Author: drmarchudson

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United Nations United States of America

April 15, 1974 – war criminal Henry Kissinger gives climate danger speech

Forty nine years ago, on this day, April 15, 1974, war criminal, sorry “Secretary of State” Henry Kissinger gave a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. It used a security frame around climate change (which at that stage was not ascribed just (or even at all) to carbon dioxide build-up – plain old dust was also seen as a culprit).

 Kissinger Speech at 1974, the sixth special session of the General Assembly (which called on WMO to undertake a study of climate change). “The poorest nations, already beset by man-made disasters, have been threatened by a natural one: the possibility of climatic changes in the monsoon belt and perhaps throughout the world.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The US had been trying to use environmental concerns as a way of distracting from or re-dressing (but not redressing) concerns about its military activities (a euphemism for napalming babies).  So, Nixon had tried to get NATO to look at environmental problems – see Hamblin’s book “Arming Mother Nature.”.

And here we still were, with Nixon mired in the Watergate scandal that would force his resignation within months, with Kissinger trying a different angle.

What I think we can learn from this

“Climate change” was, is and will be a political football. That does not mean it is not real and very deadly.

What happened next

One amusing outcome was that Kissinger’s speech was used as ammunition by Nugget Coombs, Australian civil servant (retired by this stage) to get the Whitlam Government to request the Australian Academy of Science to look into the issue.  The AAS did this – holding a conference of experts, including Hermann Flohn.

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
United States of America

April 15, 1965 – Murray Bookchin warns about carbon dioxide build-up

Forty nine years ago, on this day, April 15, 1965, Murray Bookchin’s second book “Crisis in Our Cities” becomes one of the first to contain a warning about the long-term build up of carbon dioxide.

On page 187 we have this – 

And this –  “Meteorologists believe that the immediate effect of increased heat leads to violent air circulation and increasingly destructive storms….  theoretically, after several centuries of fossil-fuel combustion, the increased heat of the atmosphere could even melt the polar ice caps of the earth and lead to the inundation of the continents with sea water.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.  

The context was

Herber (real name Murray Bookchin) had written about “Our Synthetic Environment in 1962, ahead of the publication of Rachel Carson’s far more influential “Silent Spring.”

This, his second book, mentioned the danger of climate change.  I will try to dig into it more, but I strongly suspect Bookchin will have read the Conservation Foundation’s report on its March 1963 meeting about the C02 problem, held in New York.

The timing was good too – just two months earlier, in his special address to Congress, President Lyndon Johnson had name-checked carbon dioxide build-up.

What I think we can learn from this

Educated people have known for yonks.
Bookchin had to operate under a pseudonym because he was (checks notes) … an anarchist…

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.

Categories
United States of America

April 14, 1964 – RIP Rachel Carson

Sixty nine years ago, on this day, April 14, 1964,  Rachel Carson died. Her second book, based on three long articles in The New Yorker, was Silent Spring. It is surely one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. ,

The context was

Carson had written a previous book, on the oceans, in which she mentioned that the Arctic climate was warming. However,  her work on “Silent Spring” serialised in three long articles in The New Yorker was a publishing sensation, coming just as a series of anxieties about the consequences – social and environmental – around the 1950s boom were coming to a head.

By this time, Carson was already seriously unwell with the cancer that was to kill her.  She was, of course, ferociously attacked by the chemicals industry and its allies. This is what happens…

What I think we can learn from this

Vale Rachel Carson!!

Her enemies were instructive.

Other doom-critics were less guarded in their attacks. Few were more indignant than Thomas R. Shepard, Jr., the publisher of Look magazine. In his remarkable 1973 book The Doomsday Lobby, coauthored with Melvin Grayson, he clearly allowed outrage to divert him from the path of reason. Particular invective was reserved for Silent Spring. The book was, the two men argued, an attack on the business establishment, an attack on scientific and technological progress, an attack on the United States, and an attack on man himself.  Millions of Americans had bought the book “as avidly as the buxom hausfraus of Bavaria had bought the garbage of Adolf Hitler, and for much the same reason.”

