Fifteen years ago, on this day, July 31, 2008 the “Strategic Review of Australian Government Climate Change Programs” was released:
“The Wilkins Review analyzes current climate change programs to determine whether they are complementary to the CPRS”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Rudd Government had set up the Wilkins Review to “house clean” and to get rid of all the other climate support schemes which were not market-based. And in exchange, we would get an economy-wide carbon price which would by magic, fix all the problems because that’s what these people genuinely believed.
What I think we can learn from this is that there are lots of people who are very smart with all of the right qualifications, who also have no idea how the world really works.
What happened next is Rudd’s wonderful Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme died. Twice. He bottled calling an election in early 2010, Julia Gillard had to clean up his mess and Australia’s emissions are high.
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, July 29, 2013, an unreadable “book” about climate change was launched in Adelaide. That sound you hear? It’s real conservatives spinning in their graves…
“Written by Bob Carter and John Spooner, Taxing Air was successfully launched by Senator Cory Bernardi (below right) at the Bert Kelly Research Centre on 29 July. [in Adelaide] Speakers at the launch included Lydia Bevege (Institute of Public Affairs), Centre Chairman Bob Day and author Prof. Bob Carter “
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 394.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
In the sleepy country town of Adelaide another schlub firing blanks in the culture war. The context is that Julia Gillard, against the expectations of her opponents, had successfully shepherded the ETS legislation through parliament in 2011. She had since been toppled by Kevin Rudd, whom she had toppled in 2010 (oh, what times they were). And an election was coming, which Tony Abbott would win. But climate, despite the hopes of Bob Carter, and the other author, was no longer the culture war dynamite that it had been in the past. Everyone was sick and tired of it. Everyone who had an opinion, had their opinion. It was not going to be changed one way or the other. And the book “Taxing the Air” is the most deliriously embarrassing hodgepodge of crap you’d ever had the misfortune to (try to) read. Connor Court press were a long way from the glory days of Ian Plimer’s Heaven & Earth in 2009.
What I think we can learn from this
Idiots gonna idiot.
What happened next
Carter died.
And the climate wars in Australia continue, courtesy Peter Dutton, chasing the wrong demographic.
Forty six years ago, on this day, Wednesday July 27, 1977, a professor visited the country town of Adelaide to talk about his book…
Canberra Times, Thursday 28 July, page 7
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 334.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
11 years before yesterday’s blog post, a pro-nuclear Professor was in Adelaide giving a speech – basically part of his book tour for “Uranium On Trial.” And yes, climate change was high on his list of reasons why we should have nuclear.
The broader context is that the Ranger inquiry was ongoing in Australia around uranium mining. And as the Professor noted, the National Academy of Sciences in the US was putting the finishing touches on its two year study of climate change.
What I think we can learn from this is that even people in sleepy country towns like Adelaide had had news of climate by 1977.
What happened next
“if nothing was done”… We’re all going to die. And if you are under 40 or even under 50, you’re going to see that unfold properly in your lifetime. If you are 20 or under, my advice is to start carpe the diems right now.
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
Thirty five years ago, on this day, July 26, 1988, the Australian Financial Review reported on what “the greenhouse effect” might do to the energy mix (it didn’t).
Environmental problems associated with the “greenhouse effect” could force the world to replace fossil fuels with nuclear energy – which would give Australia the opportunity to become the foremost uranium supplier, according to a leading petroleum industry expert.
Mr Bob Foster, general manager, external relations, for BHP Petroleum said last week: “Australia can lead the world on how to mitigate against the greenhouse effect.”
Sargent, S. 1988. Environment problems seen with fossil fuels. Australian Financial Review, 26 July.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that everyone had started to talk about climate change. And the biggest Australian miner BHP was able to see dollar signs because it had lots of uranium and could envisage a turn to nuclear. The deeper context is that from the 1950s and 60s onwards, advocates of nuclear had been talking about it as a greenhouse solution. See, for example, Philip Abelson in 1968, New York Times 1969 Thatcher 1979 for a very small selection
What I think we can learn from this is that proponents of the nuclear dream (or nightmare, depending on your perspective) have been using all the arguments that they can for a long, long time.
