Author: drmarchudson

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Australia

September 17, 1987 – report on “The Greenhouse Project” launch

Thirty six years ago, on this day, September 17, 1987, a novel effort between the CSIRO Atmospheric Physics people and the Australian government’s Commission for the Future was reported on (the launch happened on the 16th). Known as “The Greenhouse Project”

The greenhouse effect is not just another disaster story but a real phenomenon that is likely to have far-reaching economic and social impacts within considerably less than a human lifetime, according to a CSIRO scientist.

Dr Graeme Pearman was speaking at a press conference launching the Greenhouse Project, a national campaign organised jointly by the Commission for the Future and the CSIRO to alert Australians and Australian industry to the possible consequences of the effect.

A rapid build-up of “greenhouse gases” could cause sea levels to rise by up to one metre in the next 40 years and global temperatures to rise by up to 4 degrees Celsius.

A one-metre rise in sea level would put the main street of Cairns underwater and result in the disappearance of large areas of beaches around the coast, Dr Pearman warned.

Anon (1987) Launch of Greenhouse Effect plan. Sydney Morning Herald, September 17

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly pp348.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.

 

The context was that CSIRO 1986 realised that climate change was going to be a real problem. This was after 5 years of silence pretty much among the Australian Environment council folks. Science Minister Barry Jones had managed to create a foresight organisation called “The Commission for the Future,” and the greenhouse project was its first effort and very successful one at that.

What I think we can learn from this is that scientists and policymakers were aware of the climate problem and trying to do something about it before the 1988 breakthrough. And the momentum was ultimately lost because the issues are complex, and because business fought back (but everyone knew that business would fight back.)

What happened next – the Greenhouse Project gave us a scientific meeting in December 1987 but then also Greenhouse 88 – a satellite linked up conference in the capital cities of Australia that have passed into a kind of folklore.

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.

Categories
Australia

September 16, 2015 – Turns out big companies are ‘climate hypocrites’?

Eight years ago, on this day, September 16, 2015, a survey shows companies and trade associations are saying one thing and doing another … (shocked, shocked to find …)

BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and the Business Council of Australia are among the world’s largest companies and industry groups holding back action on climate change, according to a new survey.

The research, based on methodology developed by the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists and applied by UK-based non-profit group InfluenceMap, found 45 per cent of the 100 biggest industrial companies were “climate hypocrites” that obstruct action on global warming.

Some 95 per cent of the delaying firms were also members of trade associations that demonstrated “the same obstructionist behaviour”. 

BHP Billiton was rated a “D”,

Hannam, P. (2015) Rio Tinto, Business Council of Australia among ‘climate hypocrites’, survey says. Sydney Morning Herald, September 16.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the national and international climate wars were ongoing. The Paris meeting was coming up, and the Union of Concerned Scientists was trying to weaken the status of corporates and especially business associations lobbying against climate action. One way of doing this was by showing the functions of the business associations were not only to present a united front but also for these business associations to do things with dirty hands that individual companies would find too risky.

What I think we can learn from this is a better understanding of the relationship between business associations and their individual members, and how there is an interplay of blame-shifting and collective spreading of risk that trade associations can do. Sometimes pressure groups go too far and become more trouble than they’re worth.

What happened next

Last time I looked, BHP was still a member of these outfits. It finds them useful and not being a member would be tricky. I guess see also Alex Carey “Taking the Risk out of Democracy.”

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..

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Australia

September 15, 2008- business splits over what to extort from Rudd…

Fifteen years ago, on this day, September 15, 2008, Australian business interests were fighting over how hard to squeeze Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and for what….

ELEANOR HALL: The Australian Government knows it’ll be no easy task to design an emissions trading scheme that’ll satisfy both business and the environment lobby.

Business is largely urging caution and warning of job losses if energy guzzling industries aren’t properly compensated.

But not every Australian blue chip company is as conservative.

The Westpac Bank is today urging the Government to keep the scheme it adopts as pure as possible and not to shelter businesses from the impact of putting a price on carbon.

Santow, S. (2008) Split in business ranks on carbon scheme “The World Today – 15th September , 2008” http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2364852.htm

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was the Rudd government had made big promises about dealing with climate change which … amounted to introducing an emissions trading scheme. Westpac had had its calculators out about this for years (in April 2006 it had lobbied as part of a business environmentalist roundtable).

What I think we can learn from this is that obviously if there is a trading scheme the banks stand to make a lot of money. It’s also a good way for them to polish their mostly terrible reputation.

What happened next is that Rudd continued to give ground on the policy, weakening it and weakening it more, and more concessions. By the time it got to Parliament for the second attempt at getting it through, in November 2019, it was at best useless, at worst, worse than useless.

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.

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United States of America

September 15, 1948 – Biologist Evelyn Hutchinson mentions carbon dioxide build-up at an AAAS symposium.

