Author: drmarchudson

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Australia

February 26, 1988 – Australian climate scientist Graeme Pearman warns of “Dramatic Warming”

Thirty-six years ago, on this day, February 26th, 1988, four months before James Hansen gave his dramatic and pivotal testimony in Washington DC, an Australian climate scientist, Graeme Pearman, was speaking out on the same topic.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/101979010

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there was the “Elizabeth and Frederick White Research Conference on Global Change at the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra, against the backdrop of increasing global awareness and the “Greenhouse Project” initiated by the Commission for the Future and the CSIRO.  Pearman been studying climate change for 17 years by this time with CSIRO trying to alert people. And over the last 10 years, there had been a dramatic warming; this was captured also later that year. In March in a conference about the Gaia hypothesis held in San Diego. 

What we learn is that we’ve known – and we’ve chosen to ignore scientists and keep voting for the people who ignore scientists. Oh, and by the way, both mainstream political parties ignore the scientists. 

What happened next? A few months later, climate change properly exploded onto public consciousness, stayed there until about 1990-91 when the Gulf War took over. dislodging Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. And then it didn’t really come back until 2006, with The Inconvenient Truth etc.

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.

See also Graeme Pearman in January 1992 on the gamble.

Also on this day: 

Feb 26, 1981 – Science writer warns readers about the greenhouse in the Guardian….

 Feb 26, 1998 – Australian “clean coal” is on the way (again).

February 26, 2014 – Advanced Propaganda for Morons

Categories
Australia

February 25, 2011 – Alan Jones versus sanity

Thirteen years ago, on this day, February 25th, 2011, radio “shock jock” Alan Jones went beserk (how can you tell, though?), during the carbon wars, while interviewing Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard…

Or consider this excerpt from Jones’ 25 February 2011 interview with Gillard (which he began by berating the prime minister for being late). He concluded his line of questioning about her CO2 emissions policy saying: ‘Do you understand, Julia, that you are the issue today because there are people now saying that your name is not Julia but JuLIAR and they are saying we’ve got a liar running the country’ (cited in Barry 2011a).

(Ward, 2015: 236)

The context was that the day before Julia Gillard had stood next to the Greens Senator Bob Brown and announced that there would be a carbon pricing scheme. She utterly failed to deal effectively with the accusation that it was the very same carbon tax that she had promised during the election campaign that she would not introduce. And now, this was the beginning of open season on her. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

But there’s a deeper context, of course, around both the anti environmentalism of large portions of the Australian elite but also culture and society, a hatred of different nature. “Biological cringe”, as historian Tom Griffiths calls it. And also – and related – a deep, deep misogyny. You can’t understand what Gillard had to put up if you don’t nderstand that misogyny exists and that she was the first female prime minister. 

What happened next? Jones kept making increasingly outrageous statements about Gillard being a lesbian and putting her in a chaff bag and throwing her in the ocean. But this didn’t seem to affect his employability. Eventually his contract was not renewed and he had to go and work for Sky. Gillard endured and got a hell of a lot of legislation through. She was an extremely successful Prime Minister in those terms, and was toppled by the guy she had toppled Kevin Rudd in early 2013. 

And the emissions? Well, they kept climbing, natch.

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: 

 February 25, 1981 – National Party senator nails the climate problem

Feb 25 1992- business groups predict economic chaos if action is taken on #climate

Feb 25, 2007 – “Clean Coal Initiative” as move in game of one-dimensional electoral chess #auspol

Categories
United Kingdom

February 24, 1971 – aims of the Department of the Environment

Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 24th, 1971, the aims of the then new United Kingdom “Department of the Environment” were laid out.

The aims of the Department included the renewal, improvement and protection of the environment. Its first priority, as defined in a speech by Walker on 24 February 1971, was to ensure the environment could be enjoyed by the population as a whole, especially those who lived in or experienced a bad environment at that time.772 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Department of Energy had been a Harold Wilson idea mooted in I think, late ‘69, early ‘70. There’d been a change of government thanks to the Tories unexpectedly winning the June 1970 election,, but the political and institutional momentum was behind the creation of a department for  environment.  

What we can learn is that it was in this period in the very early 1970s, that Western governments started to change the state apparatus to accommodate public and scientific concern about pollution. . So you’d get Departments of Environment in Australia and the UK and the same sort of thing in the United States. This is not to say that some of these issues hadn’t been tackled before. 

What happened next? 

Well, the Department of Environment kept on keeping on. It has changed name and shape over time – is currently called Defra.

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:

Feb 24 1994 – the death of Abbey Pond 

 February 24, 2003 – UK Energy White Paper kinda changes the game (a bit).

