Author: drmarchudson

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Science Scientists United States of America

 1980 – Idiotic climate paper published in Science

Forty six years ago on this day, March 26th, 1980 a truly pathetic paper found its way into the pages of Science.

Idso, S. 1980 – The Climatological Significance of a Doubling of Earth’s Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration 

The abstract ran(t) as follows. [source]

The mean global increase in thermal radiation received at the surface of the earth as a consequence of a doubling of the atmospheric carbon dioxide content is calculated to be 2.28 watts per square meter. Multiplying this forcing function by the atmosphere’s surface air temperature response function, which has recently been determined by three independent experimental analyses to have a mean global value of 0.113 K per watt per square meter, yields a value of </= 0.26 K for the resultant change in the mean global surface air temperature. This result is about one order of magnitude less than those obtained from most theoretical numerical models, but it is virtually identical to the result of a fourth experimental approach to the problem described by Newell and Dopplick. There thus appears to be a major discrepancy between current theory and experiment relative to the effects of carbon dioxide on climate. Until this discrepancy is resolved, we should not be too quick to limit our options in the selection of future energy alternatives.

And a few weeks later, there was this exchange…

From ‘Effects of Carbon Dioxide Buildup in the Atmosphere’, Hearing before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, United States Senate, April 3, 1980:

“Senator (Dale) BUMPERS. . . The fact that there has been no political response to the testimony we have had here for at least 3 years, the last 3 years, about the potential for dramatic climatic effect upon the earth by the buildup of CO2 (the point that the whole problem is such a long term problem) is well taken.

“Congress has not responded and we are getting some conflicting information too. People who have testified have not been . . . precise and definitive. …

“For example, ‘Science magazine’ on March 28 estimated that the average Earth temperature rise from doubling the world’s atmospheric CO2 is about 26 hundredths of one degree Celsius, which is about 1 tenth of the value generally estimated.

“Dr. (Gordon) MACDONALD (Chief Scientist of MITRE Corporation). Could I comment on that point?

“Senator BUMPERS. Yes.

“Dr. MACDONALD.I have looked in detail at that paper. It is a very strange paper.

“Senator BUMPERS. Shall I throw it away?

“Dr. MACDONALD. Yes. The final result is the product of two numbers. One is described very badly. The other is described as a result of the search under preparation. One can reconstruct the reasoning and do the proper calculations, and would have to multiply the second number by a factor of six, the first number by a factor of two to get the proper description, so that number is off by a factor of about 12.

“Dr. (William) KELLOGG (Senior Scientist, National Center for Atmospheric Research): I quite agree with what Dr. MacDonald has said. The conclusion is based on a calculation at the surface at a point. It does not apply to the global carbon dioxide question as it stands.

“Dr. MACDONALD. That is correct.”

(Quoted in William Barbat’s wonderful CO2 Newsletter.)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 338ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that there are always scientists who need to be “edgy”. And that is fine, because science needs doubt, conflict etc.  But it has to be, you know, robust. Not demented.

The specific context was that Idso had form

What I think we can learn from this is that Idso was not the sharpest tool in the box. 

What happened next. Idso kept Idsoing. He’s dead now, which is a tragedy for climate science.

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

Barbat in CO2 Newsletter

Also on this day: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Energy United States of America

March 28,  1984 – Exxon guy presents on CO2

Forty two years ago, on this day, March 28th, 1984, an Exxon scientist presented on climate change. 

They knew. Exxon knew.


March 28 1984  Exxon guy – Henry Shaw, Presentation to EUSA/ER&E Environmental Conference: CO2 Greenhouse and Climate Issues

7, 14 (Mar. 28, 1984), https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6530733-1984-Exxon-Henry-ShawPresentation-CO2/. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 345ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Exxon, by the late 70s, was fully switched on to the problem of carbon dioxide build up, and had allowed its tankers to be used to collect samples. Exxon knew, in other words, this is one of the last public or semi public discussions of CO2 that Exxon would do without casting doubt and denial, which began in ‘88. 

What I think we can learn from this is that well Exxon kept on knowing but the weather changed within the C suite, and they basically decided denial was their friend for their business model.

What happened next

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: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Australia Carbon Capture and Storage

March 27, 1990 – Greenweek on carbon capture

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 27th, 1990,

On this day, the publication Greenweek has a news article titled

“Radical way to take carbon dioxide from power stations”

“A dramatic fall in greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialised Hunter Valley in NSW could come about if the Hunter Technology Group can proceed with studies of a radical method of removing carbon dioxide emissions from power stations.

