Author: drmarchudson

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Science Scientists United Kingdom

July 7, 1988 – foolish “Jumping the greenhouse gun” editorial in Nature.

On this day in 1988, the editor of Nature, John Maddox kept going with his general harrumphing and ignorance of what the science was actually saying, with his “jumping the greenhouse gun” editorial. It drew responses from scientists Kenneth Hare and Kenneth Mellanby

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Maddox had been being aggressively wrong about climate change for a long time (1971 – on ABC television, for instance. And earlier.).

What I think we can learn from this

Old white men who have been in jobs a long time paint themselves into a corner and can’t find ways to back down gracefully, by saying the simple words “I was wrong.”

What happened next

Hare and Mellanby replied in Nature a couple of weeks later.

Also – for fans of obscure Meatloaf…

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

July 6, 1993 – Australian bipartisanship on climate? Not really…

Thirty years ago, on this day, July 6, 1993, the Canberra Times reported on how everyone had a beef with the Keating government on climate…

The agreement between Commonwealth and state and territory governments on broad environmental issues was widely criticised yesterday by both sides of the debate during an environmental law conference in Canberra

The chief protagonists were Phillip Toyne, former chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation and now Visiting Fellow at the ANU’s Centre for Environment law, and Dr Brian O’Brien, a Penh based consultant and physicist and former chairman of the WA Environmental Protection Authority. 

1993 Campbell, R. 1993. Both sides criticise green agreement. Canberra Times, 6 July, p.4.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Labour government of Paul Keating had just won the “unwinnable” election of 1993, despite the economy having been in the toilet. The ALP had been silent on the greenhouse issue, as had the Liberals, and the concern of 1988-1991 a distant memory.

What I think we can learn from this is that you can have two people attacking a government from “opposite perspectives” (so Toyne is a greenie and O’Brien as “nothing to see here everything is okay” kind of guy) but that doesn’t mean that the government is right. It can simply mean, as it does in this case, that one lot of critics are simply wrong. 

But we so often take triangulation as the safest course. And of course, “nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.”

What happened next

Toyne ended up as a civil servant, albeit briefly, trying to get a carbon tax through. O’Brien kept trading on his time with NASA. And being an ass. The carbon dioxide kept accumulating.

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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Uncategorized

July 5, 1973 – The Predicament of Mankind discussed

Fifty years ago, on this day, July 5, 1973, a Nobel laureate called Dennis Gabor gave a speech at Lindau on “The Predicament of Mankind.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 330ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that everyone was running around with a computer, either Malthus or otherwise, proclaiming Limits to Growth or the need for blueprints to survival especially by the year 2000 (odometer years are seductive things). And look, here comes some Nobel Prize winners to stroke their chins and either add to clarity or add to confusion. 

What I think we can learn from this

The thing that we should really remember about “Nobel Prize winner X”  or a “x Nobel Prize winners sign open letter” is just because they’re really really smart in one particular domain mean doesn’t mean that their self-confidence in that domain, let alone other domains, is necessarily justified. Because for every prescient warning at gatherings like Lindau, there was another one that was completely barking. As Nils Bohr said, prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.  

What happened next

The Lindau lot kept meeting. There have been highlights and lowlights. This year a guy on a manel bemoaned how hard it was for young white men…

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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Science

July 4, 1996 – article in Nature saying ‘it’s partly us’

Twenty seven years ago, on this day, July 4, 1996, in an issue of Nature, 

“Benjamin Santer, K.E. Taylor, Tom M. Wigley, and ten other researchers published an article that concluded: “The observed spatial patterns of temperature change in the free atmosphere from 1963 to 1987…are similar to those predicted by state-of-the-art climate models… It is likely that this trend is partially due to human activities,…”

Gelbspan, R. (1998) Page 220

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 365ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the IPCC second assessment report was coming out. And the authors of this article, especially Santer, had been attacked on spurious grounds repeatedly, publicly and viciously by demented [see addendum at foot of post] old men who were being funded by cynical fossil fuel interests. These assholes were at base, very well aware of the climate science, which was not really in dispute. 

What we learn again, there are no depths to which these mongrels, these monsters, will not stoop.

What happened next

Santer’s career continued. The science kept getting stronger. The Global Climate Coalition was able to fold in 2002 to having achieved its aims of stopping the US taking any serious climate action. 

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.

Addendum

A commenter has raised an eyebrow over the adjective demented, and they are 100% correct. It was simply wrong to throw a medical term around as an insult. It also medicalises and explains away a political decision. I will try to do better in future. If you, reader(s?) see other examples of dodgy thinking/language, feel free to drop me a line.

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Australia

4 July, 1957 – popular UK magazine The  Listener mentions carbon dioxide build-up

On this day in 1957, Sir Edward Appleton makes a passing reference to the possibility of climate change in an article about the International Geophysical Year in the magazine The Listener  – “For we do know this: that more carbon dioxide should help the atmosphere to trap more heat from the sun”.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 314.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context is that the International Geophysical Year was just beginning, and the BBC had just broadcast “The Restless Sphere”, hosted by Prince Philip. Meanwhile, in April the New Scientist had run a brief story on carbon dioxide.

What we can learn is that we knew enough to be worried, and to set up a proper watching brief. We didn’t.

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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Activism Australia Coal

July 3, 2008 – Greenpeace occupies an Australian coal plant.

Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 3, 2008, Greenpeace occupied Australia’s most polluting coal-fired power plant

“At dawn on July 3, 2008, 27 Greenpeace activists entered the 2,640 megawatts Eraring Power Station site north of Sydney to call for an energy revolution and take direct action to stop coal from being burnt. Twelve protesters shut down and chained themselves to conveyors while others climbed onto the roof to paint ‘Revolution’ and unfurled a banner reading ‘Energy Revolution – Renewables Not Coal’. The action preceded the Australian government’s climate change advisor Professor Ross Garnaut’s delivery of his Draft Climate Change Review on July 4. Police arrested 27.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the new Rudd Government had appointed economist Ross Garnaut to look at climate economics, and was also appointing other panels, there was going to be a lot of green papers and white papers and speeches. What Greenpeace were, quite rightly, saying is, well, if these speeches and policy papers don’t accelerate the closure of coal-fired monstrosities – death factories in James Hansen’s term – then they’re not worth that much. 

What I think we can learn from this

It’s so difficult for an NGO, or any set of NGOs really, to be both trying to engage in the finer points of policy and simultaneously making broader societal points. Because if you go out and do the radical stuff, you’ll find yourself uninvited and disinvited to the policy roundtables, or not taken seriously when you make serious points. All the more reason why you need a very broad-based, well-funded, set of organizations within a movement and that that movement has ways of discussing what counts as “selling out,” being caught up to being a fig leaf, and what counts as constructive engagement. And there’s never going to be the final solid answer and there will always be people who disagree. 

As of 2022, Eraring is still pumping out its death, but it is scheduled for final closure shortly.

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 Kingdom

July 3, 1986 – House of Lords debate about the atmosphere and fuel use…

Thirty seven years ago, on this day, July 3, 1986, there was a House of Lords debate on “the atmosphere and fuel use”

Lord Campbell of Croy was an interesting chap – “After being defeated by Winnie Ewing of the Scottish National Party at the February 1974 general election, Campbell was made a life peer as Baron Campbell of Croy, of Croy in the County of Nairn on 9 January 1975.[4] He became Chairman of the Scottish Board in 1976, and was Vice President of the Advisory Committee on Pollution at Sea from 1976 to 1984.”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Villach conference in September 1985 had created a real sense of urgency among climate scientists, and in the US, a small number of senators were trying to get the issue higher up the agenda. In April 1986 the catastrophe at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukraine had put the question of transboundary pollution on the map, and put a question mark over nuclear….

What I think we can learn from this 

Nuclear always causes a glow in a certain kind of heart…

What happened next

Two years later, everyone was talking about the greenhouse effect, even Thatcher.

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
Denial

July 2, 1993. Denialists versus the facts, again.

Thirty years ago, on this day, July 2, 1993, the FT reported on a conference where a long-suffering climate expert tried to correct the childish bullshit of Richard Lindzen and Pat Michaels

Conference Report: Global warming – fact or claim? FT Energy Newsletters – Power Europe July 2, 1993 Section: Pg. 3 The hothouse spectre of global warming from emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has become a driving force in the environmental policies of many countries. Flohn versus Lindzen and Michaels.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the UNFCCC had been agreed the previous year, and ratification by enough member states to make it a “thing” was proceeding quicker than had been thought. Meanwhile, the IPCC was working on its next assessment report. And the denialists kept on going.

What I think we can learn from this

Idiots going to idiot.

The debating technique known as a Gish Gallop.

What happened next

Lindzen and Michaels kept being idiots.

Flohn died in 1997.

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
Arctic

July 2, 1952 – Rachel Carson says Arctic warming

Seventy-one years ago today… Rachel Carson book The Sea Around Us is published. It includes observations (uncontroversial) on Arctic climate warming…

“It is now beyond question that a definite change in the arctic climate set in about 1900, that it became astonishingly marked about 1930, and that it is now spreading into sub-arctic and temperate regions. The frigid top of the world is very clearly warming up.”

After revising the completion date, Carson completed the manuscript in June 1950. By that time, several periodicals (The New Yorker, Science Digest, and The Yale Review) were interested in publishing some of the chapters.[6] Nine of fourteen chapters were serialized in The New Yorker beginning on June 2, 1951, and the book was published on July 2 1952 by Oxford University Press.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 312ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that in the 1950s DDT was good for you. As was Technology. Everything was going to be better living. And Carson came along and said ‘not so fast’… She wasn’t the only person to say this, but she said it well…

What I think we can learn from this

Resistance is fertile

What happened next

In 1962, when Silent Spring came out, the Chemicals industry, etc. went apeshit, unused to being challenged. Attacks of all sorts ensued. Of course. And have kept going…

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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Uncategorized

July 2, 2013 – Boris Johnson, expert on energy systems, attacks windfarms

Ten years ago, on this day, July 2, 2013, Boris defuckhead Johnson writes in his column in the Daily Telegraph “newspaper” that  “Wind farms couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding”

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was overpaid hack Boris Johnson needed to write a column. And attacking wind farms is always easy if you’re a conservative. Johnson, of course, didn’t bother to do any research. Why would he, that’s not what they were paying him for. You don’t ask a clown to have evidence based policy and you should not ask a clown to be Prime Minister or World King, Offshore wind was in a precarious position but was beginning to make headway.

OTHER OLD WHITE MEN

’ Mr Peter McGauran MP, the federal Minister for Agriculture and member for Gippsland, went further in June 2006, saying ‘Wind farms don’t live up to the hype that they’re the environmental saviour and a serious alternative energy source.

(Prest, 2007: 254)

ABC, 2006. Pete McGauran says wind farms a fraud. AM Program, 29 June. 2006

Old white men just can’t bear to be dependent (Hudson 2017)

What I think we can learn from this commentators especially right wing ones, can say any old fact-free shit that they like and suffer no consequences. Wind power now provides a decent (and climbing)  percentage of our electricity needs, on an annual basis in the UK. (Please note I am not advocating a 100% wind energy economy nobody is that’s a straw man. That’s a trap.)

What happened next

Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and by between the narrating of this and the uploading, probably Prime Minister again. [no, actually he is toast.] 

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.