Thirty five years ago, on this day, February 27, 1988, a conference about, well, Global Change, finished in Canberra.
1988 Australian Academy of Science (1988) Global change, Proceedings of the Elizabeth and Frederick White Research conference 24-27 February 1988.
[fill in, take photo of contents page]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 351ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The Australian Academy of Science had been looking at climate change since a 1975-6 report (with a 1980 conference, and then another in 1987). Meanwhile, the problems of Amazonian deforestation, ozone, acid rain etc were all very much ‘in the news’.
What I think we can learn from this
Smart people will identify problems, in great detail, but, fearful of being labelled “political” are hesitant to name the names of the people, organisations, motives and processes that are perpetuating the problems, or talk about what would actually need to be done, beyond vague “change in legislation/change in mindsets” stuff. They bring an ethical knife to a power gunfight….
What happened next
More fine words. More emissions. And here we are.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Twenty five years ago, on this day, February 26, 1998, yet more promises of clean coal were made in Australia, by eerie coincidence the world’s number one coal exporter…
RESEARCH laboratories where scientists will work to make Australian coal the “cleanest” in the world, will be opened by Premier Bob Carr today.
The Ian Stewart Wing of the chemical engineering laboratories at Newcastle University form part of the co-operative research centre for black coal utilisation.
The centre, partially government funded, was established in 1995 to carry out world class research to maximise the value and performance of Australian black coal resources
Anon. 1998. Tests for green coal. Daily Telegraph, 26 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 366.1ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
At a Federal level, Prime Minister John Howard was resolutely anti-climate action (even after extracting an amazingly generous deal at Kyoto). At the state level, New South Wales and Queensland wanted to export more and more coal, obviously.
The CSIRO, having been lukewarm/opposed to renewables for yonks, was talking up the prospects of “clean coal.”
What I think we can learn from this
Research and Development organisations are largely captured by powerful/rich actors, via various mechanisms that are not hard to understand but unless understood ‘in the round’ can be dismissed as ‘conspiracy theory’. New technologies find it very very hard to get traction…. (Mark Diesendorf has written extensively about this, by the way).
What happened next
Clean coal is still coming, just like full communism was under Brezhnev, and just like nuclear fusion is. Now, about that bridge you were interested in buying from me you know, the one in Sydney… I can bribe the official writing the tender documents, but I need some cash from you up front…
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Hello to all new Twitter followers – thanks, I hope you like the site.
Let’s start with the unjustly obscure English punk/folk singer TV Smith. Don’t worry, we will quickly get to Australia’s climate wars and the long con of carbon credits.
Smith has been around since, well, punk began in the mid-1970s. I’ve described him – fairly I think – as “Chomsky meets Leonard Cohen, but punk.” The man can do things you don’t often associate with punks. Like, properly sing. And write – the man is an insightful compassionate poet and keen observer of, well everything. (1)
He can write about nature, technology, about the sense of futility but endurance in resistance. And he can about the ways that elites seek to discourage challenge. Which is where this story begins.
In his song “More Than This” on his album Misinformation Overload, Smith sets the scene
So the bankers take their seats
With the party elite
In a billionaire’s retreat
Safely out of reach.
And they blame the workers, blame the unions
Blame the slump and blame the boom
And the consumer, blame the system
Blame the losers, blame the victims
And then, the second verse…
So the policies are planned
That we won’t understand
Then the members all shake hands
And the meeting disbands
And they blame the downturn, blame the climate
Even though they’re the ones behind it
Blame the third world, blame the markets
Blame the decoys, blame the targets
And when I watch or read the brilliant coverage of the carbon credits scam (more on those pieces in a minute) my mind is drawn back to those lines
“So the policies are planned
That we won’t understand”
That is to say, I want to make the basic point that a dense and incomprehensible policy, well that is a FEATURE not a bug. Making it eye-wateringly, brain-shreddingly complex means that the conversation can stay at the level of soundbites, that most people give up trying to understand it and those who do persist seem weird to their friends and are disheartened and CRUCIALLY – you need a lot longer to unpack bullshit than to throw it, and if you’re having to explain it in detail, you are irritating/frustrating potential supporters. It becomes a “well, we should just leave it to the people who study this all day long.”
This tactic, when used by creationists to try to cast doubt on evolution by natural selection, is called a Gish Gallop, after its main proponent, Duane Gish. Basically, someone gallops through a whole load of nonsense, and their opponent is then left to either let a load of lies/half-truths go unchallenged (and strengthened) or else take up five or ten more times trying to unpick it all, and probably strengthen it into the bargain. It’s a no-lose situation for the bullshitters.
