Category: Australia

Categories
Australia Denial

April 4 –  2005 – APEC conference at Parliament House “Managing Climate Change: Practicalities and Realities in a post-Kyoto future”. 

On this day 20 years ago, a denialist/delay-ist bunch of idiots gathered at Parliament House… The conference was sponsored by Xstrata and ExxonMobil…. (further gory details here)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Kyoto Protocol had finally come into effect thanks to the Russians saying yes in exchange for World Trade Organisation membership. This meant that formal negotiations for a “post-Kyoto” protocol/agreement would be beginning soon.

Meanwhile though, Australia and the UK were on the outer, and scrambling to come up with plausible sounding “ways forward” (mostly involving fantasy technologies. Meanwhile, the denialists were still thick … on the ground.

This event is kind of a sequel to a 1997 conference “Countdown to Kyoto”, with overlapping attendees and presenters.

What we learn Morons gonna moron.  And scumbags gonna lie (down) with morons.

What happened next The scumbaggery continued. The emissions climbed, and the consequences began to rock up. So it went.


References

Australian APEC Study Centre – SourceWatch

This from Jennifer Marohasy

Mixing Views on Climate – Jennifer Marohasy

Papers from the Managing Climate Change: Practicalities and Realities in a post-Kyoto Future conference held in Canberra on 4th April are now available at Tech Central Station.

This is perhaps a first conference where acknowledged ‘climate skeptics’ including Professor Bob Carter have given papers alongside Australian government representatives including Dr Brian Fisher from ABARE.

A delegate from the Chinese embassy spoke about the need for China to reduce its reliance on coal as an energy source and China’s intension to build possibly 6 new nuclear power stations over the next 15 years.

Senior Cliamte Negotiator from the US Department of State gave an interesting and fairly technical paper on US policy directions.

Papers also include a contribution from author of Taken by Storm and key contributor to the ‘hockey stick’ debate, Canadian Ross McKitrick.

The conference papers are supplemented with Background papers that include an analysis of global carbon trading prospects.

The “Tech Central” link takes you to this

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-upApril 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Australia

April 4, 1978 – the Australian Financial Review boosts the neoliberal nonsense.

47 years ago today, The Fin published an article, by economics commentator Paddy McGuinness which helped the Center for Independent Studies gain popularity. 

“Where Friedman is a pinko.”

Further, there is this myth that shucks, grassroots battlers built the Centre for Independent Studies by the sweat of their brows. Er, no

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 335ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the post-war Keynesian consensus was crumbling thanks to oil shocks, stagflation, worker militancy, etc, and the goons who had been keeping their powder dry and forming networks – especially The Atlas network – were hoping to get a serious toe hold in Australia. The Institute of Public Affairs was not really fit for purpose, as far as they were concerned back then. So the Center for Independent Studies looked like a potential prospect, And so it came to pass with Anthony Fisher visiting twice etc etc (see above). 

What we learn is that neoliberal ideas of selfishness, stupidity, short-sightedness, disdain for any talk of limits need to be nurtured. Because they’re so batshit crazy that turning them into “common sense” requires a hell of a lot of effort. This effort was being undertaken in the United States, especially, it had never gone away. 

There is the recent book The Big Myth by Oreskes and Conway, and there are many others, including by Wendy Brown, Philip Mirkowski.

And Australia became “neoliberal” in 1983 with the arrival of the Hawke-Keating government and the intellectual capture of Paul Keating. We called it at that time, economic rationalism, Australia became a vastly more unequal, fearful and desperate society over the following 45 years. 

Also on this day

April 4, 1964 – Revelle’s PSAC Working Group Five

April 4, 1957 – New Scientist runs story on carbon dioxide build-up

April 4, 1964 – President Johnson’s Domestic Council on climate…

April 4, 1978 – UK Chief Scientific Advisor worries about atmospheric C02 build-up

April 4 – Interview with Ro Randal about “Living With Climate Crisis

Categories
Australia

April 1, 1970 – Eco-documentary shown on Melbourne TV, carbon dioxide build-up mentioned

On this day, April 1, 1970 55 years ago, people in Melbourne were treated to a British documentary called “Pollution: And on the Eighth Day.” that, near the end of its hour run-time briefly warned them about carbon dioxide build up. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 324ppm. As of 2025 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that from about 1967-68 onwards, people in the UK, Australia and the United States were becoming more and more alarmed at changes in the natural environment and the impacts of technological “progress” etc. In 1969 a television documentary maker called Richard Broad put together a program called Pollution: And On The Eighth Day. This had been shown in the UK in January 1970 with considerable media attention, and now it was being broadcast in Melbourne. A couple of weeks before Australian Parliament had had its first mention of the issue when South Australian Richard Gunn raised it in his maiden speech. 