“The group is seeking $150,000 from the NSW Government to study a proposal whereby carbon dioxide emissions would be pumped along ground-level pipelines to rural and forest areas, rather than be sent through smokestacks into the atmosphere.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Green Week had been set up by an enterprising journalist, I think in the beginning of 1989  and was doing exactly what it said, publicising events and policy discussions, etc. And here we see discussion in its early stages of quote, carbon capture and storage a fantasy, if ever there were one. 

The specific context was that all sorts of bullshit was being bullshitted at this time.

What I think we can learn from this is that the carbon capture and storage thing, which had started in the mid 1970s as a putative solution to CO2 build up, was there in the undergrowth in the 90s.

What happened next

The fantasy technology staggers on. The amount of CO2 actually captured is pitiful, especially if you take out the stuff that is used for enhanced oil recovery. 

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: 

March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched

March 27, 1971 – Norwegian Tabloid talks about the climate threat 

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

March 27, 1995 – former Nature editor John Maddox admits was wrong on Greenhouse, without, er, admitting it.

March 27, 2008 – James Hansen writes a letter to Kevin Rudd

Categories
Energy Nuclear Power

March 28, 1979 – Three Mile Island 

Forty seven years ago on this day, March 26th, 1979,

The Three Mile Island accident was a partial nuclear meltdown of the Unit 2 reactor (TMI-2) of the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station, located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979, and released radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.[2][3] It is the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, although its small radioactive releases had no detectable health effects on plant workers or the public.[4] The accident was the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history until it was exceeded by the Church Rock uranium mill spill four months later.[5] On the seven-point logarithmic International Nuclear Event Scale, the TMI-2 reactor accident is rated Level 5, an “Accident with Wider Consequences”.[6][7]


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

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 337ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was there had been high hopes for nuclear in the 1950s – “electricity too cheap to meter” and all that.  The coal industry had fought back, and so had, well, reality and economics.

The specific context was that the 1973-4 Oil Shock had concentrated everyone’s minds.

What I think we can learn from this is that every technology comes with costs.

What happened next – anti-nuclear activists highlighted the dangers. A few of those worried about carbon dioxide (especially William Barbat), tried to say there were bigger dangers. 

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

Barbat in CO2 Newsletter

Also on this day: 

 March 28, 2001 – (Vice) President George Bush nixes Kyoto

March 28, 2010 – protestors block Newcastle coal terminal #auspol

March 28, 2017 – Heartland Institute spamming science teachers

March 28, 2017 – Trump “brings back coal”

Categories
Sweden

March 27, 1966 – Swedish clean up

Sixty years ago, on this day, March 27th, 1966,

Another conservationist event occurred on 27 March 1966, when field biologists in the province of Scania in southern Sweden organized an effort to clean up a 20-kilometer long littered beach. This collective action was orchestrated by the local divisions, which strove to make the ‘otherwise so passive urban dweller go out and make an active contribution to beautify nature’. The action was inspired by the campaign Håll naturen ren! (Keep Nature Clean), which Naturskyddsföreningen had initiated in 1962.37 The young naturalists removed plastic packages, bottles, and gasoline drums, and received widespread media attention for their intervention.

Fältbiologen reported that 300 people had shown up to the event and that 2,300 bags of waste, almost 700 tons of litter, had been removed. The event was heralded as the greatest clean-up action in Scania.38

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that Sweden was getting wealthy, (not as wealthy as it is now, obvs). And people were beginning to realise that wealth can bring or does bring environmental damage with it. And one of the things you then do is to try and make everything look pretty, so that you don’t see the damage. And one of the obvious things to do is a litter pick, which is what they did. 

What I think we can learn from this is that we have been trying to bargain with the consequences of our own actions for six decades now longer, really, and it doesn’t work so well. I’m not saying that one shouldn’t litter pick or recycle. I’m saying that one shouldn’t pretend that those things are more than at best, at best palliatives, and that a far more fundamental set of changes and actions is required.

What happened next

 About a year and a half later, there was the Swedish “environmental turn” in that questions of pollution, of heavy metals, pesticides, acid rain, etc, became front page news. And this led Swedish diplomats to push for a UN conference on the environment, which of course, eventually happened in 1972. 

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: 

March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched

March 27, 1971 – Norwegian Tabloid talks about the climate threat 

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

March 27, 1995 – former Nature editor John Maddox admits was wrong on Greenhouse, without, er, admitting it.

