Seventeen years ago, on this day, April 6, 2006, the Canadian culture wars kept going.
April 6th 2006 “open letter” of “60 experts” to Harper in Financial Post Page 93 of Climate Cover-Up?
“Last week 60 accredited experts in climate and related scientific disciplines wrote an open letter to the Canadian Prime Minister. They wrote to propose that balanced, comprehensive public-consultation sessions be held so as to examine the scientific foundation of the […] government’s climate-change plans.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There was a strong (and ultimately successful) effort to get Canada to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. This sort of thing, with the usual code words “balanced, comprehensive” was part of it.
What I think we can learn from this
Those who want to keep being rich, and don’t care if the planet burns down as a consequence, they’re persistent and skilful.
What happened next
Canada pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol, and is in a tussle with Australia for “shittiest climate criminal settler colony”.
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...
Fifty two years ago, on this day, April 5, 1971, a UK scientist gave an overview of “pollution in context to an assembled audience of the great and the good (and the mediocre and middling)
POLLUTION IN CONTEXT by MARTIN IV. HOLDGATE , PhD Director of the Central Unit of Environmental Pollution , Department of the Environment,* delivered on Monday 5th April 1971 Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 119, No. 5180 (JULY 1971), pp. 529-542
Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce
1. Naturalness One broad classification can be based on ‘naturalness’. Some substances that can be ‘pollutants’ occur naturally, and are widely dispersed in the world. Some are essential to life. Carbon dioxide is a good example: it is the foundation of photosynthesis by which green plants using solar energy create sugars. Without CO2 in the air, life as we know it could not exist on this planet. And much CO2 enters the air naturally through the respiration of living things and organic decay. Since 1890, man, burning fossil fuels (which are themselves a residue of undecomposed organic carbon that escaped conversion to CO2 long ago) has raised the CO2 level of the atmosphere from around 290 to 320 parts per million but in that same period the natural input has certainly greatly exceeded the artificial
(Holdgate, 1971: 530)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Everyone was talking about pollution – air, water, noise, you name it. Doomwatch was on the tellie, and the European Year of Conservation had just finished, with the big UN conference in Stockholm just over a year away.
What I think we can learn from this
Again, none of this is a secret. “We” “knew.” And then pushed it out of our minds, and then it had to be pushed back in. Then was pushed out again.
This has a name – the Issue Attention Cycle, as per Downs in 1972. But Robert Heilbroner had predicted this would be the case as early as April 1970…
What happened next
The attention died down, as people got bored/used to things, and then other (economic) problems came along.
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...
Below is an interview with Ro Randall, a psycho-analyst who has worked on climate issues extensively. She is one of the authors of a new “Living with the Climate Crisis” project, which will be launched on Monday 17th April. The transcript below has been lightly edited/airbrushed…
Marc 0:10
Great. So the first thing Rosemary, is what’s happening on Monday, the 17th of April, the launch?
Rosemary
Monday, the 17th of April is the launch of a new project called “Living with the Climate Crisis,” which I’ve been involved with as one of the main authors. And so, I’m a psychotherapist and I’ve been involved in the climate movement for about 20 years. And my interest has always been in what my profession can bring to the movement, that it doesn’t otherwise have. And primarily, that’s paying attention to how people feel when they engage with what is actually happening to the climate. Because in general, people’s experiences range through all kinds of feelings and distress:,anger, fear, desperation, despair, shock, grief, rage, anxiety.
You can go on, you can name a whole gamut of emotion. And very often, when you’re caught up in the urgency of action, those emotions get swept to one side. They go a bit under the carpet, and maybe it doesn’t feel possible to pay attention to them.
And so what this project is doing is promoting the establishment of groups, led by skilled facilitators, where people can take the time to do three things.
And the first is to look at what they’re feeling and to speak about the feelings that they’re having. And to try to find some resolution, some kind of resting place out of the grief, and the despair and the shock and all of the rest of it – a great range of feelings, I think.
The second is to learn a bit more about what is possible to do across a very broad spectrum of action. And there’s a focus partly on how to communicate better, that’s a big chunk of it, around climate – whether you’re speaking to your family and your close friends, or whether you’re speaking to a public meeting.
And the third bit of it is this sense of looking at the climate movement as an ecosystem, which requires all kinds of different people to be in it, and all kinds of different activities to be going on in it. And so the third part of these groups is looking at, what is it that you can do that is going to be sustainable, that you’re going to be able to be in for a long, long term? And that’s likely to be a mix of different things. And it’s likely to change as time goes on. And so the groups are looking at those kinds of issues. And our hope is that people will be able to come to these and use them in the communities that they’re already part of. We want this to be a locally-based activity rather than an online one. Although obviously, we’re holding the launch online because we reach more people that way.
