The Adelaide Advertiser runs a full page ad (not for the first or last time) from Mobil Oil company, trying to insinuate that Mobil gives a flying fuck about Australia, and to get readers to build a connection between buying Mobil and being a Real Australian.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 329ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that we are marinated in all forms of propaganda. As per the late Alex Carey,
“The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy.”
The specific context was that with the coming of drilling in the Bass Strait for oil and gas, multinationals stepped up their propaganda, sorry “advertising” effort.
What I think we can learn is this: the marinating has been going on for so long. I think we’re cooked, in fact.
What happened next: The propaganda has been constantly topped up. Like the sheep in Animal Farm, endlessly bleating, to stop any chance of independent thought.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Twenty one years ago, on this day, June 11th, the Australian Conservation Foundation called for deep cuts…
ACF calls for national deep cuts target on greenhouse
Date: 11-Jun-2005
The Australian Conservation Foundation today urged a national commitment to a target of cutting greenhouse pollution by 60% by 2050 and a framework of immediate practical action, following commitments by the NSW Premier to this target and the expansion of gas and renewables to meet electricity needs in that state.
ACF Executive Director, Don Henry, said the NSW target of a 60% cut by 2050 matched that adopted by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and the advice of Australia’s former Chief Scientist, and should offer important common ground for the national working group on climate change established at last week’s COAG.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 380ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 432ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that the Australian Conservation Foundation had been aware of CO2 build up since the early 70s, there had been articles in its magazine Habitat. And from 1988 onwards, it had been pushing on carbon dioxide build up as a severe problem. But then under Liberal Prime Minister John Howard (1996-2007), it had become impossible to get anything happening, really. All you could do was release reports showing how important carbon dioxide was as a problem and that there were economic steps that could be taken that wouldn’t cause havoc, and these would largely be ignored as this one was.
What I think we can learn is this: is that it really does matter for the speed and rollout of technology, who is making the government decisions and what messages they’re sending everyone else.
What happened next: Well, in 2006 ACF repeated a trick that it and other organisations including the Wentworth group and WWF had tried. They got together with a bunch of businesses and released a joint report. This was in April 2006 and it was kind of the beginning of the end of the silence. John Howard was accumulating wounds and enemies and bleeding credibility, and then later on, in 2006 the issue broke through, and it spelt the end for Howard.
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
On this day, June 6th, greenies, business and trades unions hold hands…
“Weather forecast for the world of our children”.
Address to the joint Australian Conservation Foundation/ Business Council of Australia/ Australian Council of Trade Unions forum on sustainable development in Melbourne on 6 June 1990
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 354ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that there had been periodic flashes of warning about carbon dioxide build up through the 70s and early 80s, but the issue had really exploded in 1988 especially in Australia, (related to ozone depletion and so forth). And what you saw was a whole bunch of organisations scrambling to catch up.
The specific context was that here you see we’re still in the “hold hands and sing Kumbaya and have a collective response” phase, while the Business Council of Australia, was beginning to flex its muscles on counting the perceived costs it hadn’t yet publicly broken bad. Meanwhile, the ACTU had released a couple of nice sounding reports and. But the ACTU problem was that they allowed the CFMEU (not called that yet) to dominate the Union response. So, the mining union, in bed with the owners of the mines, decided that coal exports and coal mining were more important than well anything else
Meanwhile, the Australian Conservation Foundation was having a good time of it, with loads of Members, loads of money, loads of publicity, looking sexy. That went well.
What I think we can learn is this: there is always, there’s often a brief period within a policy window, or part of the issue attention cycle, when organisations who were enemies and will be enemies again, stand on a stage and say the nice stuff. And at the moment, maybe they even believe that nice stuff (or they hope it will become true anyway).
What happened next: The BCA started pushing harder and harder against any climate responses. The ACTU continued to allow the coal miners union to dominate its response. The ACF went along with the Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process, all the while knowing that it would probably end in tears. And yes, indeed, it did, in fact, end in tears.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
References
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Nineteen years ago, on this day, June 5th, 2006, 70 brave people put their bodies on the line…
June 5, 2006, and Nov. 3, 2007: Rising Tide boat blockades of Newcastle port
On June 5, 2006, in a Rising Tide Australia action, 70 people used small boats to blockade the port of Newcastle, Australia, which exports 80 million tons of coal each year. The protest aimed to call attention to a planned expansion that would allow the port to export twice that amount.[1] The action was repeated by 100 people on Nov. 3, 2007: at this second action, participants attempted to block ships from entering the port for four hours, but police boats managed to escort three ships into the port. At one point, a police jetski rammed one woman’s kayak, resulting in her hospitalization.[2][3]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 382ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that all the petitions, marches and begging of politicians had not worked. Emissions climbed, fossil intensive infrastructure projects kept getting approved (and still get approved).
