The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 373.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone was scratching their heads and thinking about carbon dioxide build up and by this time,alongside the RCEP there’s another group…
The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s pivotal Energy and Climate Change report had come out in 2000. President Bush had pulled out of Kyoto. The Regional Development Association agencies were doing their thing. And so, of course, the Sustainable Development Commission set up by Blair, would be talking about what counts as a low carbon place. So we’re well aware of all this.
What we learn is this language of specificity of places for low carbon goes back a long way.
What happened next? Lots of nice glossy reports got produced, Blair went nuclear. The Sustainable Development mission went south in the bonfire of the quangos in mid 2010, thanks to Dave “Greenest Government Ever” Cameron.
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.
1969 June 01 Stephanie Mills delivers here “Future is a Cruel Hoax” commencement address at Mills College.
“Our days as a race on this planet are, at this moment, numbered,” she proclaimed, “and the reason for our finite, unrosy future is that we are breeding ourselves out of existence.”
“I am terribly saddened by the fact that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no children at all. But the piper is finally demanding payment.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that environmental awareness had been growing through ‘67-68 and had been picked up in the mainstream media. And of course, there had been the Santa Barbara oil spill in late January 1969. And alongside that, the vicious assault on democracy and people that had been People’s Park, which Stephanie Miller would have been extremely well aware of, and who knows, possibly participated in.
What we learn from this is that ecological awareness among the young was well underway. It didn’t need Earth Day. It didn’t need a hero Senator sponsoring stuff. The senator was catching a wave that already existed.
What happened next, Stephanie Miller had a career as an activist, if you want to call it that, devoted her life to activism. And the mega machine kept making machining. 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.
Fifty eight years ago, on this day, June 1st, 1966, the pivotal book about the environment, which included a section on carbon dioxide build-up, was released.
“Fire, an ancient friend, has become a man-made threat to the environment through the sheer quantity of the waste it produces. Each ton of wood, coal, petroleum, or natural gas burned contributes several tons of carbon dioxide to the earth’s atmosphere. Between 1860 and 1960 the combustion of fuels added nearly 14 percent to the carbon-dioxide content of the air, which had until then remained constant for many centuries. Carbon dioxide plays an important role in regulating the temperature of the earth because of the ‘greenhouse effect.’ Both glass and carbon dioxide tend to pass visible light but absorb infrared rays. This explains why the sun so easily warms a greenhouse on a winter day. Light from the sun enters through the greenhouse glass. Within, it is absorbed by soil and plants and converted to infrared heat energy which remains trapped inside the greenhouse because it cannot pass out again through glass. Carbon dioxide makes a huge greenhouse of the earth allowing sunlight to reach the earth’s surface but limiting reradiation of the resulting heat into space. The temperature of the earth — which profoundly affects the suitability of the environment for life — is therefore certain to rise as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increases.
“A report by the President’s Science Advisory Committee finds that the extra heat due to fuel-produced carbon dioxide accumulated in the air by the year 2000 might be sufficient to melt the Antarctic ice cap — in 4000 years according to one computation, or in 400 years according to another. And the report states: ‘The melting of the Antarctic ice cap would raise sea level by 400 feet. If 1,000 years were required to melt the ice cap, the sea level would rise about 4 feet every 10 years, 40 feet per century.’ This would result in catastrophe for much of the world’s inhabited land and many of its major cities.”
page 10-11 CO2 and greenhouse explained
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 426ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Barry Commoner had been campaigning on biological pollution from atmospheric nuclear testing, strontium 90, etcetera. He’d obviously been influenced by Rachel Carson. It turns out, to quote a book from 25 years later, there are consequences of modernity.
What we learn is that this book was a really important influence for a lot of people, although it is somewhat overshadowed by Commoner’s later efforts, The Closing Circle.
What happened next well, somebody lobbed a copy onto the desk of Roy Battersby, and this led him to take a completely different view with the TV programme Challenge that appeared on Fifth of January 1967. There was also a huge influence on Richard Broad, who made Report: And On The Eighth Day. The book was approvingly reviewed in The Guardian Telegraph, both of which made mention of the CO2 buildup possibility and as well in the Canberra Times, in early 1967; the reviewer then also made mention of CO2 buildup. So really, you could argue, I think strongly that Barry Commoner’s first book Science and Survival was a crucial node for climate change awareness among English speaking publics; I don’t know what influence it had in New Zealand, or Canada, or, for that matter, the US that would be interesting to find out.