So that’s essentially what the project’s about.
Marc
Thank you. And it emerged or, is a continuation of work that I know that you’ve been doing since 2007, with “Carbon Conversations.” So how does this work reflect on the successes and failures of Carbon Conversations? And what does it do that Carbon Conversations didn’t or couldn’t do?
Rosemary 4:15
In 2007, when we started the carbon conversations project, we were in the middle of a period of increased government commitment to action on climate change. Government was preparing the Climate Change Bill, which became the Climate Change Act. There was quite a lot of money around in local authorities and coming from government sources to promote community activity about climate change. And although, like all activists, I saw what the government was doing as inadequate, it was there. And it felt like the role for a community organisations was to work with our local communities and get people to understand the basics of what life needed to look like in a much lower carbon society, and to help people take the steps in that direction that they could in their own lives.
So the Carbon Conversations project brought people together to talk about the emotions associated with these major changes that we hoped were coming, and to start acting. And we created materials that could be used by just about anybody, with a short bit of training. Those groups were taken up nationally, and then internationally as a model of how to bring people together in communities.
But so much has changed since then. And so much needs to change because we have seen, since the failure of the Copenhagen negotiations in 2009 and the advent of a Conservative government, such backtracking on climate issues, that people coming to the climate movement now are facing different issues from those that were being faced then. Some issues are the same, some are more intense. And so we’ve been realizing for a time that the Carbon Conversations project had really run its course. It was a good thing in its time, but the materials were out of date, they weren’t dealing with the issues that were troubling people. And so we began to talk about what we could do instead.
In the new project, we’ve drawn together material from different workshops that we’ve run over the years, into a kind of coherent whole, that addresses these three questions I was talking about earlier; how do we cope with the feelings? How do we talk about this very difficult issue? How do we make our action sustainable?
And that’s what we came together to do with Rebecca Nestor, who’s been around in the climate movement for a long time herself, mostly in community action, and is an organisational consultant. And my third colleague is Daniela Fernandez-Catherall, who is a community psychologist with a lot of experience of working psychologically in the community, away from the consulting room, and engaging diverse groups in community action.
So it’s a shift of emphasis away from the carbon reduction aspects of climate issues, and into something which has much more focus on the well-being of activists and their capacities to continue to deliver in very difficult circumstances.
Marc
Thank you. So we’ve talked about the past, let’s talk about the future. Let’s say it’s Wednesday the 17th of April, 2024. And it’s a year after the launch of “Living with Climate Crisis,” what’s changed? Who has been using the materials? And what sort of feedback have you been getting about the materials? And how have you responded to that feedback?
Rosemary 9:21
I’m hoping that there will be groups running in a number of places in the UK. We know that we’ve got groups starting in the places where Daniela and myself and Rebecca are based. We’ve also got some people we know who are going to be using it in Wales. And we’re hoping to see gradually more people using it in different places. Also, over this coming year we’re going to be offering some more in depth introductory workshops, which will be done online for people who wish to facilitate the groups
We’re doing one for some people in Canada shortly. And we’ve got another one for people in the UK coming up in April. And we anticipate doing more of those.
We will be offering monthly support sessions for people using the materials, which will also take place online.
We’re planning on a meeting next September, which we hope will be a face-to-face meeting where people who have been beginning to use it can come together to share experiences.
We’re hoping that people will be taking the materials and using them in a lot of different ways. We’re quite explicit that we want people to adapt what we’re suggesting to their particular circumstances and the audiences they’re working with. And it’s very important to us to acknowledge that these materials have come out of our experience in some groups, that these may be a starting point, not an end point, that people may take one part of what we’ve suggested, and not another.
And we’re hoping that people who come from the psychological professions and associated professions, anybody really who’s got good facilitation skills, will feel that this is something which they can do as a contribution to the climate movement.
So we’re hoping to see groups happening, we’re hoping to see people being supported, and that support work is all being done through the Climate Psychology Alliance, which is sponsoring and supporting the project. And we’re hoping that it will take on a life of its own.
“Revelle had painted a similar picture of the CO2 problem before President Johnson’s Domestic Council a year earlier, and in 1964 he called for similarly bold action. “With the advance of science and technology,” he wrote, “our power to change nature has grown enormously both for good and for ill. …by gaining greater understanding, we will be able to make conscious changes—to bring more water to deserts, to bring cooler summers and warmer winters to the Middle West and the Northeast. In thinking about how we can make our country a better place in which to live by changing our environment, we must not be afraid of big things that can be done only on a national or international scale. We must be sure to make more than little plans.”