On this day seventy five years ago at an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium the famed biologist Evelyn Hutchinson mentioned carbon dioxide buildup as something to be aware of, in his pivotal article Circular Causal Systems in Ecology:

The problem of the constancy or variability of the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere as a whole is a difficult one, owing to the large number of possible sources of purely local disturbance. The earlier data have been reviewed by Letts and Blake (1900) and, more recently, practically all the available information has been considered by Callendar (1940). … Meanwhile, it seems far more likely that the observed increment in the carbon dioxide of air at low levels in both Europe and eastern North America is due to changes in the biological mechanisms of the cycle rather than to an increase in industrial [[p. 228]] output. It is quite probable that the net effect of the spread of the technological cultures of the North Atlantic basin has been to decrease the photosynthetic efficiency of the land surfaces of the earth. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 310ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that English steam engineer Guy Callendar had been collating what carbon dioxide measurements existed, and said they were going up, in line with Svante Arrhenius’s late 19th century suggestion. But all this was very sketchy – precise measures were not yet a thing.

What we can learn – the biologists and ecologists (stocks and flows, flows and stocks) were paying attention. 

What happened next – Evelyn Hutchinson mentioned it in a big 1955 US conference about resources and conservation – crickets. He also mentioned it to King Hubbert (him of the Peak) and so it ended up in Hubbert’s Energy Resources report in 1962…

Categories
Agnotology Denial Propaganda United States of America

September 14, 1993 – scientists suffer backlash (not outa thin air though)

Thirty years ago, on this day, September 14, 1993, the New York Times reports on industry efforts to intimidate scientists into shutting up.

As the Clinton Administration prepares to announce in the next few weeks a plan for controlling waste industrial gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, conservatives and industry groups have mounted a renewed assault on the idea that global warming is a serious and possibly catastrophic threat.

Stevens, W. 1993. Scientists Confront Renewed Backlash on Global Warming. New York Times, September 14.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Clinton had already lost the BTU energy tax battle and was trying to recover some reputation by proposing other forms of CO2 legislation. But crucially those members of the coalition that had defeated the BTU were not downing weapons, they were up for another fight, to consolidate the break, as they say in tennis…

What I think we can learn from this is that at-will lose the opponents of action are gonna keep coming at you. And they learn from both their defeats and victories…

What happened next

The industry goons’ next famous victory was rendering Kyoto meaningless before it even 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.

Categories
Media United States of America

September 13, 1976 – US news broadcast on ozone and climate.

Forty seven years ago, on this day, September 13, 1976, a major US news network did a story on climate change.

“On September 13, 1976, ABC’s Jules Bergman did a two minute 10 second story on a National Academy of Sciences committee report on the damage done by fluorocarbons (from aerosol spray cans) to the ozone layer of the earth’s atmosphere. Like most fluorocarbon/ ozone stories, this one cited the medical dangers of increased skin cancers, but in this case, the committee said that the most dangerous result might be a warming of the earth’s poles.” 

Sachsman, 2000 The Role of Mass Media in Shaping Perceptions and Awareness of Environmental Issues

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that journalists were, by 1976. very sensitised to the climate issue. There was the prolonged drought in the United Kingdom. Stephen Schneider had released “the Genesis Strategy,” and had made various appearances on the Johnny Carson Show. So getting the climate issue into a discussion of ozone was not that much of a stretch.

What I think we can learn from this is that decent journalists will give you a tolerably accurate version of the truth. You may need to reframe some of the factoids, but especially if it’s the business press, you will more or less be able to figure what’s going on. For all the good it will do you. 

We have known for 50 years that there was serious trouble ahead – longer in fact, but really from the early mid 70s both the theory and the evidence were coming together… And here we are.

What happened next

In 1977 the National Academy of Science released its report. George Brown managed to Shepherd the climate protection act or whatever it was called into law Carter signed this time next year ear and there was a flurry of newspaper articles and presumably television reports about the dangers of continuing to rely on coal and here we are.

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.

Categories
Australia Coal

 September 12, 2003 – Newcastle Herald thinks the future of coal looks ‘cleaner’…

Twenty years ago, on this day, September 12, 2003, the Newspaper Herald, in the heart of New South Wales coal country, reports on coal industry leaders promising cleaner coal…

ANY “sunset” scenario for the Hunter’s coal industry would be a cleaner one, industry leaders said yesterday.

Using Coal21, a paper put together by the state and federal governments as a starting point, panellists looked at whether the billion dollar industry had a use-by date a “sunset”.

NSW Minerals Council executive director John Tucker said many in the industry believed the move to more diverse energy sources would start to occur in big numbers in 40 to 50 years.

Hennessy, C. 2003. Future Of Coal Looks `cleaner’. The Newcastle Herald,13 September

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 375ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Australia was in the middle of an enormous minerals boom  and becoming very wealthy indeed. Mind you not everyone – the Gini Coefficient was going up and up the minerals boom included coal exports. The fear that eventually there would be restrictions on coal use meant that there were all kind of wheezes about “clean coal” and forums were being carried out. This was one of them.

What I think we can learn from this is that a lipstick will always be found if the pig is particularly valuable. That is to say people will always try to slap the word clean or green or sustainable on whatever on very unclean ungreen unsustainable crap that they are doing. Partly so they can sleep at night, partly so they can recruit more people into the industry, get investors. And partly to make it harder to regulate them.