What happened next
Nuclear power did not save the world. Nuclear power was never going to save the world,
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 seven years ago, on this day, July 25, 1996, then-new Prime Minister John Howard was correctly identified as a muppet. Sorry, puppet.
The Howard Government has refused to endorse Labor’s program to support research into renewable ethanol fuel, drawing sharp criticism from industry and the Australian Democrats.
At a meeting with ethanol industry representatives yesterday, the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Warwick Parer, refused to guarantee continuing commitment to a bounty scheme and a pilot plant which were funded by the former Labor Government to encourage cost-effective production of the alternative fuel.
Martin, C. 1996. Howard a ‘fossil fuel puppet’, Australian Financial Review, 26 July, p. 16.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 363.7ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that John Howard has not been Australian Prime Minister long (March of 1996). But it’s pretty obvious that whatever lingering hopes, environmentalists and producers of ”environmentally friendly fuel” ethanol were not going to get much love. And their low expectations were met.
What I think we can learn from this is that a new government whether it has a different ideology or a leader with different priorities can suddenly not be returning the calls of various actors, be they entrepreneurs or social movement organisations or whatever. And windows of opportunity, both for the social and technological innovations can close really rapidly. And of course, everyone knows that, which is why you get such desperation about any given election because opportunities for either necessary research and development or sucking on the public tit, (depending on your perspective) will be curtailed. And so it came to pass in this case.
What happened next
Howard ruled Australia for 11 years. He did everything he could to squash renewables with some success. Well, certainly delay.
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.
Thirty two years ago, on this day, July 22, 1991, the Australian radio program “The Science Show” (ABC Radio) had two climate denialists on. Oh joy.
(See Robyn Williams letter to The Australian, 1991, Dec 6, p.10).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.3ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Science Show had from its very beginnings been aware of the dangers of climate change. So Ritchie Caleer, who had been writing about the problem emphatically since the late 60s (and had been aware of it since the early 1950s), was a guest in 1975 on the first episode.
In 1991, the politics of it national of climate, internationally and nationally were getting hot. The negotiations for a climate treaty to be signed in June of 92 were going nowhere thanks to the resolute intransigence and blocking of the United States administration.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the Ecologically Sustainable Development policy process was reaching its final stages, drafts were being written ahead of release within a couple of months. I don’t know if the Science Show had pro-climate action guests the week before the week after. But on this occasion, they had two idiots. One was Bill Nirenberg, one of the Jasons who you can read about in Merchants of Doubt. He had helped to write the 1983 NAS “changing climate” report, saying, “Oh, it’ll be long term and there’s nothing we can do anyway.” The other guest was Brian O’Brien, one of the more active climate deniers on the Australian scene. He was able to play on the fact that he had been the scientist for NASA, as if this somehow gave him expertise on climate science. O’Brian had written various screeds about climate policy, especially attacking the “Toronto Target”.
What I think we can learn from this is that even the best media has to allow dodgy people on because if you don’t, it is “censorship”. And especially 31 years ago, there was still need to “hear both sides of the argument.” And to be fair, I don’t know how Robyn Williams dealt with that at the time, maybe he did a very good job of sending a public health warning to listeners.
What happened next
The ecologically sustainable development process was killed off by new Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating and his henchmen within the Australian Federal bureaucracy. The Rio Earth Summit, rubberstamped a piss-weak climate treaty, i.e. the Americans won. And in long term, everybody lost.
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.
A hundred and eleven years ago, on this day, July 17, 1912, the New South Wales Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal ran a clipping (based on a Popular Mechanics article, about “Coal Consumption Affecting Climate.”) https://www.braidwoodtimes.com.au/story/3848574/old-news-goes-viral/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 301ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
This is one of those delicious findings that yes, people were thinking about possible consequences of all the coal- this is in the afterlife of the Arrhenius and Chamberlain. But of course, the scientists had stopped looking because, thanks to Angstrom, they had convinced themselves that carbon dioxide was quickly saturated, and therefore irrelevant to any heating effect. And it was all about the water vapour.