The specific context was that the Howard government (like the Keating and Hawke governments before it) had mouthed occasional platitudes about “the environment” but were hell-bent on saying yes to whatever fossil extraction and export was proposed.
What I think we can learn from this is that brave people have had the foresight and clarity – it hasn’t been enough. What was needed was broad-based movements. Oh well…
What happened next was that the exports and burning went on, the emissions and concentrations went up and up. The mainstream politicians have mostly given up pretending to give a shit.
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.
Australian signs the UNFCCC R Kelly (Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment and Territories), Australia signs UNCED climate change convention,
media release, 4 June 1992.
and
The opposition’s delegate to UNCED in 1992, for example, had criticized the Labor Government’s willingness to give away Australia’s sovereign rights and had emphasized the debilitative economic costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.48 CPD, Senate, 4 June 1992, p. 3350.
Matt McDonald, 2005 Fair Weather Friend
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 356ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that Australian political elites had been warned about climate change from the 1970s onwards, but it had only taken action when forced to and initially, for example, at The Hague in 1989 had made the right noises.
The specific context was that by the time Ros Kelly went to Rio, there had been fierce battles against doing anything substantive on climate change, and most of those battles, frankly, had already been won before December 1991, when Keating toppled Hawke. But the coup de grace was Paul Keating becoming Prime Minister and setting fire to any remaining proposals or hopes that Australia would respond adequately as part of the international effort. Keating just thought it was a load of green crap.
Keating should have been at Rio; e was the only OECD leader not to go, and he sent Kelly instead.
What I think we can learn is this: that other futures were possible, but they didn’t happen, and Paul Keating is as responsible for, frankly, the destruction of Australia, thanks to carbon dioxide build up as the more public villain, John Howard.
What happened next: Kelly continued in post for a couple more years, but was brought down by the so-called sports rorts scandal. She was married to, perhaps is married to, some guy who was at the head of Westpac and Westpac did that ridiculous case for early business action on climate change in April of 2006 the emissions climbed. The concentrations climbed, the impacts began to arrive.
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Greene had done some of the early economic modelling (1990) about how Australia could cut emissions and better off. The work was ignored, and then swamped by corporate bullshit…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 394ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that Deni Greene had come to Australia at some point in the 70s or 80s as an economist and in the battles over the economic responses to the greenhouse effect, as it was then called, in 1989-91 did a lot of economic modelling, especially around energy efficiency, to show that it would be possible and in fact beneficial, to take strong action. The pro-coal ministries were not impressed, partly, I think, because of the argument, probably also because she was, in fact, only a woman.
And by 91 PricewaterhouseCoopers had been commissioned to release or to produce a whole bunch of other reports, and the modelling wars were underway.
What I think we can learn is this: it’s now almost 40 years of failure on climate change, and we seem to have learned nothing, and we seem to be incapable of learning anything, if at the micro, meso or macro level. But pretty soon, we will be learning – and the lesson today is how to die.
What happened next: I don’t know what Greene did with the rest of her life, after the early 90s, but it must have been pretty painful to watch all the shit unfold, but that is what happens to people, isn’t it,
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
FLINDERS MP Greg Hunt joined Australia’s oldest parachutist, Jim Brierley, in a parachute jump over Tooradin at the weekend to highlight the freefall of Australia’s solar industry.
83-year-old Mr Brierley lives at Phillip Island in the Flinders electorate and wrote to Mr Hunt earlier this year, inviting him to skydive with the Tooradin-based Commando Skydivers.
Mr Hunt accepted the invitation immediately.
“I leapt at the chance. I had done a static-line parachute jump – where the parachute opens automatically – when I was about 17 but had always wanted to experience a skydive,” he said.
Mr Hunt, who made the jump with tandem master Dave Boulter, described the experience as “sheer exhilaration”.
“We were lucky in that the day was pretty overcast but we managed to find a break in the clouds that lasted just long enough for me to make the jump.
“We jumped from 7000 feet, which was above the cloud level, and dived through the clouds for about 20 seconds before we activated the parachute. Twenty seconds doesn’t sound like a long time but it’s an eternity when you are hurtling towards the ground at something like 120 miles an hour. It is sheer exhilaration. I loved every second of it.