(McCormick, 1991:85) Reclaiming Paradise

See also Lewis Herber (aka Murray Bookchin), who wrote a book called “Our Synthetic Environment” covering the same territory. See here for more info – https://blog.oup.com/2015/08/murray-bookchin-climate-change/

And see tomorrow’s post for Herber/Bookchin’s next book, in 1965…

What happened next

DDT came under the microscope, and went from more-or-less wonder chemical to pariah in 8 years…

The global environment movement took off in 1968/9

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
United States of America

April 13, 1968 – the New Yorker glosses air pollution, mentions carbon dioxide

Fifty five years ago, on this day, April 13, 1968, the New Yorker ran an article about air pollution

“One example of the state of the debate is an article on air pollution in the New Yorker in 1968. It devoted one paragraph to global climate change, which concluded: “The average person, however, is not worrying about melting ice caps when he looks up at the murky sky but is simply wondering what the air is doing to him.” Iglauer, Edith, “The Ambient Air,” New Yorker, April 13, 1968, pp. 51-70, quote from p. 51.”.  

(Hart, 1992, p30, footnote 66)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 325ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

People were just beginning to move from local pollution (air, water etc) issues to global/systemic ones, from individual incidents (Torrey Canyon etc) to one of ‘everything is at risk’. This pivot was really 1968/1969…

What I think we can learn from this

We knew?  Or rather, from the late 1960s, you had to expend more effort in not knowing…

What happened next

From 1969 to 1972, “the environment” was all around us (see what I did there?).  Then it went away as an issue but not as a problem.  This is what happens. Mankind can only bear a little truth…

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

Hart, D. (1992) Strategies of Research Policy Advocacy: Anthropogenic Climatic Change Research, 1957-1974.  Belfer Centre, https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/disc_paper_92_08.pdf

Categories
Australia Business Responses Economics of mitigation

April 12, 1993 – “environmental economics” gets a puff piece

Thirty years ago, on this day, April 12, 1993, “environmental economics” returned as one of those “win-win” myths we like to believe, in the pages of the Canberra Times.

Environmental issues hardly rated a mention during the recent election campaign. This should not be taken to suggest there is no interest in such issues, just that economics appears to have been the dominant issue of the day.

Nor should it be taken as suggesting that economics and the environment are separate and distinct issues; they are not. The interaction of economics and the environment is taking on increasing importance, with one indicator being the rethinking that is going on about the way environmental regulations are being administered, including greater thought being given to the use of market-based approaches to environmental regulation.

One of the most prominent of the market-based approaches involves the use of tradeable emission permits, in effect using market mechanisms to encourage business to reduce its pollution output.

Davis, B. 1993. Enviro-economics gathers respectability. Canberra Times, 12 April, p.11.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The green ‘surge’ of 1988 to 1991 or so was a distant memory. But people like Brent Davis, director of trade and policy research with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, were still thinking about how the circle could be squared.

“Ecological modernisation” was not yet an academic buzzword, but it was coming….

What I think we can learn from this

We have various fairy stories of how  “we” can keep having everything we want without consequences (a form of cakeism).  These are very seductive and contagious stories

What happened next

A second attempt at a carbon tax was defeated in early 1995. Thereafter attention switched to tradeable emissions quotas and emissions trading schemes etc etc.  Which really achieved a lot, oh yes.

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
Interviews

Interview with Sophie Gabrielle about memes vs Armageddon….

Interview with the person behind @CodeRedEarth

  1. Who are you, when did you first think of climate change “wow, this could be seriously bad news”?

I’m a nearly retired woman, who used to do web design and owned social media quote sites.

I’ve been aware of the Climate problem since the late 1970’s. My father was a Civil Engineer who worked for the government and he designed some of the first solar panels on government buildings in Canada *old style rubber tubing, and so there were discussions about energy conservation and sustainability in my family home. I remember writing an essay in high school on the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest. I became a “mostly vegan” in the 1980’s because I believed our agricultural systems were not sustainable. I would tell people that and I’d get a blank stare, but now it is understood to be the truth.

I went to University to study Nutrition and Biochemistry at Guelph and I was very interested in aspects of food production relating to veganism. It had a very good agricultural college and I was what they call an “Aggie” – as the food and nutrition program was part of that. I left University at the end of my 3rd year to raise my child and never went back. She had special needs and I wanted to be with her all the time growing up. I wanted to focus on her.

It hit me how bad it had become, the Climate Emergency, when I came on Twitter in 2016, I started reading more articles from independent journalists. When they called Code Red at the UN I started to read even more – started following more and more of the scientists and activists and then it really hit me. The thought was that this is “way out of control” and if I didn’t really understand – others didn’t yet know.

2. When did you start gaining expertise in memes/image making, and when did you decide to ‘specialise’ in climate emergency stuff?

