Fifty seven years ago, on this day, March 27, 1966, a letter by Douglas McEwan launching the Conservation Society appears in the Observer newspaper.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 322.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that a previous letter by a woman called Edith Freeman. Freeman had led to the creation of the Conservation Society in the context of enormous concerns about air quality species loss, both within the UK and internationally increased population. There were a series of books such as Silent Spring, but also UK books
You also had the rise of the motorway, the increase in concerns about air, water and noise pollution… So a Conservation Society to tackle these issues and to offer advice to civil servants and politicians seemed like a good idea at the time.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to understand that groups come and go suiting an ideological setting
There’s a comparison with Amnesty which is still going. It also started from I think, an article about Portugal and torture and then a letter saying “something should be done.”
What happened next
The Torrey Canyon incident of 1967 proved the Conservation Society’s point. The Conservation Society’s high watermark period was really 1968 to 1971. But then, new groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth were formed that were slightly more radical and sexier. And the Conservation Society continued for another 20 years until 1987 and was then wound up, its message about “population explosion” no longer on the money. In the meantime, it produced a lot of useful reports which are still achingly relevant, and some of which have been covered on this site.
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
Fourteen years ago, on this day, March 2, 2009, protestors blockade a coal plant
The blockade lasted nearly four hours, forming what organizers called the largest display of civil disobedience on the climate crisis in U.S. history.
Police were out in force, but no one was arrested.
The 99-year-old plant is responsible for an estimated one-third of the legislative branch’s greenhouse gas emissions. It no longer generates electricity for the legislative buildings but provides steam for heating and chilled water for cooling buildings within the Capitol Complex.
Environmental and climate celebrities led the protest action, including NASA climatologist Dr. James Hansen, who released a video on YouTube in February urging people to join him March 2 at the demonstration to send a message to Congress and the President that, “We want them to take the actions that are needed to preserve climate for young people and future generations and all life on the planet.”
2009 Capitol Coal Plant protest – demonstrators blockade one of the five gates to the Capitol Power plant. March 2, 2009.http://www.capitolclimateaction.org“
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 387ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that there is always ongoing effort to shut individual energy projects. And these can be dismissed as NIMBY. But it’s really important to fight those battles because how else are you gonna stop local madness and build the confidence, competence and credibility to stop the national and international madness?. And also to try to have an influence on national policy, obviously.
What I think we can learn from this
We need to remember and celebrate resistance not just dissent, but actual resistance.
Beyond Coal’s pivotal moment came at a meeting in Gracie Mansion about, of all things, education reform. Michael Bloomberg, the Wall Street savant-turned media mogul-turned New York City mayor, was looking for a new outlet for his private philanthropy. It quickly became clear that education reform would not be that outlet.
“It was a terrible meeting in every way, and Mike was angry,” recalls his longtime adviser, Kevin Sheekey. “I said: ‘Look, if you don’t like this idea, that’s fine. We’ll bring you another.’ He said: ‘No, I want another now.’”
As it happened, Sheekey had just eaten lunch with Carl Pope, who was starting a $50 million fundraising drive to expand Beyond Coal’s staff to 45 states. The cap-and-trade plan that Obama supported to cut carbon emissions had stalled in Congress, and the carbon tax that Bloomberg supported was going nowhere as well. Washington was gridlocked. But Pope had explained to Sheekey that shutting down coal plants at the state and local level could do even more for the climate—and have a huge impact on public health issues close to his boss’s heart.
“That’s a good idea,” Bloomberg told Sheekey. “We’ll just give Carl a check for the $50 million. Tell him to stop fundraising and get to work.”
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..
Ten years ago, on this day, February 22, 2013, some miners went ape, setting up a ludicrous front organisation. Brain-damage indeed.
A Goldfields lobby group is planning to launch an eleventh hour campaign against what it calls “green extremists”.
The group DAMAGE, Dads And Mums Against Green Extremists, is planning advertisements in a Kalgoorlie newspaper in the last week of the state election campaign
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 397ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Western Australia is heavily dependent – in every sense – on mining. Anything that gets between the miners and their cash is regarded as something to be ignored, then smeared and repressed, by any means necessary.
What I think we can learn from this
Sometimes the goon squad tries to develop a sense of humour, as it did with this retronym. It’s usually not very funny though, more pitiable and embarrassing.
And smearing people who think a habitable planet in years to come is a nice idea as “extremists” is, well, an old ploy.
But, you know, sometimes it goes all step on a rake/Streisand effect.