And there are entire industries made up of individuals and companies who will assist in this lipsticking. And we want to believe those lies, because then we don’t have to do anything particularly difficult or uncomfortable, we can just go with the flow and still get what we want.

What happened next

Twenty years later they are still selling coal from the Hunter. And we’re all going to die. Why? Because these coal mines are death factories.

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.

Categories
Chile

September 11, 1973 – CIA coup topples Chilean democracy

Fifty years ago, on this day, September 11, 1973, the planes started bombing the Parliament, the troops started shooting, and the elected leader of Chile, Salvador Allende, was killed.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Allende had been in the rifle sites for a while. “Make the economy scream”, Nixon had said. Meanwhile, various theorists of technology were trying to figure out how you could have the advantages of automation computers feedback loops without creating a dictatorship of the higher order. So how could technology be used to make smarter more democratic decisions? One of the people thinking in these terms was Stafford Beer who was trying to get a program around this going in in Chile. Would it have worked? Almost certainly not. But it would have been nice to learn from the failures and try again and again until there were ways it could succeed? Yes.

What I think we can learn from this is that in general socialist democracy scared the s*** out of Nixon, Kissinger ITT etc. The threat of a good example and all that… And it reminds me of that anecdote from Carl Rogers about the experimental factory where profits remain high but managers realise they would have to give up a lot of their power and they don’t want to.

What happened next is that Pinochet ruled until 1990. He made the mistake of holding a referendum, believing he was popular… He was then pursued legally and and of course the Blair government was never going to let him be extradited to Spain because they were doing what the Americans wanted. Pinochet would have blown the gaff and put the spotlight on Nixon who by this time was dead but also on Kissinger who was still very much alive. There would have been teachable moments about  the CIA and its behaviour. 

Stafford Beer, well he died in 2002. Cybersyn never took off.

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

See also https://www.academia.edu/23198933/A_critique_of_pure_cybernetic_reason_the_Chilean_experience_with_cybernetics

Categories
Japan Ozone

September 10, 1973- Ozone concerns on display in Kyoto…

Fifty years ago, on this day, September 10, 1973 

During the early 1970s, the space shuttle was being developed by NASA in the United States. The first significant elaboration of the chlorine-ozone layer hypothesis was offered at a scientific gathering in Kyoto, Japan on 10,11 and 12 September 1973, when Richard Stolarski and Ralph Cicerone, both from the University of Michigan, presented the findings from their research.

(Rowlands,1995: 48 [Cicerone in 2001 was head of NAS, when Dubya Bush asked for review of IPCC]

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 329.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that while the question of Ozone depletion caused by SSTs (supersonic transports) such as Concorde had already been a “hot” scientific and political issue it was going to be less of one with the shuttle because by definition they were not going to be many of them. But it was part of the general upsurge of awareness about global atmospheric consequences of human activity and Kyoto, well… 26 years later Kyoto would be by the first test of the climate treaty.

What I think we can learn from this stuff has a long history. I don’t particularly rate this blog post though so rough cicerone pops up elsewhere you could make something about that.

What happened next

The shuttle programme finally got underway officially in 1981 but two shuttles were lost which is about in line with what you’d expect given how is all put together and designed. Was it worth the Enormous cost to put some clowns in on the moon as it were is there really a good case for humans in space it’s not at all clear to me that it’s worth it.

Rowland and Molina were doing their thing – 

By December [1973], Rowland and Molina had completed their calculations, and in June 1974 their paper was published in Nature. The results of their research were startling, but as Rowland recalled afterward, “There was no moment when I yelled ‘Eureka!’ I just came home one night and told my wife, ‘The work is going every well, but it looks like the end of the world.’”

(Oppenheimer & Boyle, 1990: 44) 

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.

Categories
Activism Coal United Kingdom

September 10, 2008 – Greenpeace Kingsnorth protesters acquitted

Fifteen years ago, on this day, September 10, 2008, Greenpeace who had occupied the Kingsnorth power station were acquitted – a jury found them not guilty.

It’s been a pretty unusual ten days but today has been truly extraordinary. At 3.20pm, the jury came back into court and announced a majority verdict of not guilty! All six defendants – Kevin, Emily, Tim, Will, Ben and Huw – were acquitted of criminal damage.

To recap on how important this verdict is: thedefendantscampaigners were accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to Kingsnorth smokestack from painting. The defence was that they had ‘lawful excuse’ – because they were acting to protect property around the world “in immediate need of protection” from the impacts of climate change, caused in part by burning coal.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/kingsnorth-trial-breaking-news-verdict-20080910

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Greenpeace activists had been pushing against coal with so-called “CCS ready” status. Climate campers had camped out first at Drax power station in 2006 and then at Kingsnorth in 2008. Just before this acquittal more broadly the Brown government was trying to to get carbon capture and storage technology going partly in order to save the world.

What I think we can learn from this is that for successful social acceptance of new technology you’re probably going to need environmentalists on board. But it’s not clear to me that they will ever be particular fans of CCS.

What happened next

 The first CCS competition kind of fizzled out in 2011 the second one was abruptly plug pulled in 2015 and then there was a massive work of re sanctifying CCS in 2016/17/18.

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..