March 27, 2008 – James Hansen writes a letter to Kevin Rudd

Categories
Denial Interviews Sea level rise

Interview: Sonny Whitelaw on sea-level rise, the CO2 Newsletter and … stargates

Sci-fi writer (among many hats) Sonny Whitelaw [personal website here], curator of https://climateandnature.org.nz/ kindly agreed to answer some questions

1. A bit about who you are/where you grew up.

I was born in Sydney, Australia; my family had a holiday home on a northern coastal town. I grew up surfing, snorkelling, and running around the local rivers on a small dinghy, fishing and trapping mud crabs. I was endlessly fascinated by the natural world, particularly dynamic earth system processes, something my high school geography teacher must have realised because she always asked me questions that sent me to the library on weekends. One of those questions was, ‘What is isostasy and eustasy?’ Trying to understand why ice ages came and went and the complexity of sea level changes led me to study coastal systems at the University of Sydney. It was 1975, straight after the devastating coastal erosion caused by the 1974 storms, so there was a lot of interest on the topic.

2. Do you remember when/how you first heard about carbon dioxide build-up as a potential problem and what your reaction was?

There was no specific ‘ah ah!’ moment when I Iearned the connection between CO2 and global temperatures. It just made sense, because it explained the primary mechanisms driving eustatic sea level changes.

3. How did you come to be doing a Masters at U of Sydney?

Starting an MA in 1979 was a natural extension to understanding how sea level changes during the Eemian (125kya) created the coastal landscapes where I had spent much of my childhood.

From 1979-1981, to understand the implications for future coasts,

4. Do you remember who put you onto the CO2 Newsletter, and what your reaction to it was?

 I was reading everything I could find on the mechanisms for global temperature change.  When I saw your post of the CO2 Newsletter, I immediately recognised it, so it must have had an impact on me at the time.

5. What’s your favourite climate fiction and why?

Favourite climate fiction: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. But my favourite books are non-fiction because they generate so many cool ideas. Current favourite: Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp.

6. Tell us a bit about your own books, and also “what next?”

I lived on a yacht in Vanuatu for 20 years, making a living as a freelance photographer and features writer. When I moved back to Australia in 2000, I wrote a novel. It won an award, and was invited to write tie-in novels based on the television series Stargate-SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. In 2008, I moved to Aotearoa New Zealand. The unfolding story of climate change is far more compelling than fiction, so I now write lengthy reports in my capacity as technical climate change advisor for Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.

7. Complete this sentence – “It’s important to know, at least in outline, the loooong history of our awareness of carbon dioxide build-up because…

this one gas acts like a control knob on the planet’s thermostat. And we’re turning it up at pace.” (And I’m 100% sure I stole that from one of the many climate scientists telling the same story).

8. Anything else you’d like to say.

In 2005, I was signing Stargate novels at a science fiction convention when someone asked me, ‘What’s it like to walk through the Stargate?’ Similar questions popped up over the next few years. No amount of explaining convinced them that the Stargate wasn’t real and that the stories were entirely fiction. I was also coming up against climate change denial, which is also rooted in fallacies and fiction. So I went back to uni to find out why, and ended up with an MA thesis titled ‘The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense’. Still doesn’t help me convince climate denialists that believing in bullshit is not a survival strategy.


[see interview about The Attraction of Sloppy Nonsense here.]

Categories
On This Day

On this day – March 26 – scientist meets Exxon (1979), UK ratifies UNFCCC (1993), denialists vs CCS (2007) a FOIA (2010)

Forty seven years ago, Exxon scientists met with oceanographer Wally Broecker.

March 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

After Australia and the US have already ratified, the UK government, then led by John Major, says it will do the same.

March 26, 1993 – UK government to ratify climate treaty

Broken clocks and all that – denialist nutjobs at the Lavoisier Group decide to take a pop at a fantasy technology.

March 26, 2007 – Lavoisier Group lay into CCS

Somebody FOIAs to find out how many people on the Rudd caravan to Copenhagen. More than needed to.

March 26, 2010 – How many Aussie Government types were at Nopenhagen? Lots! 

Categories
Science United States of America

March 25, 1957 – Plass et al. at La Jolla

Sixty nine years ago today, March 25, 1957, Gilbert Plass was at a Scripps conference in La Jolla, California.

Proceedings of a Conference held at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, California, 25-26 March 1957: 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that scientists had been doing science for, well, the word science comes from the 1820s before that, they were “natural philosophers.” Concern/awareness that carbon dioxide build up in the atmosphere might eventually warm up the Earth, I suppose can be dated to Svante Arrhenius in 1895-96. His work was contested and then largely, but not totally ignored. Guy Callender had given a presentation in 1938 to the British Royal Meteorological Society.  

