“Illustrative also would be the covering of much land by water should continuing population growth so step up man’s production of carbon dioxide that the oceans failed to absorb all of it, with the result that the carbon dioxide content, and hence the temperature, of the atmosphere rose sufficiently to melt the polar ice caps.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319 check ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by the late 1950s carbon dioxide build-ups existence and possible long term consequences was not confined to a tiny tiny minority. Anyone who read a newspaper, could understand exponential growth and 19th century could see that there might be some writing on the wall…
What I think we can learn from this
We knew enough to think about worrying.
What happened next?
No economist bothered to think about the problem until Nordhaus in the 1970s.
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 six years ago, on this day, May 19, 1997 BP’s boss backs away from denial
“The overlapping and nesting of organizational fields implies that developments in one country or industry can disrupt the balance of forces elsewhere. For example, the landmark speech by British Petroleum’s Group Chief Executive, John Browne on 19 May 1997 represented a major fissure in the oil industry’s position, which bore implications for other industries in Europe and in the USA”
(Levy and Egan, 2003: 820)
“There is now an effective consensus among the world’s leading scientists and serious and well informed people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the climate and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature … it would be unwise and potentially dangerous to ignore the mounting concern.”
He added: “If we are to take responsibility for the future of our planet, then it falls to us to begin to take precautionary action now.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Global Climate Coalition had been getting rougher and rougher on the climate science, especially around the Second Assessment Report of the IPCC, and that had made some businesses nervous about the reputational risk. In the UK the new Blair Government probably wasn’t going to be terribly impressed by BP’s continued membership of the GC. There had already been defections. And so Browne, bless him, decided to put a very, very positive spin, in every sense, on the issue.
What I think we can learn from this
Capitalism is not a monolith. The fossil fuel sector is not a monolith. The oil industry is not a monolith. But we also learn, surely, that just because they’re not monolithic – on politics and presentation – doesn’t mean their actual strategies diverge very much.
What happened next
And BP is, as an article published in The Guardian on the day that I’ve narrated this, still, of course, spending much more on hydrocarbons than renewables, because they are not an energy company. They are a fossil fuel company. And if they have convinced you otherwise, best maybe to take another look.
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.
Senator David Boren comes out against BTU tax, after Burson Marstellar astroturf campaign (see Agrawala and Andressen, 1999: 470)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There had been enormous – and ultimately successful – local lobbying efforts. Boren had been picked off, in a kind of Serengeti strategy thing, but in the political sphere rather than the scientific. And this really spells the end for Clinton’s BTU.
What I think we can learn from this is that the opponents of climate action, smart, determined, strategic and well funded. These characteristics do not necessarily apply to the proponents of action, unfortunately.
What happened next
Clinton had to kill the BTU energy tax. And that was basically it for Clinton and domestic climate action (imo). It also meant that the opponents of action really had good proof of concept, and presumably, the Australians were looking at this and saying, “that’s how it’s done.”
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 18, 2006, American denialists tried to confuse the public, again.
Following the release of the film, An Inconvenient Truth, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a group funded in part by ExxonMobil, launches an advertisement campaign welcoming increased carbon dioxide pollution. “Carbon dioxide: They call it pollution, we call it life,” the ad says. [Competitive Enterprise Institute, 5/2006; New York Times, 9/21/2006]
May 18, 2006-May 28, 2006: Global Warming Skeptic Organization Launches Pro- Greenhouse Gas Advertising Campaign
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth was coming out, and therefore the denialists wanted to be able to get journalists to quote “an opposing view” for what is laughably called “balance.” And so they reused their “greening Earth co2 is plant food” claim because it’s simple, and seems commonsensical.
What I think we can learn from this
And this is part of the manipulation of the media that had already been identified by Boykoff and Boykoff in 2004 – “Balance as Bias”. This is a classic example of the way that cashed-up and well-connected entities can game the system. And of course, if their views aren’t quoted, people can then flak the journalist and say “classic liberal censorship,” “echo chamber,” et cetera. So it’s a win win.
What happened next
The CEI kept doing this bullshit, without shame, without remorse, because that’s who these people 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.