But the Greens? The Greens were glad of the attempted “damage” to their brand. As one their MPs Robin Chapple said after the election
“I thank Tim Hall, the Greens candidate for the seat of Kalgoorlie. In Kalgoorlie, I also thank an organisation called Dads And Mums Against Green Extremists. DAMAGE was set up specifically to target the Greens, but in fact it helped to retain our vote by focusing on the Greens and identifying some of the issues it stands for. Many years ago former federal member of Parliament Michael Beahan told me that if your opposition is invisible, the worst thing you can do is identify them. Until the establishment of DAMAGE, the Greens to a large degree had been invisible in the Kalgoorlie media. But in the last two to three weeks of the election, the Greens were front and centre in the media and retained its vote. Michael Beahan’s point was that if somebody is not grabbing the attention, do not highlight them, but DAMAGE did exactly that.”
Ten years ago, on this day, February 17, 2013 , a protest march and arrests took place in Washington DC
Following Nebraska’s approval of the route for Phase IV of the Keystone XL Pipeline in January, about 50,000 people gathered at the Washington Monument and marched to the White House. Demonstrators demanded President Obama block the Keystone XL Pipeline and take action against climate change. Four-dozen protestors, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Darryl Hannah, James Hansen, Sierra Club Founder Adam Werbach, and environmental activist Bill McKibben, were arrested at the gates of the White House for civil disobedience.
“In 2015 KXL was temporarily delayed by PresidentBarack Obama. On January 24, 2017, President Donald Trump took action intended to permit the pipeline’s completion. On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to revoke the permitthat was granted to TC Energy Corporation for the Keystone XL Pipeline (Phase 4). On June 9, 2021, TC Energy abandoned plans for the Keystone XL Pipeline.”
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References and see also
Bradshaw, E.A. Blockadia Rising: Rowdy Greens, Direct Action and the Keystone XL Pipeline. Critical Criminology 23, 433–448 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-015-9289-0
February 12 1968 – The Motherfuckers do their motherfucking thing, with garbage in New York.
Fifty five years ago, on this day, February 12 1968, New York City was the scene of an inventive piece of activism.
“On February 12, 1968, a group of radicals led by Ben Morea collected garbage on the lower east side, trucked it, then dumped it in front of the Lincoln Center on a gala night. The event coincided with a NYC garbage strike and was meant to express both the group’s contempt for the bourgeois establishment and its support of the strikers.”
(Gottlieb, 1993: 350)
and
COMPARE NATHAN HALE “BLACK ECOLOGY”
“No solution to the ecology crisis can come without a fundamental change in the economics of America particularly with reference to blacks. Although some of the ecological differentials between blacks and whites spring directly from racism and hence defy economic correlations,44 many aspects of the black environmental condition are associated with basic economics. Blacks are employed in the most undesirable or polluted occupations,45 lagging far behind their educational attainment. About two-thirds work in unskilled and semi-skilled industries. Aggravating, and associated with, the occupational effects on the black environment is the consistently low family income of blacks which must generally support larger families. Since the turn of the century, the family income of blacks has remained about half that of whites” (Hale, 1970: 7)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 323.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Vietnam War, black civil rights, the beginnings of second wave feminism were beginning to kick off, and poor people were getting shat on (for once). At this exact point, Martin Luther King was planning for his march on Washington in the summer of 1968 (he wouldn’t be there). And the Motherfuckers and black Mask were in that milieu. The idea of bringing the unwanted waste back to the people who produced it, for them to deal with, was an inspired one. It has become a famous action.
What I think we can learn from this
Why am I talking about it on a climate change website? Because of exactly this. The super rich – and the rich – enjoying their/our imperial way of living, don’t want to know about or think about the consequences. The costs are out of sight and out of mind. Activism can be about making those costs more obvious.
What happened next
Oh, to the Motherfuckers I suppose the usual schisms and splits and anarchist pathologies. Possibly/probably helped on by COINTELPRO. But the FBI could have saved its money except of course for them it was all about the lulz and the need to dominate and control, but I’m going off on a tangent here
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
References
Gottlieb, R. 1993. Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement. Washington DC: Island Press.
Hale, N. 1970. Black Ecology. The Black Scholar Vol. 1, No. 6, BLACK CITIES: COLONIES OR CITY STATES?, pp. 2-8
Australian activist Jonathan Moylan recalls the non-violent climate action that could have sent him to jail
Ten years ago today, at the age of 22, I hit send on a media release before brewing a pot of coffee. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that spoof release, which was intended to paint a picture of a better world, ended up causing ripple effects that reverberated around the world.
At stake was the Leard State Forest, the largest intact area of native vegetation in the heavily-cleared Liverpool Plains, the centre of a critical biodiversity corridor that was part of the Nandewar-Brigalow bioregion, providing connectivity for species between the Kaputar ranges to the north and the Pilliga to the south. Habitat for koalas, regent honeyeaters and an incredible array of bats and microbats, the forest was being targeted by three large open-cut mines that would rip the forest apart.