When I was raising my daughter I started studying on my own web design and graphics. It was at first a hobby. For fun I created an ecard site for people connecting online – many romantic greeting cards and pop culture cards such as Austin Powers.. I got noticed by one of our big papers and got suddenly very popular and I just kind of went with it. I designed myspace layouts and had quote sites. I made a bit of money of the ads and I also worked the retail trade as a manager.

I had not made graphics for about a decade until I came on Twitter. First I was meme’ing the fascism in the States. Like many, Trump’s election threw me into a state where I seemed to need to know what was going on. How did this happen? Is the world really this far gone? I joined Twitter the day after he got elected. Then I realized it wasn’t the real big issue here. That yes, the fascism is of course horrifying but it has nothing on the Climate Emergency, so I switched gears.

3. What are some of your memes that you’re proudest of and why (technical difficulty, the impact they had etc).

I’m highly critical of my design work – honestly. I’m the first to say I’m a self-taught hack and I do “borrow” some imagery. If you see a crazy collage though with people on top of melting icebergs – that’s all mine. I make those when I just want to go somewhere calm. They are kind of like my knitting. A lot of work but the actual work is quite relaxing.

I just hope I honor the people and truth I meme. And I hope it helps people understand that might not know how bad it is and keep the narrative alive on Twitter and other places about what we are actually facing here.

What memes I find popular are when the scientists speak out about how bad it is. Those seem to be some of my most popular memes. I think I see an even greater increase in popularity lately. It’s a hard paradigm shift to go from believing a lot of the propaganda out there and then getting to the real truth about it. It isn’t like people don’t know there is a problem but when they see the “rates of change” and find out things like the models don’t include feedbacks and such – a lot of people are probably surprised like I once was. When they realize it is true they want to share. I think it’s important we still keep sharing as we hopefully continue to get more active out in the world with protest.

I do personally love to do digital portraits of activists and journalists etc. I follow. Some of the scientists are surprised to be meme’d and I’m thinking – oh my God you are heroes to the world. They should be our celebrities. Same with the activists. Scientists are becoming more and more active – I love this. We need to lift up their voices because main media won’t. . People who are organizing protest like Roger Hallam , those are the voices I love to meme for example as well. . Anybody who speaks the truth I might meme. You don’t have to be famous. I’m really impressed by the wisdom and hearts of people who really want to help and have taken the time to understand. My heart aches somedays at how hard we are all trying. I can sometimes break down in the middle of a meme, or reading a tweet.

4. What advice would you give other meme-makers?

I wouldn’t. Because I’m not professionally trained. I used to hang in a graphics room with a bunch of professional designers and they gave me some advice, but then I never seem to follow it. I guess I’m just stubborn. But anyone CAN make a meme and for free. I’m working on a cheap ASUS computer and I use a site called pixlr.com . It’s free! If you like to play with words – all you need is a background.

5. What is the number one thing that (Australian?) politicians don’t understand about climate change?

Oh I’m of the mind that the politicians know just as much as we do , even more sometimes. I don’t think any of them are dullards. I just think they are ambitious. I think they are just in the “game of politics” – that power is their thing . I’m with Greta and many others that politicians are not going to save us. They service corporate power. This is the bane and tragedy of neoliberal politics for decades where we’ve let the market economy trump science and nature and human well being and here we are. “Fire, famine, toil and flood. Plastic in a baby’s blood.”

6. What next for you (and anything else you’d like to say).

I have no idea what’s next. I’ve never had a plan here. I just go from day to day. Sometimes things go awry and I think – oh this could be it, I might not be able to continue. But a miracle always seems to come and I do want to continue. I want to get involved more locally and with protests. That’s one of my goals.

6. Anything else?

No. I just want people to keep going to try to fight to save life. Everything matters in this moment. Follow the science. Understand the science of our survival. Let’s build up our resistance and create some change. Keep telling the hard truths out there

Categories
Upcoming events

Mon 17th April -psychologists to launch “Living with the Climate Crisis” project

Below is a press release. Please post it to any journalists you know, on list-servs etc etc.

There’s an interview with Ro Randall about this here.

Psychologists launch “Living with the Climate Crisis” project

For immediate release

On Monday 17th April psychologists, psychotherapists and activists come together to launch a new resource to  help people cope with – and do something about – climate change.  The Living with the climate crisis (1) project will be launched at 19.00 online.  The project provides supportive group settings where people can explore their feelings of anxiety, grief and despair, talk about what to do and plan for action that is personally sustainable. 

One of the project’’s authors, psychotherapist Ro Randall said: 

“The climate crisis affects us all and produces powerful emotional reactions. These groups will help people find their way through the maelstrom of painful feelings and support them in taking part in those actions – politically, in their communities and amongst their friends and families – that feel right for them.”