What I think we can learn from this is that British documentaries were trusted and respected. What we don’t know is whether this had much impact on the people of Melbourne. The broader context was that by 1970 people were identifying carbon dioxide as a long term possible threat, and that this was being noticed by readers of newspapers and writers of letters to newspapers. 

What happened next The Australian government started to mention the issue in passing. It would take until 1988 before the problem became an issue…

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
Australia

March 31, 2007 – Earth Hour (the most putrid kind of virtue signalling)

Eighteen years ago, on this day, March 31st, 2007,

2007 FIRST ‘EARTH Hour’ – WWF Sydney

(see also 2009- http://www.climaticoanalysis.org/post/australia-in-climate-change-blackout/ and

http://www.climaticoanalysis.org/post/australia-in-climate-change-blackout/

2007 A recent example of intellectual corruption at the highest levels of Australian business was manifest when the Sydney Morning Herald teamed up with WWF to promote ‘Earth Hour’ on Saturday 31 March last. The idea was that, at 7:30 pm, everyone in Sydney should turn off their lights and shut down their TVs, and so on, in order to save the planet for an hour.

Ray Evans on 27 April 2007

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was

Earth Hour, a typical WWF stunt in Sydney where people get to feel virtuous for doing fuck all. The theory goes that these are baby steps that prod people to more and bigger action. It’s utter bullshit. 

See also March 22 blog post.

What I think we can learn from this is the world is run by utter bullshit, and the world will drown in its own shit from humans because the existing systems can’t absorb the crap. 

What happened next

I don’t know that they still do Earth Hour, because it depends on a particular vibe, and I don’t think anyone’s paying any attention. It’s the equivalent of “Buy Nothing Day.” 

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.

Also on this day: 

 March 31, 1973 – Protest in Piccadilly Circus

March 31, 1998 – another report about #climate and business in the UK

March 31, 1998 – two business-friendly climate events in UK and Australia

Categories
Australia

March 30, 2007 – economist Nick Stern in Australia

Eighteen years ago, on this day, March 30th, 2007, World Bank economist Nick Stern visits Australia…

In the sometimes icy world of climate change politics, there appears to be a quiet hum of agreement about the desirability of an emissions trading scheme.

The visiting climate change economist, Sir Nicholas Stern, supports the idea.

The Prime Minister, after years of disinterest, has given it a tentative tick of approval by commissioning a task group on emissions trading, which will report at the end of May. And the state governments have set up their own emissions trading taskforce.

Even the big polluters – Qantas, Alumina, BHP – all endorse it in submissions to the two inquiries. But there are serious divisions about how an emissions trading scheme might work.

Saulwick, J. 2007. Climate change debate warms up in corporate world. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the Stern Review on the economics of climate change had come out in October 2006 and had become a minor part of the Australian awakening and the argument for a carbon price. Prime Minister John Howard had been forced to do a U-turn and appoint the so-called Shergold Group to look at emissions trading. It was of course, stacked with business interests. How could it be anything else? Stern was on a whistlestop tour of Australia. (I don’t know who funded it and what the rationale was, but there he was. It’s possible that he was brought out by Labor-aligned people who wanted to see the back of Howard.)

What I think we can learn from this is that, if I’m right in my supposition, policy entrepreneurs will bring in foreigners with kudos to try and help them win domestic battles.  Pawns on a chess board is an imperfect analogy, because there’s a set number of pieces at the start of chess…

What happened next

Stern admitted that he was wrong in 2013 at Davos and that the implications were worse. See 

January 25, 2013 – Lord Stern admits #climate “worse than I thought”

John Howard was comprehensively defeated in 2007 November at the Australian Federal election, and Australia did finally get an ETS very briefly, between 2012-2014. It was then abolished by Tony Abbott. 

Australian emissions haven’t really significantly dipped (and not at all if you count all those coal exports).

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.

Also on this day: 

 March 30, 1948 – The Conservation Foundation founded

March 30, 1983-  EPA sea level rise conference

March 30, 1992 – Thelma and Louise could teach humans a thing or three….

March 30, 2005 – The Millennium Ecosystems  Report is launched.

March 30, 2007 – Climate as “the great moral challenge of our generation” #auspol

Categories
Australia

 March 29, 1995 –  “a transparent attempt to promote the Australian coal industry”

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 29th, 1995, Federal Environment Minister John Faulkner, fresh from losing the carbon tax battle) gave a press conference 

J Faulkner (Minister for the Environment, Sport and Territories),Press conference for the release of Greenhouse 21C, speech, 29 March 1995 

Greenpeace’s climate campaigner, Mr Keith Tarlo, said the biggest single item was the $25 million program to promote clean coal technology in India.