Seventy years ago, on this day, May 18, 1953, the American weekly magazine Newsweek ran a snippet about the ‘carbon dioxide is building up and we should watch out’ statement of Gilbert Plass at the American Geophysical Union (see May 5)
Newsweek; New York Vol. 41, Iss. 20, (May 18, 1953): 75 https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1953-05-18_41_20/page/74/mode/2up?view=theater
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 313ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that two weeks previously, Gilbert Plass had made some very eye-catching statements at the American Geophysical Union that had been picked up and broadcast. This is the first report by Newsweek that I can find and it was followed shortly after, by something from Time.
What I think we can learn from this
This is the moment in which the carbon dioxide theory of climate change really starts to enter into popular discourse. The context was that people were sure the world was getting hotter. It was a question of why.
What happened next
Plass did his scientific work and in 1955/56 released papers about the carbon dioxide theory of climate. There was a further paper in Scientific American in 1959. There’s a direct line between Plass and Guy Callendar with whom Plass corresponded.
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.
The weekly interviews resume! A couple of weeks ago I met a wonderful person at a very good public meeting. She kindly agreed to answer some questions…
a) Who are you? Where were you born, where did you grow up and when did you first start to think that there were serious environmental problems ahead? Was it a book, a TV show, a friend?
I am a baby boomer, born in 1947 in Adelaide.
b) When did you first become aware of the climate element of the environmental problems, and how.
I had assumed that one day I might have a child or two, but when a colleague introduced me to books he was using as resources to teach geography in 1971, I started reading them: The Club of Rome’s ‘The Limits to Growth’ and ‘The Population Bomb’ amongst them. Paul Erlich visited South Australia around that time and has been several times since on speaking tours and, each time, I have been to hear him. He is utterly inspiring, and he was absolutely correct in his predictions in the late 1960s, for which he was derided at the time.
c) You mentioned that you chose not to have children because of the population crisis. That must have struck a lot of people as crazy, back then. What sorts of responses did you get. Given that you were only a woman, in an intensely patriarchal society, presumably a lot of the responses involved telling you you’d change your mind, that you were being hysterical etc etc?
I subsequently married the above mentioned colleague and we decided that, knowing what we knew, it would be irresponsible of us to make more people. At that time the ZPG movement was quite strong in South Australia, and we hoped that it might result in some sensible population policies from our government. It didn’t!. It fizzled. And since then I have been gob-smacked to go to environmental rallies where I see youngish couples trailing a swarm of children behind them. Don’t they understand that you can’t have a small footprint if you make more feet?! Several of our friends also realised, in the 70s and 80s, that population was a serious issue, but all of them eventually bred, leaving us on our own to bear the comments and criticism, such as being labelled selfish!!!!! Personally, I can’t think of an unselfish reason for having children. In fact, we both joined a short course being run by a woman doing research for her PhD on ‘voluntary child-free couples’. Most of the participants said they would probably have children, many of them saying they wanted to have someone to look after them in their old age!!!! They deserve to have their children migrate to the moon!
d) We don’t seem to have made a lot of progress, as a species, on these problems. What do you think are the reasons for that, and what is there that we could/should still do differently?
No. We haven’t made a lot of progress on population. I have had people say things like: ‘What difference can one person make?’ I saw a wonderful little cartoon a few years ago, showing a large crowd of people, each with an individual thought bubble above their head with the words ‘what can one person do?’
Movements like GetUp have started to shift awareness in certain sections of the population and created a movement in which we can pool our energy and resources to make a difference (so much so that Murdoch’s media have run relentless campaigns to bad-mouth us). I have also tried to explain to my friends, when asked where I’m going for my next holiday, that I haven’t had a passport for over 20 years and I don’t fly because it’s not good for the environment, to which some have replied: ‘I’m not giving up my OS holidays!’ However, they are all keen to look at my newly acquired Hyundai Ioniq 5 EV, and that is a great introduction to the whole subject of trying to save the planet.
e) anything else you’d like to say.