The Living with the climate crisis materials are released under a creative commons licence by the Climate Psychology Alliance (2)  and the hope of the authors is that these will be adapted for local circumstances. Further support will be available to facilitators and community groups who take up the project. 

Contact:

Rosemary Randall ro@rorandall.org – 07796 673148

Rebecca Nestor rebecca@rebeccanestor.co.uk 07702 577929

Daniela dfcatherall@googlemail.com 07932 398069 


Notes for editors

  1. Living with the climate crisis launched online at 7pm on Monday 17th April. People can sign up via the following link https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-of-living-with-the-climate-crisis-tickets-576956631817
  1. Climate Psychology Alliance was established in 2010. It is a diverse community of therapeutic practitioners, thinkers, researchers, artists and others. Its members believe that attending to the psychology and emotions of the climate and ecological crisis is at the heart of their work.  Its website is at  https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/
Categories
Activism Sea level rise United Kingdom

April 11, 1989 – “Ark” sinks its cred

Thirty four years ago, on this day, April 11, 1989, the flash-in-the-pan UK environment group “Ark” released a report about potential sea level rise that tanked its credibility

1989 Ark Sea-level rise report, “by 2050″…

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 355.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Ark, launched in December 1988, was trying to outflank the existing outfits like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. It needed big claims to grab attention… Ooops.

What I think we can learn from this

It is hard to join a “cartel” and big big claims may grab attention, but they can also come with a big big downside.

What happened next

Ark crashed and sank, within months.

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
Business Responses United States of America

April 10, 2013 –  US companies pretend they care, make “Climate Declaration”

Ten years ago, on this day, April 10, 2013, US companies tried to make it look like they care.

 “Thirty-three major U.S. companies, including eBay Inc., Nike and Limited Brands met in Washington DC on April 10th 2013 to unveil the Climate Declaration, urging federal policymakers to take action on climate change and asserting that a bold response to the climate challenge is one of the greatest American economic opportunities of the 21st century.” 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

On November 20 2008  something called “Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy” had been founded, created by one of these ‘responsible investment’ outfits (wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_for_Innovative_Climate_and_Energy_Policy).

What I think we can learn from this

Companies that sell directly to consumers always worry about their reputations, and “customer sentiment”.  Being “out in front” of an issue, especially if the demand is “government do something” is a handy way of having a defense ready if the greenies turn their attention to you.   

What happened next

The usual – new ‘ad hoc’ business groups form. Lots of excited, excitable and ahistoric hype gets bandied about. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat…

Occasionally, things like “cap and trade” schemes (and I mean they are schemes) are defended by the trusty arm of BICEP… https://www.ceres.org/news-center/blog/changing-game-climate-advocacy-bicep-10-years-strong

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
Agnotology United States of America

April 9, 2008 – US school student vs dodgy (lying) text books

Fifteen years ago, on this day, April 9, 2008, a US student saw that his text books were full of crap about climate change….

Talk about a civics lesson: A high-school senior has raised questions about political bias in a popular textbook on U.S. government, and experts say the teen’s criticism is well-founded…. 

LaClair said he was particularly upset about the book’s treatment of global warming. James Hansen, the director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, recently heard about LaClair’s concerns and has lent him some support.

Hansen has sent Houghton Mifflin a letter stating that the book’s discussion on global warming contained “a large number of clearly erroneous statements” that give students “the mistaken impression that the scientific evidence of global warming is doubtful and uncertain.”

The edition of the textbook published in 2005, which is in high school classrooms now, states that “science doesn’t know whether we are experiencing a dangerous level of global warming or how bad the greenhouse effect is, if it exists at all.”

Student sees political bias in high school text https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna24018762

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

The US has seen a particularly strong and virulent business obsession with schools for decades, not just back to the Powell memorandum, but back to the early days of the twentieth century (and earlier!).  One good book on this was Alex Carey “Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty

What I think we can learn from this

Hegemony is a thing. Capture young minds, miseducate them, undereducate them and the battle is largely won… (Clears throat because about to shout) – THEY WANT US TO BE STUPID BECAUSE STUPID PEOPLE ARE EASIER TO CONTROL AND MISLEAD.

What happened next

The war on the public mind continues. It has to.

See also this from 22nd December 2022-   College Biology Textbooks Make Little Mention of Climate Change, Study Shows https://e360.yale.edu/digest/climate-change-college-textbooks

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.