Categories
Letters to publications

Whoop! Letter in the FT about climate change and baked in temperature rise

In today’s FT (February 23)…

There is a curious sentence in the excellent article “The power of Europe’s rebel farmers” by Alice Hancock and Andy Bounds (FT Weekend, February 10). They write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned of “‘substantive agricultural production losses’… if temperatures continue to rise.”

If? To quote the famed American diplomat George Kennan, writing in 1948 in another context “we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming.”

Every year we pour more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – almost 70% per annum more since policymakers first started mouthing the pieties 35 years ago. This year atmospheric concentrations will be 425 parts per million, 100pm more than when I was born in 1970.  As charted by the United Nations Environment Program’s annual “Emissions Gap” report, the chasm (or abyss) between our alleged ambition and the physical requirements to keep temperature increases even below an unsafe 2 degrees above pre-Industrial levels. grows remorselessly, every year.  

There is no “if” – or but – about it. Temperatures will increase, with all the consequences we can imagine, and more than a few we cannot.  Might the FT lead the way in replacing “if” with “as” in its coverage?

Categories
Australia Renewable energy

February 23, 1974 – CSIRO Solar energy conference

Fifty years ago, on this day, February 23rd, 1974, the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) held a solar power conference.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia had been experimenting with wind and solar power for a few decades. Certainly wind turbines were used to pump water. And we could have used that expertise and all of the sun and all of the space and wind to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. In an alternative universe where we weren’t such stupid murder apes, we would have done that. But here we are.

What we learn is that people have been banging on about renewables for a long, long time. And see also Mark Diesendorf’s entirely plausible claim that coal interests undermined the CSIRO renewables research from the 1970s onwards.

What happened next? The solar energy people kept trying to get things to work. But it was another 40 years before shit got real. 

See also

https://publications.csiro.au/publications/publication/PIlegacy:402

Roger N. Morse, 1977. Solar Energy in Australia. Ambio, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 209-215 https://www.jstor.org/stable/4312278

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: 

Feb 23, 2009 Penny Wong flubs the CSPR… The CPSR..  THE PCRS. Oh, hell. #auspol

February 23, 1977 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about carbon dioxide build-up. 

Categories
Uncategorized

February 22, 2020 – CO2 pipeline accident – “Like something out of a zombie movie”

On this day four years ago, February 22 2020, a pipeline carrying carbon dioxide ruptured. It turns out that Carbon Dioxide is Not Good For You…

It was just after 7 p.m. when residents of Satartia, Mississippi, started smelling rotten eggs. Then a greenish cloud rolled across Route 433 and settled into the valley surrounding the little town. Within minutes, people were inside the cloud, gasping for air, nauseated and dazed.

Some two dozen individuals were overcome within a few minutes, collapsing in their homes; at a fishing camp on the nearby Yazoo River; in their vehicles. Cars just shut off, since they need oxygen to burn fuel. Drivers scrambled out of their paralyzed vehicles, but were so disoriented that they just wandered around in the dark.

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline_n_60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f

The context

Pipelines are everywhere, transporting things we rely on without even knowing about. It’s only when something goes wrong (and things always go wrong, eventually) that you notice.  The broader context is that the CCS proponents are suggesting an INSANELY LARGE number of pipelines, built almost instantaneously.  Yeah, that’s gonna happen…

What we learn

Normal accidents will happen. And we never learn, really, because that would require close and sustained attention of those with power…

What happened next

It oddly didn’t get a lot of global coverage. But it will if pipelines from capture sites (be they power plants or from “Direct Air Capture” start springing up…

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

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/agriculture/2022/09/11/here-minute-details-2020-mississippi-co-2-pipeline-leak-rupture-denbury-gulf-coast/8015510001/

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1172679786/carbon-capture-carbon-dioxide-pipeline

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/26/22642806/co2-pipeline-explosion-satartia-mississippi-carbon-capture

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gassing-satartia-mississippi-co2-pipeline_n_60ddea9fe4b0ddef8b0ddc8f

https://www.desmog.com/2023/09/14/satartia-disaster-an-anomaly-james-millar-damage-control-carbon-capture-canada/#:~:text=A%2024%2Dinch%20pipeline%20exploded,concerns%20that%20mention%20the%20incident.

CO2 Pipelines and Carbon Capture: The Satartia Mississippi Accident Investigation

Also on this day: 

Feb 22, 2000 – Japanese coal-burning to be dealt with by Australian trees?

February 22, 2013 – Idiotic “Damage” astroturf attempted by miners

Categories
Denial United States of America

February 22, 1991 – Denialist gloating about influence on Bush

Thirty three years ago, on this day, February 22nd, 1991, a super-annuated physicist suffering Relevance Deprivation Syndrome, was boasting of his influence (probably fairly accurately, sad to say).