“This is a scandal. (It) is a transparent attempt to promote the Australian coal industry and can only lock India into escalating greenhouse emissions,” he said.

Boreham, G. 1995. Industry Says Yes, Greens Say No To Emissions Policy. The Age, 30 March, p.3. 

AND

Greenpeace said the biggest item in the package was $25 million to promote “clean coal” technology overseas. This was really meant to boost Australian coal exports and the “clean” meant only low sulphur content, it said.

Shehan, C. and McCathie, A. 1995. Bid To Cut Gas Levels – But It’s Voluntary. Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March, p.3.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there had been a bloody and ultimately successful campaign against a mild, minor carbon tax. And here John Faulkner, who had proposed that tax had to pretend the booby prize, which was the Greenhouse 21 challenge (presumably had been written by civil servants or given to them by business as the lowest common denominator) would make a blind bit of difference.

What I think we can learn from this is that if you’re not going to have anything serious, but you still have “presentational problems” on an issue that voters might care about, then you come up with these bullshit voluntary schemes. 

What happened next

Greenhouse 21 was a joke, as was the Australian Greenhouse office, as was Greenhouse Challenge Plus. And everybody stopped pretending that it was worth continuing to pretend by about 2005. But the pretence continues – it has to…

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.

Also on this day: 

March 29, 1979 – Health impacts of carbon dioxide discussed…

March 29, 1993 – C02 Disposal symposium takes place in Oxford

March 29, 1995- Kuwaiti scientist says if global warming happening, it’s not fossil fuels. #MRDA

Categories
Australia Uncategorized

March 27, 1995 – former Nature editor John Maddox admits was wrong on Greenhouse, without, er, admitting it.

Thirty years ago, on this day, March 28th, 1995,

27 March 1995, to another Australian audience – “On the greenhouse effect, Sir John suggested that the onus of proof had shifted towards those who denied it”. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-253921166/view?sectionId=nla.obj-259513073&partId=nla.obj-253927437#

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 361ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the first IPCC report had come out, and the second was near completion. John Maddox, finally, 25 years after his first attacks on carbon dioxide concerns, was conceding that those worried had been right and he’d been wrong. Not that he put it in those words of course.

The older context was that in 1971 Maddox on a visit to Australia had rubbished worries about carbon dioxide….

What I think we can learn from this is it takes old white men a very long time to change their tune. It’s not clear to me that the former Met Office supremo, John Mason, for example, ever did. 

What happened next

The second IPCC report came out saying that there was a discernible influence of human activity. And this word got monstered. The denialists knew enough not to go for Bert Bolin, so they went for Ben Santer instead.

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.

Also on this day: 

March 27, 1966 – The “Conservation Society” to be launched

March 27th, 1977- what we can learn from Dutch arrogance and aviation disasters

March 27, 2008 – James Hansen writes a letter to Kevin Rudd

Categories
Australia Denmark UNFCCC United Nations

March 26, 2010 – How many Aussie Government types were at Nopenhagen? Lots!

Fifteen years ago, on this day, March 26th, 2010, the Labor government was forced to give details of the size of the (large) Australian delegation to COP-15 in Copenhagen. 

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 390ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that  Copenhagen hadn’t just been Kevin Rudd tearing up  the speech that had been written for him, rewriting it and delivering it to a total lack of applause. No, Copenhagen had been 70 or 75 officials and experts and so forth, all flying halfway around the world to save the world. And the Liberals were wanting to punch the bruise, and so requested the information in order to have the ammo that to run a one day wonder, “waste of money, pointy headed bureaucrats with their snouts in the trough style” article. And so it came to pass.

What I think we can learn from this

that any international negotiation is going to involve sherpas at the summit and all sorts of other malarkey. And for those who are opposed to the agenda of whatever the summit is, it’s a very easy writes-itself kind of critique. And that’s what happened. 

What happened next

A couple months after this Rudd was gone. The climate issue, however, was not…

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.

Also on this day: 

March 26, 1979 – Exxon meets a climate scientist

March 26, 1993 – UK government to ratify climate treaty

March 26, 2007 – Lavoisier Group lay into CCS

Categories
Australia

March 22, 2007 – Fairfax tells its staff to Be Green, for an hour.

Eighteen years ago, on this day, March 22nd, 2007, Fairfax Media tells its employees to virtue-signal

From: Staff Notices To: All_Fairfax_Staff

Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2007 9:06 AM

Subject: EARTH HOUR – A MESSAGE TO ALL STAFF

When the lights of Sydney are turned off for one hour at 7:30pm on Saturday, March 31, we should take a moment to reflect, with pride, on the role Fairfax Media has played in Earth Hour.

For the past eight months, the Earth Hour working group has been meeting every Tuesday on Level 19 at Darling Park to plan this bold event.