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.
Forty-three years ago, on this day, May 31st 1981, the British public intellectual Barbara Ward died.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 340ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
Barbara Ward, well you can read her Wikipedia page here, had been banging on about development, albeit from a relatively high Tory patrician, paternalistic view and also environmental issues. She was an early popularizer of spaceship Earth. Crucially, so the climate story in 1972, she had co authored with Rene Dubois a book called Only One Earth, about Stockholm conference and environment and it has mentioned CO2 buildup on such and such pages.
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.
Twenty-nine years ago, on this day, May 31st, 1995, the rebranded peak mining body meets with Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Leaders of AMIC, now the Minerals Council of Australia, met with the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, for three hours on Wednesday [31 May] to discuss regional relations, trade liberalisation and relations with Japan and Indonesia.
In line with the recommendations of a report by the Allen Consulting Group, the MCA is putting increased emphasis on lobbying rather than public campaigning.
Mr Buckingham said the way the industry had helped persuade the Government to drop the proposed carbon tax and increase the diesel excise showed the benefits of its approach. “Where access [to senior levels of Government] is required there is confidence that that access will be given.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Australian Mining Industry Council had been vehemently opposed to climate action. But more significantly for this particular blog post even more vehemently opposed to Aboriginal land rights. And the crucial dilemma for any trade association is how hard to fight, how publicly: because if you lose and you’ve punched some politicians in the face, they tend to remember it. So AMIC had hired Geoff Allen, who was a venerable business fixer, abd who had set up the BCA in 1983. Allen had suggested a change of leadership. So out with Lachlan McIntosh, and a name change, to complete the rebranding and maybe toning down all the anti Mabo bullshit. And they managed to engineer a meeting with Paul Keating that apparently was three hours. Keating, whatever he thought, had to be in a mood of reconciliation, and if not all is forgiven and forgotten. Let’s move forward. Because if you want to be a successful leader, you can’t really hold those sorts of grudges.
What we learn, these trade associations have to be careful. There are limits to what they can do. And if they overstep those limits, there are consequences just because they’re made up of powerful individual companies or sectors. Doesn’t mean they have total carte blanche.
What happened next? Well, the Australian Mining Industry Council/MCA and the BCA had been beavering away and they created a really effective group called the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, which was massively successful for over a decade in combating both domestic policy, e.g., the 1994/5 carbon tax battle, but also the international stuff keeping Australia from making any sane commitments for Kyoto, and for ratifying it once they’ve extracted that victory. And you’ve got to hand it to them, they’re really really good at what they did.
And, you know Guy Pearse and Clive Hamilton chart that success in their books High and Dry and Scorcher respectively. And see also the Carbon Club by Marian Wilkinson.
But never forget that the picture of Labor as sweet and innocent is complete bullshit. Because if you look at the period especially from 1990 to 1996 they were making sure that no serious action on climate change happened.
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.
Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 30th, 2007, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said he’d take climate action, oh yes.
“The Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, promised a more progressive approach. It pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, establish a target of reducing Australia’s emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050 and create an emissions trading scheme by 2010.” Macintosh, 2008 Page 52
K. Rudd An Action Agenda for Climate Change, Annual Fraser Lecture, Belconnen Labor Club, Canberra, 30 May 2007 (Australian Labor Party, Canberra: 2007).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Rudd had been using climate change as a stick to beat John Howard with, very successfully and this was another punishment beating that he issued with great success. Sadly, because he raised expectations of morality, decency, seriousness, and then dashed them.
What we learn is that talk is very cheap. And seductive if you’re sick of the current vandal.
What happened next
Rudd became Prime Minister, then fannied about rather than getting the job done. And crashed his chance to be a Labor leader for the ages. Oh well.
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.
Seventeen years ago, on this day, May 29th, 2007, Prime Minister John Howard uses taxpayers’ money to try to get people to forget his past ten years of climate vandalism/criminality.
Labor turned up the heat over federal government advertising as Prime Minister John Howard conceded a climate change campaign was on the way.
THERE is $52.8 million ready to spend on a climate-change advertising blitz if and when the Government chooses to introduce one, Prime Minister John Howard admitted yesterday.