It seems to me that the problem is so big that people can’t relate to it personally, or understand that a small change in their habits could make a contribution. When the east coast of Australia burned so fiercely in 2019, 2020 and 2021, and then flooded devastatingly, it woke up a lot of people. We’re going to see a lot more of those events. The most recent federal election was really encouraging in that so many ‘safe’ Liberal seats were lost to independent candidates standing for the environment. So it’s not all doom and gloom, although I’m glad that I’m not likely to be around for more than another 20 years, but I fear for future generations.
Fifty one years ago, on this day, May 17, 1972, the “Grey Lady” reported some basic facts.
“The continued use of fossil fuels at projected levels will mean a 20 per cent increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere by the year 2000, a leading meteorologist predicted today.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Stockholm climate conference, four years in the making, was about to begin. And there were a significant number – a very small but significant number – of climate scientists and atmospheric scientists looking at carbon dioxide levels and saying “ this could be the problem.” As this site has demonstrated, by 1969/70 lots of people were being exposed to this, both politicians, but also readers of magazines and newspapers.
What I think we can learn from this
Even before the 1972 conference, there was significant awareness and concern.
What happened next
The Stockholm conference did give us the United Nations Environment Program, smaller than hoped for with less power and money. But nonetheless, UNEP was crucial in helping scientists do the research that was needed through the 70s and 80s, or rather, to get them talking to each other, across geographical more than disciplinary boundaries…
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.
The Howard Government’s Energy White Paper is an energy white elephant.
The Senate Inquiry into the Energy White Paper has concluded the Energy White Paper will delay critical action on climate change for another twenty years.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Anthony Albanese had an interest in the environmental issues and Labor were trying to use Howard’s recalcitrance and opposition to climate action as a stick to beat him with. The energy white paper in 2004 had been a gift to the fossil fuel lobby, there had been a Senate report about the White Paper and this is what Albanese was using.
What I think we can learn from this is that in any parliamentary system, there are games and counter-games between the government of the day and the opposition. And there are various scrutiny and watchdog outfits that can produce reports which are useful both to researchers but also politicians and NGOs who are contesting the government’s actions.
What happened next
Howard brushed it all off. Eventually the climate issue, in the second half of 2006, became an issue that he couldn’t brush 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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 393.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was the UK climate “movement.” for want of a better word, had basically collapsed with the failure of Copenhagen because all the eggs had been put in the “let’s have a big march in London in December” basket; the so-called “Wave”. Climate Camp had been neutered as a Radical Space and everything was turning to shit; and this was before the revelation of all the undercover cops.
What I think we can learn from this
The collapse of morale and organisational capacity in the aftermath of some big international defeat is entirely predictable and was in fact predicted with regards to Copenhagen. These vigils remind me of the animals huddling together singing “Beasts of England” after they have witnessed the latest atrocity organised by the pigs – I’m talking about Animal Farm.
If we are to take citizen action seriously we should expect and even demand that organisers of groups warn members that everything is going is likely to turn to s*** and help them get ready for it. But as if. They’re hope-mongers, and that’s what they monger…
What happened next
The UK climate movement entered a long-term period of confusion.
Anti-fracking campaigns became the centre of attention, but the broader strategic remit was lost.
In 2018 the issue returned with the coming of the social movement organisation XR but by 2022 it was gone again…
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.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the prospects for action on climate change in the United States – at least at the federal level – were bleak af. Obama had not bothered to fight for the Democratic energy package and climate package, and wasn’t going to punch that tar baby again. The Copenhagen summit had revealed the weakness of the international process and there was more rising despair and rising apathy than Rising Tide.
What I think we can learn from this was
Activist groups are obsessed with “days of action”, perhaps because these give them a sense of punctuation for the meaning of building up to something. It’s not necessarily a bad mobilising tactic but it doesn’t automatically mean that you are movement-building when you are repeatedly mobilising. See my articles about the emotacycle.
What happened next
Rising Tide US I think is dead, but I could be wrong. There are a broad range of other groups sunrise movement etc etc who are are more in the news.
It’s important though to remember that those people who protested were right even if they lost and and that cannot be taken away.
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.