In a February 1991 letter to the vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, Robert Jastrow crowed , “It is generally considered in the scientific community that the Marshall report was responsible for the Administration’s opposition to carbon taxes and restrictions on fossil fuel consumption. Quoting New Scientist magazine, he reported that the Marshall Institute “is still the controlling influence in the White House.”

(Oreskes and Conway, 2010:190) [letter dated 22nd February]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.8ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that from 1989 the George C. Marshall Institute and the Global Climate Coalition had been leading a public assault on the science and scientists. They were winning some victories, undeniably. Jastrow was motivated to overplay the George C. Marshall Institute’s influence but then again, he was largely right. 

What we learn is that past their sell-by-date, physicists, overconfident who backed the wrong horses (see Jastrow in 1978, banging on about another ice age) are still useful to those who would like to stop something happening. You borrow their prestige, you create the uncertainty and especially doubt in the public mind, and you just slow everything down. And that’s what happened here. 

What happened next. Team Fuckwit won the crucial battles in 1991/1992. Targets and timetables were excluded from the UNFCCC text. And Team Fuckwit kept winning battles and made a lot of money for rich people who wanted to stay rich or get richer. And there you have it. 

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: 

Feb 22, 2000 – Japanese coal-burning to be dealt with by Australian trees?

February 22, 2013 – Idiotic “Damage” astroturf attempted by miners

Categories
United Kingdom

February 21, 1972 – Horizon and the backlash against “selling doomsday”

Fifty two years ago, on this day, February 21st, 1972, BBC’s Horizon programme focussed on the “overselling” of ecological concerns.

Horizon – “How They Sold Doomsday”  21-2–1972 – In this episode, Horizon looks the the ecological movement, and the resistance against the movement in Britain, and the USA.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that a backlash against ecological concerns had been underway for a couple of years, and was here picking up momentum.

What we learn

Ecological thinking makes rich, technologically-obsessed, powerful people feel extremely uncomfortable. The idea that there might be limits, to use the apposite word, to their prowess and that the thing that they have thought good, that they have devoted their life to is actually quite bad, is threatening to their sense of self.

Rather than sit and contemplate that idea for any length of time, they obviously find something else to do which is shoot the messenger and attack. And of course, there are always some of the messengers who can plausibly be attacked because they have over-egged the pudding or gone to overconfident predictions. But the core of the message is accurate. And so a straw man gets set up rather than a steel man. And the steel man would have made us all smarter and maybe safer. It wasn’t to be…

What happened next. The attacks on the message and the messengers continued. For example, John Maddox, editor of Nature, has a book called “The Doomsday Syndrome”. And then these were recycled in the 1980s and 90s and in fact down unto this day.

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: 

 Feb 21, 1978 – “Carbon dioxide, climate and society” workshop

Feb 21, 1995 – an invitation to engage in the IPCC is declined, again…

Categories
Australia Coal

February 20, 2017 “Clean Coal” money being spent on PR

Seven years ago, on this day, February 20th, 2017, money earmarked for technology was revealed to have been spent on propaganda.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-20/coal-advertising-funded-by-money-meant-for-clean-coal-research/8287326

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 406.6ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Australian coal industry had created a levy on its members that was allegedly going to be spent on investigating low emissions technologies, it was called ACALET. But it turns out that CCS is mind bogglingly expensive. And given that the pressure for emissions reductions had gone away because Prime Minister Tony Abbott had abolished the Gillard Emissions Trading Scheme, they decided to syphon off money into PR efforts.

What we learn is that money collected to save the world can easily be repurposed to screw the world and sustain the rich and powerful. 

What happened next? It was a one-day scandal.  

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: 

 February 20, 1966 – US Senators told about carbon build-up by physicist

Feb 20, 2006 – Clive Hamilton names a “Dirty Dozen”

Categories
Denial United Kingdom

February 19, 1971 – Nature editorial on “The Great Greenhouse Scare”

Fifty three years ago, on this day, February 19th, 1971, John Maddox, ditor of the British Science Journal covers himself in glory on the topic of climate change.

19 Feb 1971 The Great Greenhouse Scare editorial by John Maddox NATURE VOL. 229 FEBRUARY 19 1971 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 326ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that more and more people were talking about carbon dioxide buildup. Maddox would presumably have known that there was going to be a Study of Man’s Impact on Climate in Sweden. He knew that the Alkali Inspectorate had come out with a report in the August of 1970. So this was another salvo and Maddox by this time was writing a book called The Doomsday Syndrome. 

What we can learn is that smart, elite, hardworking people can be fundamentally wrong. They can also dig their heels into the ground and keep being wrong, because the ego leads them to believe that they must be right. 

What happened next, Maddox published his book. As late as July 1988. Maddox was being a douche on the subject. See  “jumping the greenhouse gun.”  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: 

 February 19, 2003 – “CCS to be studied by IPCC”

Feb 19, 2011 – defunding the IPCC