Category: Australia

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Australia Denial

September 24, 1991 – Australian denialist gives “Greenhouse Myths” seminar.

On this day in 24 September 1991, an Australian scientist called Brian O’Brien gave a seminar called “Greenhouse Myths and Messages” at a seminar of the Tasman Institute. The Tasman Institute had been set up pretty much to combat momentum towards environmental protection legislation. They published a series of “reports” and seminars/speaker tours (including international visitors).

O’Brien is dead now, so libel laws don’t apply.

What a prick. What an arrogant moron.

His obituary here https://www.uwa.edu.au/news/Article/2020/August/UWA-physicist-leaves-behind-stellar-legacy

is suitably silent on his disgraceful and damaging action on climate change (there’s a lot more than a mere seminar.”)

The context – Tasman – and others – were trying to kill off proposals for economic responses to carbon dioxide build-up, especially a carbon tax. This seminar will have been scheduled in the knowledge that the draft chapters of the “Ecologically Sustainable Development” process were to be released. A seminar like this would provide a nice hook for a press release/puff piece by a sympathetic journalist…  That’s how this stuff works.

On this day the PPM was 352.34

Now it is 420ish – but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Old men with relevance deprivation syndrome throwing their weight and over-confidence around. Gaia help us all.

What happened next?

The Tasman Institute was a dead duck by the late 90s – with the arrival of a Liberal National Government there was no need for it, and its sponsors pulled the plug.

O’Brien may or may not have had second thoughts. I don’t know or care. When it mattered, he was wrong.

Categories
Australia

September 22, 1991 – ESD RIP. Australia’s chance of a different future… squashed flat.

On this day in September 22, 1991, the hold-hands and sing Kumbaya phase of “ecologically sustainable development” came to an end. After 18 months, the “Ecologically Sustainable Development” policy process got (knee)capped.

“Damaging splits are emerging over the plan by the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, to put resource-based industries on a sustainable footing.

Business groups yesterday strongly criticised lack of consultation, and said they might withdraw from the process. They could then claim not to be bound by the recommendations of the taskforce. They said the plan to write ecologically sustainable development policies was badly flawed and could damage the national interest.”

Peake, R. 1991. Sustainable Growth Plan At Risk. The Age, 23 September, p.3.

and

Industry groups attacked the Federal Government yesterday for the lack of consultation in its ecologically sustainable development working groups.

However, in a separate move [and quite possibly co-ordinated, MH], the Minister for Resources, Mr Griffiths, criticised environmental groups over their role in the development debate.

The Business Council argues that the main engine driving the ESD process is the concern about the “potential augmented greenhouse effect”. But the groups had failed to recognise the point made by the Industry Commission in its report on greenhouse, that “there are major uncertainties in each of the many facets of the greenhouse effect”. 

The carbon tax favoured by the ESD working groups would have negligible effect on global greenhouse emissions if it were imposed unilaterally, the council said.

1991 Garran, R. 1991. Industry berates government on Sustainable Development. The Australian Financial Review, 23 September, p.4.

On this day the PPM was 352.34 PPM.

Now it is 420ish – but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

Oh, we can have pretty much the same kind of economic growth we always have had. Bit of technofix here, bit of nip-and-tuck there, it will be fiiiine…

Even the relatively mild and reformist ideas of a carbon tax got kicked into the long grass… So it goes.

What happened next?

Hawke was on his way out. The next (Labor) Prime Minister, Paul Keating and his neoliberal hate-greenies officers kicked all things ecological, climate into the very long grass. John Howard took that and dialled it up to 11. And here we are…

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Australia Ignored Warnings Science Scientists

September 15, 1980 – Australian scientists hold “Carbon Dioxide and Climate” symposium in Canberra

On this day, 15 September 1980, Australian scientists met in Canberra to discuss carbon dioxide and its build-up…

1980, 15 to 17 September, Carbon Dioxide and Climate – Australian Academy of Science symposium in Canberra

“In 1980, the Australian Academy of Science held a conference to review 20 years of measurements showing increasing carbon-dioxide levels, and by then there was an understanding that the greenhouse effect would result in climate change.”

Staples, J. 2009 page 2

And it got reported in the Canberra Times….

Categories
Australia

“Greenhouse Effect worries?” That’s sooo 1989… Sept 14, 1991. #auspol

On this day, September 14, 1991 according to a later article by Ross Gittins (Australian economics journalist) published in the Australian “Good Weekend” supplement.

“Deirdre Macken produced much evidence from market research that public concern about the environment, and the public’s willingness to buy eco-friendly products, had subsided markedly since their surge in 1989.”