Joseph Fisher, Paul Freund, Margaret Mead, and Roger Revelle, “Notes Prepared by Working Group Five, White House Group on Domestic Affairs,” April 4, 1964, President’s Committee [White House Group on Domestic Affairs], File 42, Box 20, Roger Revelle Collection MC 6, Scripps Institute of Oceanography Archives, La Jolla, California.
Howe, J. 2010 MAKING GLOBAL WARMING GREEN: CLIMATE CHANGE AND AMERICAN ENVIRONMENTALISM, 1957-1992
and
“PSAC was the second presidential task force to whom Revelle had introduced the issue of CO2. The first was a subgroup of President Johnson’s Domestic Council, which released a report in 1964. Joseph Fisher, Paul Freund, Margaret Mead and Roger Revelle., “Notes Prepared by Working Group Five, White House Group on Domestic Affairs,” April 4 1964.
(Howe, 2014:219)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Revelle had been aware of the potential problem of carbon dioxide build-up for almost a decade, and Dave Keeling had been taking accurate measurements at Mauna Loa for 6 years by now, with a steady increase…
What we can learn
Revelle was there, inside the bureaucracy, keeping the (potential) issue on the agenda…
What happened next
In 1965 Lyndon Johnson mentioned carbon dioxide build-up in his address to congress. The National Science Foundation kept doing work on weather modification and climate. Gordon Macdonald and Margaret Mead kept going on the topic…
Sixty six years ago, on this day, April 4, 1957, the then-new popular science publication ran a story on the issue of carbon dioxide build-up, in the context of the imminent “International Geophysical Year”, which was to start in July…
New Scientist piece on c02 buildup
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 315ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Since Gilbert Plass’s statements in May 1953, the carbon dioxide theory of climate change (as propounded by Guy Callendar) was one of several competing theories. There were not, yet, however, super-accurate measures of atmospheric C02. Thanks to Roger Revelle and Charles David Keeling, that would soon change…
What I think we can learn from this
There has been popular knowledge of carbon dioxide build-up for a very long time. It might therefore be the case that the “Information deficit” model of campaigning is at best misguided.
What happened next
The data from the International Geophysical Year, and Keeling’s meticulous measures at Mauna Loa, would show that yes, atmospheric carbon dioxide was definitely rising. Whether that was a distant small problem or a more immediate big problem, that would take some hashing out…
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 three years ago, on this day, April 3, 2000, Australian diplomats once again spread bullshit rather than truth about climate change.
At the Pacific Islands Conference on Climate Change, Climate Variability and Sea Level Rise, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, well, see a contemporary account…
Mr Hare said he had recently been to a Pacific greenhouse conference in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, [3-7 April – where Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials had tried to play down the impact of the greenhouse effect. He said they had put up arguments that sea level rises were not as high as had been reported and might not necessarily be a result of global warming. Senator Hill said if the department’s officials were mounting that argument, it might be on the basis of scientific uncertainty in the area..
Clennel, A. 2000. Greenhouse Gas Conference `stacked’. Sydney Morning Herald, 15 April, p.15
[Compare with Australian diplomats rumoured behaviour at the first IPCC report meeting in Sundsvall in August 1990]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 369ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Howard Government had bludgeoned its way into a sweet sweet deal at Kyoto, but it was obvious they would not ratify unless the Americans did (vanishingly small chance of that). Meanwhile, the Australian diplomatic corps(e) was continuing its minimisation techniques (as per the Sundsvall meeting in 1990).
What I think we can learn from this
Bureaucrats have their own views, and run their own games. To think of them as merely passive lackeys of elected politicians is very naive.
What happened next
The oceans have kept on rising. Australia has kept on being a villain. The small island states have kept pointing out that in the absence of serious action, they are screwed (they are screwed).
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..
Fifteen years ago, on this day, April 2, 2008, Senator Barack Obama, trying to become the Democratic Presidential candidate, made some suitably vague comments about coal while on a campaign stop…
April 2, 2008 Scranton Times quotes Obama as saying “And I saw somebody with a clean coal technology hat. We have abundant coal.”