“Jim jumped out of the plane just before me and made an effortless landing, He is an amazing gentleman and an inspiration to us all.”
Mr Hunt used the jump to highlight the plight of the solar panel industry which he said has been sent into freefall since the Rudd Government imposed a means test on the popular solar panel rebate scheme.
BERNARD KEANE ON “PERPETUAL PRESENT” AND PETER GARRETT
Oddly, this is the Greg Hunt who throughout 2008 opportunistically joined the Greens in bagging Garrett for not rolling the solar panels program out quickly enough, after Garrett introduced a means test on the solar panel rebate to slow the remarkable demand for the program. In June 2008, Hunt went skydiving — anyone remember that? — to demonstrate that the solar industry was in “freefall — but unlike me it doesn’t have a soft landing ahead of it”.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 385ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context for this was that Australian political elites had been aware of the carbon dioxide problem since the 1970s but had not really done anything until forced to by a combination of scientific lobbying and especially public pressure, which exploded in 1988. And in 1990 a student, I think, at University of Melbourne, did his honours thesis on carbon pricing, and 18 years later, that student was the shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt,
The specific context was that there had been fierce battles over Emissions Trading/ putting a price on carbon dioxide. And from the end of 2006 onwards, there had been running open battles. By mid 2008 the conservative Party, the Liberal party’s fragile consensus on the need to respond to carbon dioxide build up was beginning to fracture. They were still under the leadership, such as it was of Brendan Nelson, but Malcolm Turnbull was waiting in the wings as leader of the opposition.
What I think we can learn is this: these stupid stunts, they are not cupid stunts, but something else we learned that politicians will do pretty much anything for a headline.
Malcolm Turnbull became leader of the opposition and tried to forge some sort of deal with Kevin Rudd, the Labor Prime Minister. But Rudd was too much enjoying watching Turnbull twist in the wind, and so carbon pricing did not get passed, and Tony Abbott became leader of the opposition, and then, God help us, Prime Minister. And was a complete failure, but he can point to having abolished the carbon price as his signal achievement. Hunt was Minister for the Environment in this and brought about a shadow Emissions Trading Scheme. (See Leonore Taylor in the Guardian for more on this).
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
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.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 31st, 2007 the Australian ‘Shergold Report’ was released:
The Prime Ministerial Task Group on Emissions Trading releases the ‘Shergold Report’ which recommends Australia develop an emissions trading scheme.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the Australian political elites had been warned repeatedly about climate change from the late 1970s onwards. The Howard government from 1996 had chosen to resist any and all domestic and international action on climate that would either inconvenience rich people and fossil fuel companies or even potentially lead to their inconvenience at some point in the future. So, for example, Howard resisted all calls to ratify the Kyoto Protocol even though it would mean nothing substantive, because the next deal might and once you’ve given in on one thing, you have to give in on the next, or it’s easier for you to be forced not to give.
The specific context was that in September, October of 2006 public awareness of concern about climate change spiked because of the Millennium drought, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, (he visited Australia) and a bunch of other factors. Howard’s resistance to climate change action or even the investigation of it became untenable, and so Howard did what any politician will do. He appointed a band, a panel led by a reliable civil servant, Peter Shergold. The panel was, of course, stacked with the usual suspects, fossil fuel hacks and CEOs and so forth, and didn’t have scientists or civil society people who would ask awkward questions. And Howard’s plan, I think, was for the Shergold report to be a fig leaf behind which he could hide ahead of the upcoming Federal election. He wanted to be able to use to wave the Shergold report around to show that he was willing to do something on climate change, or to countenance doing something on climate change, and so neutralise one of the rhetorical weapons that the Labour opposition leader Kevin Rudd had in his armoury,
What I think we can learn from this. that you can’t really understand the provenance and purpose of so-called “fact-finding” reports without understanding the politics and the motivations behind it.
What happened next. The Shergold report did not function as Howard hoped it would, and Howard was on a hiding to nothing, because people wanted actual action on climate change, and they thought that Kevin Rudd would deliver, or they hoped he would – poor deluded fools. See also. Chris Rootes, “first climate election” published in the journal Environmental Politics…
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.
Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 29th, 2007, Australian Prime Minister John Howard plays the “he’s an Englishman” card versus economist Nick Stern…
However, in a Parliamentary debate in May 2007, the Prime Minister suggested the [Stern] review was Eurocentric propaganda. He stated that the report of the Government’s Task Group on Emissions Trading:
… will not be a grab bag of proposals taken holus-bolus from a report written by an Englishman for European conditions and designed to promote the political objectives of the British government. That is what the Stern report is all about. Stern is not the biblical scholar of climate change that is posited by those who sit opposite. Stern has written from the perspective of an Englishman, from the European circumstance and from the European point of view. 73
Commonwealth, Parliamentary Debates, House of Representatives, 29 May 2007, 48 (John Howard, Prime Minister).
Macintosh, 2008 page 66-7
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that John Howard, as prime minister, had spent the 10 years from 1996 to 2006 amplifying and extending the previous Keating Labor government’s hostility to climate change action. Howard had painted himself into a corner, and it was understood that he wasn’t going to be able to paint himself out, or leap over the wet paint, or whatever the metaphor might be.
The specific context was that the UK Labour Tony Blair government had asked a World Bank economist called Nick Stern to produce a report on the “economics of climate change.” This was largely to overcome Treasury intransigence on the question of climate policy. The report, the Stern review, was released in late 2006.
It was at this point, not entirely unrelated, that John Howard had had to perform a U-turn and announce the creation of the ‘Shergold Taskforce’, which would look into the economics of emissions trading.
What I think we can learn from this is that even the best politicians – and Howard was a good politician. I do not mean that as a compliment – run out of steam and run out of road, and by this time, Howard had. Now, very rarely does a politician know when to leave the stage. If Howard had announced his retirement in 2006 his legacy, his “reputation”, would have been assured. But they all come to believe their own propaganda. They all come to believe that they are somehow indispensable. So… no one is indispensable.
What happened next.
Here we are 20 years later, at the beginning of the Fafocene. Economics has not saved us. What we needed was more, but we didn’t know how to get it. And the opposition to ‘it’ was extremely deep-seated and almost insurmountable.
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-five years ago, on this day, May 28th, 2001, the ABC reported on the Kyoto Protocol…
The World Today Archive – Monday, 28 May , 2001
Reporter: David Mark
JOHN HIGHFIELD: And now on The World Today let’s go to the third in our series of stories on the global warming crisis. It’s now been established of course that the greenhouse effect is more than just fanciful scientific theory.
In March, scientists in Britain published the first evidence that global warming is happening as a result of the greenhouse gas pollution of our planet. And the impact could be catastrophic unless remedial measures are taken urgently.
The United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted the world’s temperatures could rise by almost six degrees centigrade over the next century leading to the flooding of many island nations, particularly those in the south and western Pacific in our region, as well as climate chaos, including prolonged droughts and violent storms.
Well, two of the world’s worst offenders on a per capita basis when it comes to producing carbon dioxide (CO2) are the United States and Australia of course. And we seem to be stepping away from things and the International Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, which it was hoped to change the world’s attitude.
Well, in this third story, David Mark looks at the green record of our political parties in this federal election year.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there had been a big wave of ‘act or we are doomed’ documentaries and programmes in the late 1980s and early 1990s. (And, to be fair, similar ones in the late 1960s.)
The specific context was that, as per the May 20 post, there are ABC documentaries about climate change, because there is a recent hook i.e. the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, which has just come out. And also it’s politically salient, because President George W. Bush has pulled out of Kyoto, and people were waiting to see what Australian Prime MinisterJohn Howard would say. Howard is at this point, playing for time, because there is going to be a federal election at some point in late 2001 and Howard can’t afford to piss off and galvanise small g and (large g) Green voters against him.
What I think we can learn from this is, again, the media, or bits of the media, were relatively responsible when they could be, but it didn’t help the wider picture, because the social movements aren’t there to harness the energy, anger, fear, of individuals (because that’s really hard to do).
Everyone understandably wants to vote for the right person and leave it in their hands because they’re busy, because politics is – as per Max Weber – “the slow, boring of hard boards”, and it can be boring and frustrating, and you just want to get on with your life. Unfortunately, while you’re getting on with your life, the emissions are climbing, the atmospheric concentrations are climbing, and then before you know it, the impacts are arriving. And by the time the impacts have arrived, it’s pretty late, too late, I would say, to do much about it. And this dilemma was understood in the late 70s, and it’s throughout William Barbat’s CO2 newsletter.
What happened next.
We didn’t do the work, and future generations are stuffed. Also, all the other species. Oh well…
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.