Turns out it was all a fad.

And the fad came and went, until finally, in about 2021, reality came a knocking so loud she could no longer be ignored, and the issue attention cycle was – sort of – overcome…

On this day the PPM was

Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

People care, but unless that care is harnessed, protected, nurtured, then the buying of stuff (and giving of speeches) decays quickly. And it is very very rare for care to be harnessed, protected, nurtured.

What happened next?

We kept on buying stuff, including the fine words of politicians, and never trying to see the truth.

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing

September 10, 2007 – shiny #climate promises versus grim reality

On this day, September 10, 2007, shiny declarations met grim reality.

“THE gap between doing something about climate change and talking about it was revealed yesterday. Before the ink was dry on the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum’s Sydney declaration on climate change calling for a boost in global energy efficiency, the NSW scheme designed to do just that was crashing.”

Wilkinson, M. 2007. Going global, crashing locally. Sydney Morning Herald, 11 September.

The NSW scheme was the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. Tits on a bull, chocolate fireguard, whichever you prefer…

On this day the PPM was 381.2. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

The good news of shiny declarations always wins out…

What happened next?

Marian Wilkinson wrote a book about “The Carbon Club”.

Categories
Australia

September 9, 1971 – of Australian Prime Ministers and American scientists…

On this day in 1971, Billy McMahon – until recently regarded as one of the worst Prime Ministers Australia had endured – was being dismissive about Paul Ehrlich, the American biologist and prominent doomster (Ehrlich was, in the long-run, right).

Mr HURFORD – I address my question to the Prime Minister. Has he read and/or heard of the views of Professor Ehrlich, an eminent ecologist, that, with the present growth in world population and taking into consideration the present known incapacity of the world to produce the necessary protein food, energy, etc. to support this population, the world is set on a disaster course? 

Does he realise that these views are causing great concern in the community? Will he use the vast resources of the Commonwealth Government to appraise these views and either contradict them or notify the House as to how he can appropriately alter Government policy, and Government leadership in the world, to take into account the views of Professor Ehrlich? 


Mr McMAHON» – I have not closely studied Professor Ehrlich’s statements but I have read comments about them in the Press «and» seen resumes of what he has said. I must say that I was not attracted by what he has said publicly. I well remember in my very early days at the university when 1 was studying economics that there were many other people who made similar forecasts «and» who turned out to be just as wrong. Where would we have been if we had taken notice of a most distinguished professor at the University of Sydney who said that we could not have a population much in excess of 15 million? We now know that we can take a vastly larger population than that «and» provide better living standards for people provided only that the Liberal Country Party coalition remains in government. I think the honourable member being a thoughtful person and ready to accept what I have said will know the extent to which I disagree with Professor Ehrlich.

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;adv=yes;orderBy=date-eLast;page=0;query=Ehrlich%20and%20McMahon;rec=0;resCount=Default

Meanwhile, Stephen Schneider got a letter published in the New York Times, in response to some earlier nonsense…

(Hat-tip to Real Climate for the jpg)

Categories
Australia Denial

September 8, 1990 – Australian #climate denialist spouting his nonsense…

On this day, 8 September 1990 a climate denialist called John Daly was spouting his soothing nonsense.

The worsening of the greenhouse effect is not inevitable, according to the author of The Greenhouse Trap, John Daly. Sea levels may not be rising, the planet may not be warming and studies indicate that the real increase in carbon-dioxide emission world-wide since 1850 is not the commonly reported 80 per cent but about 25 per cent, he says.

Mr Daly, a marine electronics engineer, spoke in Canberra on Saturday night [8 September] on what he calls a program of misinformation.

His recent exposure of inaccuracies in a schools’ brochure issued by the Minister for the Environment, Ros Kelly, led to its withdrawal.

Mr Daly quotes several eminent Australian scientists and many American ones as having compiled

evidence casting doubt on the existence of the greenhouse effect.

“I just want people to realise that there is some doubt,” Mr Daly said.

He says that in 20 years’ study of weather and science, particularly during the greenhouse effect’s “fashionable” period, the ’80s, he has found little to prove its existence.

Anon. 1990. Author questions greenhouse effect. Canberra Times, 10 September, p. 5.

Idiot.

On this day the PPM was 351.38. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

There was a very successful campaign by over-confident and wilfully ignorant “contrarians” for decades. Daly was present at the creation.

What happened next?

The denial stuff kept on going. Old white men painted themselves into a corner and admit they were wrong. So it goes.