The specific context was that in 1953 Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass, building on Arrhenius and Callendar, had started the ball rolling on “carbon dioxide build-up as a problem.” In the next couple of years other people had said similar. And then by this time, the International Geophysical Year was about to kick off.

And we know now, thanks to the work of Rebecca John that Charles David Keeling had been doing Carbon Dioxide measurement for various oil companies. 

Revelle and Seuss had been working on papers.

What I think we can learn from this is that by 1957 a whole bunch of American (mostly – though here I am doing a real injustice to the Swedes) scientists, including Joseph Kaplan etc, were looking at carbon dioxide and going, “you know, this might well be a serious problem.”  

What happened next Plass published another article in Scientific American in 1959 which was advertised in the Observer. Plass was there in January 1961 in New York, and again, 63 in New York at the Conservation Foundation’s meeting, and that was his last that I can find around any engagement with the CO2 issue. He had said everything he planned to say. He’d worked on it now for over 10 years, and he understandably moved on to other things. It was a basic physics problem that he had solved.

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: 

March 25, 1982 – congressional hearings and CBS Evening News report

March 25, 1988- World Meteorological Organisation sends IPCC invites.

March 25, 1995 – “Women and the Environment” conference in Melbourne 

March 25, 2013 – Australian Department of Climate Change axed

Categories
Australia

March 24, 1995 –  Australian scientists release report

Thirty one years ago, on this day, March 24th, 1995,  

AUSTRALIA’S top science bodies say much uncertainty remains over greenhouse warming predictions despite claims by Argentinian researchers that Antarctica’s ice shelf has begun cracking up.

Current increases in global temperature cannot be linked with certainty to human action, the Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering caution in a joint report released yesterday.

Cribb, Julian, 1995. Greenhouse theory ‘still uncertain’. The Australian 25/03/95 Page 10

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was that climate change from carbon dioxide build up began to be talked of seriously by Australian scientists in 1977, after Graeme Pearman came back from a trip to the US and Europe. There had been conferences in 1980 and 1987, and monographs, articles etc etc.

The specific context was that the IPCC had already released its first report, and its second assessment report was nearing completion. Presumably, this report was designed to be released to inform the COP to take place in Berlin. It’s hard to know what the lead times were, but I can’t imagine. It’s much of a coincidence. Maybe it is. 

Meanwhile, the Australian was and is still SUCH a reliable source of information about what scientists are saying. Oh yes.

What I think we can learn from this is that is that any scientific report can be massaged in any direction you like, pretty much, and if it can’t be massaged in the direction you like, well, you can simply fucking ignore it or suppress it. 

What happened next. More reports, more suppression, more reports, more emissions, higher concentrations, more impacts, more despair and the window closes.

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: 

March 24, 1989 – Exxon Valdez vs Alaska. (EV wins)

March 24, 1990 – Labor politician has dummy spit on election night about needing small g-green votes

March 24, 2004 – Launch of Coal21 National Plan

March 24, 2010 – Scientists explain another bad thing on the horizon, this time on soil

Categories
Australia

March 23,  1991 and 1992 – Ninian Stephen and Barry Jones speeches on World Meteorological Day

Thirty five and thirty four years ago, on this day, March 23rd, 1991/2,

“Climate change and policy change : the nexus”  World Meteorological Day address 1991 / by Sir Ninian Stephen

And one by Barry Jones too, dropping truth bombs.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355/6ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The broader context was this was World Meteorological Day – I don’t know if this is still commemorated or celebrated. The climate issue had exploded in 1988 and by now people were probably getting a bit of fatigue, attention fatigue. Ninian Stephen had been appointed ambassador on the environment after a scandal of him as Governor General,   

Barry Jones had been Minister of Science from 1983 to 1990 and had done a brilliant job, even though he was not necessarily well-liked, but that’s not important. And they both gave speeches.

What I think we can learn from this is that the attempt to “embed” climate issues, via things like World Meteorological Day, has, largely, failed. We don’t like to look at confronting facts. We turn away…

What happened next I don’t think World Meteorological day is really still much of a thing. The caravan has moved on.  

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: 

March 23, 1969 – US TV network CBS asks “What are we doing to our World?”

March 23, 1989 – cold fusion!!

March 23, 1993 – UK “The Prospects for Coal” White Paper published.

 March 23, 2011 – Ditch the Witch rally in Canberra