So this finding is the sort of thing that you find on the internet and occasionally it gets sent to me as somehow proof that “everybody knew.” But I really do strongly believe that before Plass and Keeling it was entirely understandable to be deeply skeptical about the link, and even with Plass and Keeling and so forth it’s really only the late 1970s onwards that you can start to think about putting people on trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity. I know that’s convenient, because it is at that point that we get eight years of neoliberals blocking before the ‘breathrough’ in mid-1988. But anyway, I digress.
What I think we can learn from this
The idea had been ‘in the air’ for a while..
What happened next
Nothing, because the science was most definitely not settled…
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.
Thirty three years ago, on this day, July 16, 1990, the asinine comments of Hugh Morgan, culture warrior and businessman, are reported in the Canberra Times
ADELAIDE: Western Mining chief Hugh Morgan has criticised the former Minister for the Environment, Graham Richardson, and the scientific community for treating the greenhouse theory as fact rather than hypothesis.
Mr Morgan told an Australian Institute of Energy conference dinner on Monday [16th July] that he was concerned at the way in which some scientists and Senator Richardson expounded the theory as if it were truth.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that having won the Federal election in March of that year, the Labour Party was having to follow through on promises to the environmentalists about a so-called “ecologically sustainable development process.” Hugh Morgan, who probably felt the Liberals and Nationals had been robbed, was predictably furious, and predictably spouting his climate denial bollocks, saying that there were alternative theories. This was a common proposal at the time and still is. Morgan’s “alternative theories” being possible somewhat like Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts”.
There is that letter from Guy Callendar to (I think) Gilbert Plass about people being able to criticise theories, but it’s very hard to come up with a good one. And there is also the editorial in Climatic Change by John Eddy, where he cites Kipling’s poem, In the Neolithic Age – “nine and 60 ways to calculate the tribal lays and every one of them is right.”
But that’s not what Morgan is saying. Morgan is saying that he’s gonna shop around until he finds a “theory” that allows us to keep burning coal and the oil and the gas and spitting on and shitting on the environmentalists. That’s what Morgan means by “alternative theories.”
What I think we can learn from this
Brittle old white men are bad for your health. And your planet’s health, at that.
What happened next
The ecologically sustainable development process did indeed start. Morgan kept funding denialist efforts including his consigliere Ray Evans and all the other Goon Squad types who have made the Australian response to climate change change so shameful and wasteful.
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, July 14, 2000, the tensions any social democratic party faces were out in open…
A split is emerging between the main coal mining union and the ALP over Labor’s pledge to take early action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The ALP’s draft environment policy, released last week, calls for the introduction of a national carbon credit trading scheme ahead of any international trade system introduced under the Kyoto Protocol, the UN treaty limiting developed countries’ emissions of greenhouse gases.
But the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union is worried about the impact of the early introduction of such a scheme on the economy and employment particularly in energy-intensive sectors.
Hordern, N. 2000. Miners unhappy with Labor’s greenhouse pledge. The Australian Financial Review, 14 July, p.12.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 370ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that some folks within the ALP were trying to turn climate change into an issue, a bit at least, as a stick to beat Howard with. But it wasn’t easy…
What I think we can learn from this is that climate change is an extremely difficult issue to build red-green coalitions on, for multiple reasons.
What happened next
Howard won the 2001 Federal Election, thanks to vicious lies about Afghan refugees. And got another six years to delay and prevent climate action.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Ten years ago, on this day, July 13, 2013, the Australian satirical website “The Shovel” took aim at Tony Abbott, who was about to become Prime Minister… It’s still hilarious, if with a tinge of horror.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 397.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Tony Abbott was clearly about to become prime minister. And he was clearly still spouting his bollocks, that because carbon dioxide was invisible, it therefore somehow didn’t have any significance. So the Australian satirical publication, The Shovel, decided to tear him a new one. And it’s a corker.
What I think we can learn from this
Laughter is solace
What happened next
Well, Peter Cook said, “I love satire, I love how it stopped Nazis.” Abbott became one of the worst Australian Prime Ministers to date (and there’s stiff competition). So, obviously, since then, we’ve had do-nothing Malcolm Turnbull, and fuck things up with a smirk on your face. Scott Morrison, him of the multiple portfolios. And now “Albo”…
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.