Page 202-3 Climate Coverup
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 coal industry was trying to paint itself as somehow ‘green’ (fantasies of carbon capture and storage). Electorally, bits of Pennsylvania and West Virginia were going to be crucial. So finding a way of seeming like you were supporting potential voters, while not alienating others, well, that’s the bread and butter of politics as normal, isn’t it, especially in winner-take-all systems…
What I think we can learn from this
The electoral road to salvation is long and slow…
What happened next
Obama got the gig, Made one effort at doing anything on climate, then gave up, quite like Bill Clinton and the BTU tax back in 1993.
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..
2001 On 1 April 2001 Prime Minister Howard wrote to President Bush and supported the United States’ position. He stated:
“I have long shared your view, and Australia has consistently argued, that a workable international framework to address climate change needs to be economically manageable and include developing countries, whose emissions will exceed those of OECD countries within this decade.
“In my view an effective global framework to address climate change needs to include commitments from all major emitters; unrestricted market-based mechanisms, including emissions trading; an approach to carbon sinks that captures both economic and environmental opportunities; a facilitative, rather than punitive, compliance system; and assistance for the most vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change.
“This will require that we engage developing countries, and seek firm commitments from them on future annual emissions. We will also need to encourage the European Union to re-think its opposition to market mechanisms and sinks, key issues for a cost-effective response to climate change.”
Letter from Prime Minister John Howard to United States President George W. Bush, see http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/Howardletter.html [dead link]
Cited in NSW Parliamentary Library publiication 2002 – The Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change: An Update By Stewart Smith
Clennell, A. 2001. Lead The World On Greenhouse Treaty, PM Urges Bush. Sydney Morning Herald, 16 April. p.2.
Hill revealed letter’s existence on 15 April. Greens Senator Bob Brown said yesterday the letter was mostly a public relations exercise for “domestic consumption”.
The context was
Bush had pulled out of Kyoto (despite campaign promises to regulate carbon dioxide) and this was music to little Johnnie’s ears.
What I think we can learn from this
Those in power at the time were cretins. Thank goodness we know have giants in charge…
What happened next
Lots of technobabble and false promises. And climbing emissions.
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 years ago, on this day, March 31, 1998, there were two climate events on opposite sides of the world about just how business was going to save us all.
In the UK there was the launch of the Marshall Report
Climate change : a strategic issue for business : report presented to the Prime Minister, 31 March 1998 / Advisory Committee on Business and the Environment
In Australia there was “Greenhouse Beyond Kyoto: Issues, Opportunities and Challenges” Bureau of Resource Sciences, 31 March – 1st April 1998
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 367.ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There are two events on either side of the planet worth mentioning in the same blog post.
The first is the release of a Blair government-era report. Treasurer Gordon Brown had commissioned Bob Marshall to talk to fellow business people about climate and climate policy. This process had been dominated, of course, by BP. Early proposals for carbon pricing had been minimised – more “death of a thousand cuts” until eventually you end up merely with a levy that is easily gamed and supplies ideological cover without driving any change.
On the other side of the planet, you have the beginning of a three day conference about Kyoto and beyond in Australia. And there’s a similar dynamic really, if we think about it. Business is hoping to shape and minimise what is happening and the government in Australia is more nakedly on their side than it In the UK, partly because Australia is a quarry with the state attached. And partly because Prime Minister John Howard is such a prick.
What I think we can learn from this
Business never sleeps, it is always in the words of Adam Smith, him what wrote the Wealth of Nations ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices‘.
What happened next
UK climate policy staggered on. Between 2003 and 2009 Climate and Energy Policy were kind of knitted together for various reasons and have stayed entangled. In Australia, they haven’t been entangled nearly as well, imho. There has been enormous tumult and heat, but not much light for various reasons.
And the emissions have kept climbing….
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.
Eighteen years ago, on this day, March 30, 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment findings publicly launched at press conferences and seminars in London, Tokyo, Beijing, Delhi, Cairo, Paris, Nairobi, Washington DC, Brasilia, Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Rome and Lisbon.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment assessed the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. From 2001 to 2005, the MA involved the work of more than 1,360 experts worldwide. Their findings provide a state-of-the-art scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as the scientific basis for action to conserve and use them sustainably.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that biodiversity is often the poor cousin, the Cinderella, compared to climate. A cynic would argue that who really cares about charismatic megafauna and non charismatic megafauna. We can just eat Soylent Green, whereas if the climate goes chaotic, then it might affect rich people.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember that there is a shifting baseline. We need to remember that we keep making these promises about changing our ways that mysteriously we never quite do
What happened next
The sixth great extinction has continued, accelerated. My money is on it continuing to accelerate.
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