Categories
Australia Extinction

September 7, 1936 – The Anthropocene does for the Thylacine…

On this day, September 7, 1936, the last surviving member of the thylacine species, Benjamin, dies alone in its cage at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.

We are living through the sixth great extinction. And causing it. Hohum.

On this day the PPM was 310ish. Now it is 420ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

This is not a climate event, per se, but the same mentality that exterminated the tigers, and the Tasmanian Aborigines, is at play in the destruction of life on earth.

What happened next?

The extinctions have escalated. 

And First Dog on the Moon had two excellent cartoons (the latter apologising for the former).

Categories
Australia Carbon Pricing Economics of mitigation

September 6, 2000 – Emission scheme defeated, it’s time for a gloating press release… #Climate #auspol

On this day, September 6, 2000, South Australian Senator Nick Minchin puts out a press release… I know, hold the front page, right…

But the context is that the first attempt to introduce a national level emissions trading scheme had just been defeated – with Nick Minchin largely responsible.  This was the semi-gloating declaration of victory…

Below is a quote from the ever-reliable Jim Green, writing in “Green Left Weekly”

The federal Coalition government has taken a number of decisions to reassure big business that measures adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have little or no impact.

Federal minister for industry, science and resources Nick Minchin outlined “specific commitments” to industry in a September 6 press release. They were:

●        that a mandatory domestic greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme will not be introduced “prematurely”;

●        that the government “will involve industry from the inception through to the implementation phase of greenhouse gas abatement policies and strategies that impact on the industry”;

●        that the government will work internationally “to get Australia the best possible greenhouse position”;

●        that the government will assist in “minimising the burden of greenhouse measures on business         through cost-effective actions”; and

●        that the government will not “discriminate against particular projects or regions in greenhouse policies and programs”.

“What we are saying to industry is that in any decisions we make on greenhouse, we will work to maintain their international competitiveness. This is a framework for the government’s greenhouse policy processes. These are all common sense measures that will allow Australian industry to grow and meet our Kyoto commitments. It’s good news for industry, which has warmly welcomed the government’s commitments”, Minchin said.

The government’s “specific commitments” are noticeably lacking in specifics. Canberra’s primary aim is simply to reassure business interests that measures to curb escalating greenhouse gas emissions will have little or no impact on their activities.

Green, J. 2000. Business warms to greenhouse ‘commitments’. Green Left Weekly, 13 September.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/business-warms-greenhouse-commitments

On this day the PPM was 367.15 Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

There is inertia in human systems, but that inertia is often helped on its way by intransigence.  And that intransigence is not “stupid”. Underestimate the opponents of action at your peril…

What happened next?

Prime Minister John Howard got away with it for two more elections. Only in 2006-7 did this unravel for him.

Categories
Australia

September 5, 1990 – Australian Environment Minister promises deep carbon cuts – “easy”…

On this day, September 5 1990, the new-ish Australian Environment Minister, Ros Kelly, was trying to finish the work that a male colleague had started with endless self-promotion but not a lot of guile (this is a pattern that will recur, 20 years later). Here are two newspaper accounts

Targets to reduce greenhouse gases would strengthen the Australian economy, not cripple it, according to the Minister for the Environment, Ms Kelly.

Speaking to a Metal Trades Industry Association seminar, Ms Kelly made a preliminary sortie in the battle she will fight with her Cabinet colleagues next Monday to try to persuade them to set targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Ms Kelly said a report for her department by Deni Greene Consulting Services showed that a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2005 is not only possible, it is pretty easy to obtain”.

Industry groups have been lobbying the Government hard in recent days against setting a target to reduce emissions, which they argue could dramatically increase costs.

Garran, R. 1990. Kelly sees big savings in cutting greenhouse gases. Australian Financial Review, 6 September, p. 5.

and

“In a speech yesterday (5th), Mrs Kelly called again for immediate action. She stressed the IPCC findings and said that “the sensible course of action is to do what we can, as soon as we can”.

A 20 per cent cut had been proved “not only possible (but) easy to obtain,” she said. “

Seccombe, M. 1990. Polluters put on the back-burner. Sydney Morning Herald, 6 September, p.1

On this day the PPM was 351.38. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.

Why this matters. 

There was a time when – if you were optimistic (and perhaps naive?) you could imagine Federal politicians in Australia actually taking action that would have added up to a semi-adequate response to climate change. It was a brief time, one easily romanticised, but it did exist.

What happened next?

None of this came to pass. The fight back from the fossil lobby was supremely effective. Companies in Australia dug up and burnt/sold insane (I mean that literally) quantities of fossil fuels, with active and very enthusiastic support of the political classes and the bureaucrats. And here we are.