

November 27, 1974 – “The Fear of Climatic Change” – presentation to Australian Royal Meteorological Society

Fifty years ago, on this day, November 27th, 1974, AJ Dyer gave a presentation at the Australian Royal Meteorological Society – The Fear of Climatic Change

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australian meteorologists and climatologists were doing their own data collecting and looking closely at what else was being done elsewhere. And by 1974, it was clear that something was going on. It might be a short-term perturbation, and then normality would return. It might be a long term-change caused by natural fluxes and things that people we weren’t yet aware of. Or it might be caused by man; dust, waste heat or carbon dioxide. Internationally, US Secretary of State Henry war criminal Kissinger made an address to the United Nations General Assembly about the possibility of famine and food shortages as weather extremes kicked in.

What we learn is that nobody was quite sure at this point, but it was certainly worth talking about.

What happened next? The Labor Science minister under Whitlam had been persuaded by Nugget Coombs to request the Australian Academy of Science to do a study and report into climatic change (the one that Barrie Pittock headed). 

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: 

November 27, 1956 – New York Times science writer who covered C02 build-up dies.

November 27, 1969 – Canberra Times runs pollution article, mentions melting ice-caps

November 27, 1978 – “Impacts of climate on Australian Society and Economy” begins…

Categories
United States of America

November 27 1967 – Newsweek wrings its hands about future ecological problems, including carbon dioxide

Fifty-seven years ago, on this day, November 27th,1967, Newsweek flagged carbon dioxide build-up as one thing to worry about..

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the weekly news magazines like Time and Newsweek were beginning to wring their hands about smog, water pollution, air pollution, etc. It sold newspapers and probably resonated with a proportion of voters. Lyndon Johnson had already in 1965, given his seal of approval to the issue by doing a special message to Congress. And I suppose in 1967, it was possible – if you wanted to criticise the state of the world, but you didn’t want to criticise your government and say anything about Vietnam – you could find another issue i.e. the environment, which was “less controversial.” Though, of course, you’d soon start offending the advertisers. And the local Chamber of Commerce, if you named too many names.

What we learn is that 1968-69 and especially ‘69 really is when the whole thing takes off.

What happened next? Time and Newsweek ran stories about, you know “our polluted planet” and all the rest of it. And then it really kicked into much higher gear after the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in January 1969. And politicians like Edmund Muskie, and Scoop Jackson for getting hold of the issue as well. As was new President Tricky Dick Nixon with his idea for a government subcommittee that he would chair. And the emissions kept climbing. 

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: 

November 27, 1956 – New York Times science writer who covered C02 build-up dies.

November 27, 1969 – Canberra Times runs pollution article, mentions melting ice-caps

November 27, 1978 – “Impacts of climate on Australian Society and Economy” begins…

Categories
Uncategorized

November 26, 1966 – Conservation Society first meeting

Fifty eight years ago, on this day, November 26th, 1966, the UK Conservation Society has its first meeting.

Inaugural General Meeting of the Conservation Society, Herring 2001 

Lady Eve Balfour, ‘Inaugural address to the Conservation Society’, 26 November 1966, 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the great British public were getting a little worried about pollution, species loss, pesticides, you name it. And there had been a letter in The Observer a few months earlier, that kick started the whole thing. And this was the first meeting of the Conservation Society. (Compare it with, for example, Amnesty, which also started with a newspaper article followed by a letter.)

What we learn is that by the mid 1960s, the problems were becoming apparent, and couldn’t be denied really. And groups of citizens were taking it upon themselves to come together to try to inform/lobby governments. 

What happened next, the Conservation Society held some useful meetings. In 1968 its president was Lord Ritchie Calder. And he gave a blistering speech called Hell on Earth which had a small mention of the problem of C02 buildup, something that he had been talking about in mildly apocalyptic terms, at least in 1963 and had already mentioned on radio at the beginning of 1968. 

And the ConSoc, had its high watermark, probably with Paul Ehrlich’s visit in 1971. But thereafter, the fact that it was a small, relatively small c-conservative organisation, and there were newer, more media-attuned organisations like Friends of the Earth and then Greenpeace meant that ConSoc was on a long, slow decline. However, this can be overplayed. And in the mid 70s, there’s a series of really interesting and useful reports by ConSoc groups in different parts of the UK.

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: 

November 26, 1996 – Australian climate modelling is ridiculed

November 26, 1998 – “National Greenhouse Strategy” (re)-launched

November 26, 2008 – pre-CPRS meeting (yawn)

November 26, 2008 – Climate Change Act becomes law