I hadn’t heard of the Leard Forest or the neighbouring community of Maules Creek until the previous year, but for years the community had been working together to protect their region from open-cut mining. They were not opposed to mining per se, and would have tolerated an underground mine, but were worried about losing road access to Maules Creek during floods due to the planned closure of Leard Forest Road, as well as the threat of ten metres of aquifer draw-down, property devaluation, noise and dust.
Yet despite their reasonable proposals, thousands of dollars spent on independent consultant reports and some political support across the spectrum, the mine was approved by the NSW Government in late 2012 – all that remained was a determination from the federal government.
At the time, Whitehaven’s Maules Creek project was the largest new coal mine being considered in NSW and would increase coal tonnages through the world’s largest coal port in my hometown of Newcastle by ten percent. Yet despite the contention around the mine and its enormous contribution to climate change, the mine also secured a $1.2 billion loan facility from ANZ bank.
While it was rare at the time, in the ten years following 2013 we’ve seen a growing number of banks worldwide rule out finance for new coal projects following pressure from communities, shareholders and regulators given heightened awareness that climate change poses acute, chronic and systemic risks to the financial sector and the economy as a whole. Cracking down on companies making misleading claims about their climate credentials is now a priority for ASIC, the corporate regulator.
That would have been unimaginable in 2013, when the press release I sent out on ANZ’s letterhead – which was quickly revealed to be a hoax – announced that ANZ was withdrawing its loan to Whitehaven on ethical grounds. I only realised how serious things would get after a call from a journalist at the Washington Post who told me that Whitehaven’s share price had dropped by 9% – before recovering some twenty minutes later. Soon what start as a small protest camp in the forest with a handful of people became a two-year-long effort bringing thousands of people from all walks of life – doctors, lawyers, a former mining engineer and even former Wallabies flanker turned senator David Pocock – to take action in an effort to prevent the damage the mine would bring. More extraordinary was the incredible alliance of Gomeroi traditional owners, farmers and environmental groups who found common cause in a way that has probably permanently transformed the social fabric of the region.
Cracking down on companies making misleading claims about their climate credentials is now a priority for ASIC, the corporate regulator. That would have been unimaginable in 2013,
As I quickly learnt, any misleading statement that could impact on the sharemarket carried severe consequences. Officers from the securities regulator ASIC flew up to camp to seize my phone and computer and ordered me to appear for compulsory questioning – with no right to silence. Four months later I was charged with an offence that carried a maximum penalty of 10 years jail or $750 000 in fines. They were entitled to do this – although nobody had previously been charged under that false and misleading provision of the Corporations Act – it was a strict liability offence, which meant that the fact that I didn’t expect or intend an impact on the share price or wasn’t a participant in the sharemarket was irrelevant to the charge.
Suddenly I found myself in the middle of an incredibly high-pitched and polarising debate that played out in the media and in parliament for weeks. In some minds, I had deliberately set out to cause damage to the market. The bigger issue of the irreversible harm that would be caused to the world’s life support systems – on which we all depend – was at risk of being lost. For many others though, the notion of jailing a young man for drawing attention to a destructive new coal project galvanised support.
For its part, Whitehaven is no stranger to being on the wrong side of the law, having been penalised for illegal mining, illegal dumping, water theft, failure to declare political donations and illegal land-clearing. Yet the penalties meted out in those cases have never come close to meeting their gravity.
The broad-based campaign did more than delay the mine for several years. Public opinion has finally started to turn amidst a realisation that global coal demand has already peaked and renewables will win the race – the only question is when. The community continues to hold out against proposed coal expansions and coal seam gas threats in North-West NSW.
Throughout the ensuing court case, I was told by lawyers that the most likely outcome was a prison sentence of around a year. I was willing to accept the consequences, even though it was virtually unheard of for anybody to face prison time for a protest action in NSW. Ultimately I was sanctioned with a suspended sentence.
Throughout the ensuing court case, I was told by lawyers that the most likely outcome was a prison sentence of around a year
What’s harder to accept is the notion that with everything we know about the consequences of mining and burning fossil fuels, some companies are still entertaining significant new coal, oil or gas expansions. Yet as a United Nations panel determined last November, any bank that continues to claim it is committed to net zero emissions while lending to companies pursuing fossil fuel expansions is misleading the public.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge in ten years. But there is still much more to do.
All Our Yesterdays exists to inform people about the long histories of climate change – the science, the politics, the technology, the protest movements. It hopes to spark discussions among citizens’ groups about what we need to do differently to make the radical rapid changes required,…If you are someone, or know someone who should be writing a guest post/giving an interview, please say so in the comments below…
Fifteen years ago, on this day, January 8 2008, an article appeared on the IEMA website (the article now seems to be missing) under the headline Green Fatigue and Ambivalence in an Overloaded World?
“Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to accept that it poses a real threat to the world. Opinion polls reveal much confusion among the public about what Britain should do to combat the problem. A backlash is now a real threat, said Phil Downing, head of environmental research for Ipsos Mori. ‘There’s cynicism because on the one hand we’re being told [the problem] is very serious and on the other hand we’re building runways, mining Alaskan oil; there’s a lot going on that appears to be heading in the opposite direction.’
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 417ppm. .
The context was that for the previous year and a half, basically since “An Inconvenient Truth” and Climate Camp and so on, the Western media had been having one of its periodic ‘gosh, let’s pretend to care about climate change’, periods, without actually naming any of the root causes because that would be awkward for our owners and advertisers’ waves. And, sure as night follows day, about 12 to 15 months in the “fatigue” pieces start to be written…
What I think we can learn from this
The fatigue is ‘real’, but nobody (to my knowledge) ever says
“gee, it might be that if you present scary information to people and tell them it is their fault, but don’t make it easier for them to find other like-minded people so they can form into sustained and sustainable social movement organisations, that help them make sense of the world and channel that anger, grief and fear into political action, then, you know, after a while, people who are busy, depressed, defeated will in fact stop paying attention to bulletins from the real world. Go figure.”
What happened next
The wave peaked and crashed, as it has done so before (Downs, 1972). By early 2010, the numbers of articles about – and protest activity about – climate change had dropped right off. It would come back in 2018. And then be reduced again by 2022…
On this day, December 21, in 2005, US environmental activist William Rodgers committed suicide in prison.
“To my friends and supporters to help them make sense of all these events that have happened so quickly: Certain human cultures have been waging war against the Earth for millennia. I chose to fight on the side of bears, mountain lions, skunks, bats, saguaros, cliff rose, and all things wild. I am just the most recent casualty in that war. But tonight I have made a jail break – I am returning home, to the Earth, to the place of my origins. Bill, 12/21/05 (the winter solstice.)”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Rodgers
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 380ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Rodgers was one of six environmental activists arrested December 7, 2005 as part of the FBI‘s Operation Backfire. His charge was one count of arson for a June, 1998 fire set by the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) at the National Wildlife Research Center in Olympia, Washington.
Why this matters.
Those who try to slow down the acceleration of the destruction usually pay a price.
On this day, November 28, in 2008 someone broke into a coal-plant and shut down one of the turbines.
As the Guardian puts it –
The £12m defences of the most heavily guarded power station in Britain have been breached by a single person who, under the eyes of CCTV cameras, climbed two three-metre (10ft) razor-wired, electrified security fences, walked into the station and crashed a giant 500MW turbine before leaving a calling card reading “no new coal”. He walked out the same way and hopped back over the fence.
All power from the coal and oil-powered Kingsnorth station in Kent was halted for four hours, in which time it is thought the mystery saboteur’s actions reduced UK climate change emissions by 2%. Enough electricity to power a city the size of Bristol was lost.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 386ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
This was in the midst of wave of climate action (2006 to 2010), with coal power a significant focus. The third climate camp had happened there that summer.
Why this matters.
What’s that line by Tom Hardy in Inception “You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”
On this day, November 23, 1968 Lord Ritchie Calder gave a presidential address to the Conservation Society (a British NGO from the mid 60s to the late 1980s). Its cheerful title? Hell Upon Earth.
And among the litany of dangers ahead, this on climate change….
“It has been estimated that, at the present rate of increase (6,000 million tonnes a year) mean annual temperature all over the world might increase by 3.6 degrees centigrade in the next forty to fifty years, The experts may argue about the time factor and even about the effects but certain things are apparent, not only in the industrialised northern hemisphere but in the southern hemisphere. The north-polar ice-cap is thinning and shrinking. The seas with their blanket of carbon dioxide are changing their temperature with the result that marine plant life is increasing and is transpiring more carbon dioxide. With this combination fish are migrating, changing even their latitudes. On land the snow line is retreating and glaciers are melting.”
Calder’s speech wsa reported in the New York Times on the 24th
“Hell on Earth” NYT article – LONDON, Nov. 23 — Lord Ritchie-Calder, president of the Conservation Society, painted a gloomy picture today of the future of the world because too many “ignorant men are pretending to be knowledgeable.”
And in the Observer by John Davy
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 323ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
Why this matters.
I used to think that unless you were particularly switched on, then climate change wasn’t really on your radar until 1988. Then I pushed that back to the late 1970s… then…
What happened next?
Calder kept at it – see his widely-syndicated “Selling off the Old Homestead”, originally in Foreign Affairs, in January 1970