Doherty, B. 2007. Howard coy on $53m ads. The Age, 30 May.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had spent 10 years doing everything in his power to stop climate action. He had been enormously successful with this. From September 2006, however, the pressure for action became intense, and he needed to pivot. So we had the Shergold report group that was supposed to pronounce on an emissions trading scheme. But Howard had not really convinced anyone about his new green credentials. The ABC’s Tony Jones had trolled him in February of 2007. And he had denounced the Stern Review as “pure speculation.” So it’s kind of unsurprising that all this taxpayer funded Climate Clever advertising bullshit, launched in September 2007, convinced precisely no one.
What we learn is that politicians are used to being able to U-turn, pivot on a dime, to have no convictions, but there is a limit. (See Martin Kettle talking about Francois Mitterrand in The Guardian, December 7 2023, which is the day I’m recording this.) And you can’t easily remake yourself once people have made up their mind about you as much as you would like to think that you can. You’re set in concrete.
What happened next, the Climate Clever nonsense was spoofed by Get Up. Howard couldn’t bring himself to ratify Kyoto, because he knew he looked weak. And he was swept from office by Labor’s Kevin Rudd. But that didn’t mean that the climate policy issue then got dealt with by adults. That would have to wait until Juliet Gillard, in 2011. That is not to say there weren’t adults who didn’t make massive mistakes but still, nonetheless, adults.
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.
Forty years ago, on this day, May 28th 1982, the biologists were at it again,
“Duke University in Durham, North Carolina on August 4-5, 1977 for “Workshop on Anticipated Plant Responses to Global Carbon Dioxide Enrichment”…. Five years later, on May 23-28, 1982, a similar “International Conference on Rising Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Plant Productivity” was held in Athens, Georgia.”
(Idso, 1982: 72- 73)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 341.5ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had five years previously been a conference on essentially, “rising carbon dioxide levels will be great for plant growth. So there’s nothing else to worry about.” And this was a sequel, I don’t know why it happened. Maybe they had some money leftover or something or they just wanted a jolly and to catch up with old friends.
What we learn is that as late as 2023. “CO2 is plant food and therefore nothing to worry about” is still being circulated by intellectual giants like Richard Tice, of Reform UK (a private company masquerading as a political party). I mean, it’s just embarrassing for our species. But there you have it.
What happened next Sherwood Idso has been the go-to guy for denial and lukewarm-ism for a long time.
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.
Fifty-three years ago, on this day, May 27th, 1971, the colony joins the club…
The Prime Minister, Mr McMahon, announced yesterday the appointment of Mr Peter Howson to the Federal ministry.
Mr Howson, of Victoria, will become Minister for the newly formed Department of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts.
Anon, 1971. Mr Howson is new Minister. Canberra Times Friday 28 May, page 1
And Mungo MacCullum
“When McMahon finally got the job in 1971, Howson lined up for his reward. Having held down a junior ministry during the Menzies, Holt and even Gorton years, he thought he was in line for promotion. But it was not to be. As he left the new prime minister’s office, a colleague asked him what he had got. Howson snarled back: “The little bastard gave me trees, boongs and poofters.””
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been rising concern about environmental issues, air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, pollution pollution population the culling of kangaroos and wildlife biodiversity crisis happening. There was a new prime minister Billy McMahon and he wanted to show how in touch with the ordinary man in the street he was so he created the Ministry of Environmental Affairs, Arts and Aboriginal Affairs.
What we learn is that while other nations were creating standalone environment departments, Australia’s ambition was pitiful and tokenistic.
What happened next? Howson along with many of his Liberal mates, lost the 1972 election that swept Gough Whitlam into power. And the next environment minister was Moss Cass, who was an altogether more impressive figure.
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-four years ago, on this day, May 26th, 1990, the Times ran a big story about Thatcher settling for a “stabilise UK emissions by 2000 at 1990 levels” target, but calling it “tough.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there had been fights over emissions reductions for rich nations. In 1989, an energy minister, Lady whoever or Baroness whatever had nixed that {LINK}. But the negotiations were coming and the UK would need some sort of position. SDtabilisation target looks like a winner, even if it wasn’t adequate scientifically(that’s never stopped people before and it didn’t on this occasion).
What we learn is that there were intense tussles and battles in that period of the 80s, ‘88 to ‘92. And this was one of them.
What happened next Thatcher was gone in six months. And the stabilisation target made its way into the UNFCCC treaty.
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.