Every strand of our business – management, editorial, online, commercial, marketing and production – has been involved in the planning process.

(From Ray Evans, 27 April 2007 rant…)

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that approximately six months previously, climate change had burst back into Australian public consciousness, via the Millennium Drought, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, things like the Stern Review and perhaps even the UK Camp for Climate Action. 

Kevin Rudd as first ALP shadow foreign secretary and then leader had by this time, already called climate change “the great moral challenge of our generation” (he was using the issue as a stick with which to beat the incumbent Prime Minister, John Howard). And everyone wants to feel they’re doing their bit without being at all really inconvenienced, or to turn that “inconvenience” into a display of virtue. 

What I think we can learn from this is that there might be a so-called Earth Hour, but the other 23 days of that day, and all the other days of the year where there isn’t an Earth Hour is what – Anti Earth Hour? or Kill the Earth Hour? Go figure. 

What happened next

Some people switched some lights off. And patted themselves heartily on the back. We’ll come back to this on the day itself, March 31.

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.

Also on this day: 

March 22, 1960 – US Television warning of carbon dioxide build up, courtesy Athelstan Spilhaus…

March 22, 2007 – Unions talk good game on climate

March 22, 2012 – flash mobs and repertoire exhaustion

Categories
Australia

March 20, 2014 – Australian Senate votes against killing off ARENA, CEFC etc 

Eleven years ago, on this day, March 20th, 2014,  Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s first attempt at legislative climate thuggery is foiled.

The government’s carbon tax repeal laws have been voted down by the Senate, leaving the fate of Australia’s carbon pricing scheme up to the new Senate that sits from July.

It appears very likely the carbon price will then be repealed – and the government says its repeal laws will make the end date of the tax retrospective to 1 July, 2014 – even if they have not passed the parliament by then.

Carbon tax repeal voted down by Senate | Australia news | The Guardian

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 398ppm. As of 2025 it is 427ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that the previous five years had seen ferocious battles over a fairly basic and inadequate carbon pricing scheme. 

In late 2009 the Liberal Party had tossed Malcolm Turnbull for being too pro-climate action and given Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition gig. Abbott had then killed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Rudd basically imploded. Rudd’s henchman then gave a journalist a jibe about Julia Gillard that caused Gillard to uncharacteristically lose her cool. Gillard challenged for the leadership and Rudd was turfed by Labor. Gillard became prime minister, and during the snap election campaign that she just called, there would be no carbon tax under her government. The 2010 election resulted in a situation with neither the Coalition or Labor having enough MPs to form a government, and therefore relied on Gillard or Abbott doing enough deals with the independents and the Greens. Gillard succeeded, but the cost of their support was – you guessed it – a carbon pricing scheme. The optics were bad, and they were handled even worse (see February 24 2011 blogpost). 

And so 2011 saw this astonishing, vitriolic, insane battle over a “carbon tax”, with most businesses ducking and covering and not wanting to be drawn into the fight. and even the consultancies, or maybe especially the consultancies, given that they are entirely dependent on the good graces of political parties were cutting their cloth accordingly (See Malto Maltenberger anecdote- the intellectual corruption and quiescence is astonishing.)

Anyway, Gillard, thanks to in part, the ferocious attacks of the Murdoch press, became very unpopular in the opinion polls. Kevin Rudd, who’d been lurking on the back benches, launched his challenge, toppled Gillard. 

There was an election in 2013 which the wrecking ball, aka Tony Abbott, won handily, and Abbott had set about trying to repeal all the carbon pricing legislation and also to abolish things like the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, but Abbott did not have control of the Senate, and this is an example of them pushing back. 

What I think we can learn from this is that this period in Australian politics was an especially bewildering soap opera. Actually, not even a soap opera, more like a Jacobean tragedy. 

What happened next, CEFC and ARENA survived, sort of. Abbott was turfed by Turnbull, who was then turfed by Morrison. A lot of this has to do with energy and also the culture wars going on. “Which kind of Australia do we want?” And it seems that enough people want an imagined 1950s Australia that never existed.

And these people can be mobilized. And the so-called progressive forces, which are mostly or at least partially blind to the arrived ecological debacle, have neither the language nor the skills to do much about it.

It may or may not be different when the Rupert bloody Murdoch finally dies. But just because the poisoner is dead doesn’t mean the poison stops working. 

I suppose this is a contestable way of looking at it. You also have to look at the poison needing to be frequently updated, or else the so-called immune system of the so-called body politic might “cleanse itself” of insanity? Who knows? We’ll find 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.

Also on this day: 

March 20, 1967 – Solar Energy advocate warns of carbon dioxide build-up

March 20, 1987 – The “sustainable development” Brundtland Report was released

March 20, 2014 – industry groups monster reef defenders