Which brings us to the carbon credits saga, the latest in the long line of astonishingly successful tactics used by Australian fossil-fuel interests over the last thirty five years.
They toyed with (but mostly abandoned/subcontraced it out deniably) outright denial. Then they put out the “too expensive” argument, and enlisted various other groups (looking at you CFMEU) to resist both a carbon tax and then an ETS. They talked with a straightface about technofixes, and got the taxpayer to dig deep. They have now morphed into using a policies-are-planned/Gish Gallop approach, alongside being the fox in the henhouse and benefitting from the fact that lots of potential critics never survived – at an organizational level – the drop in radical-end-of-resistance funding after the Global Financial Crisis. The big groups that might call bullshit are mostly – not all, but mostly – cowed or captured.
The “complexity” takes us back to the days of the tax versus ETS debates (which go back further than 2009, and further than Shergold in 2006/7, but I digress). An ETS is supposed to be more “efficient” (though that is asserted rather than supported with evidence). But the key benefit, I suspect, beyond being able to make banks and consultancies rich via various wheezes that are politely called “regulatory arbitrage” and the like (academics don’t like to use words like “thievery” or “rorting” – it’s too close to the truth) was this – ETS is complicated compared to a tax, which would be easy to understand, easy to “sell,” if sold right.
And so when the Greens, in early 2010, tried to save something from the wreckage Rudd had caused (see that cartoon by the brilliant @davpope), one of the points was that it would remove the eye-watering complexity.
And they were, ignored.
Look, a con man wants to distract you, to make you think you are seeing one thing when you are actually seeing another. There are various ways to do that. Flattery is one, but so is its opposite. They want you to believe them, not your “lying eyes” and they want you to doubt your sense-making ability. So they complicate, they “complexify”, they gish gallop, they bullshit.
Finally, here are three things I’ve read/watched of late that I think are just brilliant at explaining the carbon credits scam. Doubtless there are others.
Forty two years ago, on this day, February, 25, 1981, Stan Collard, National Party senator (yes, you read that right) worried about climate change aloud, in parliament.
“Our steaming coal exports are mounting. I have no objection to that, except for one thing. I ask: Just how much further can we go with burning these masses of coal and pouring the pollutants, including carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere? One thing that we are not sure of, of course, is the ultimate greenhouse effect that it will have on this continent, maybe even in our lifetime. I think we must consider quite reasonably just where to cry halt to the burning of masses of steaming coal and where we can bring in one of the cleanest methods of power generation, that is, nuclear power generation, until something cleaner and better comes along. I reject the suggestion that the Government is lacking in its planning, but I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate.”
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.”
Twelve years ago, on this day, February 18, 2011 Australia’s chief scientific advisor Penny Sackett downed tools. She said in her statement – “”Institutions, as well as individuals, grow and evolve, and for both personal and professional reasons the time is now right for me to seek other ways to contribute.” (source)
This move was regarded at the time – rightly or wrongly – as a rebuke/frustration with the lack of ambition on climate policy.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Prime Minister Julia Gillard was in the middle of a shitstorm over climate policy that continued for months (Feb to August 2011).
What I think we can learn from this
Offering scientific advice to politicians is at best a very tough gig. At worst, you’re a fig leaf/complicit.
What happened next
Following chief scientific advisors were more willing to sing the praises of fantasy technologies and keep their heads down. Whether or not current and future generations are well-served by that is, well….
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Twenty years ago, on this day, February 17, 2003, New South Wales Premier Bob Carr (long aware of climate problems) accuses John Howard of merely going along with the US in not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol.
Bob Carr has today released a new report, sponsored by three Labor states, that he says shows that the cost to Australia of not joining the treaty will be higher than joining it. It claims that countries that do not ratify the agreement on greenhouse gas emissions will lose out on future investment opportunities in renewable energies.
Mr Carr has also proposed setting up a new office in New South Wales to oversee the use of renewable energy and carbon emissions.
He says if the Prime Minister will not act then he is forced to show leadership on the issue. “I think it’s not unfair to say of our Prime Minister, that all his instincts are very, very conservative and he’s going along with America,” he said. “He’s going along with America but if there was ever a case for running a policy independent of Washington this is it.”
ABC, 2003 Carr accuses Howard of poor leadership. 17 February 2003
Meanwhile, on the same day, Greenpeace tried to widen the existing split within the Business Council of Australia over the Kyoto Protocol….
SYDNEY, Feb 17, AAP – One of Australia’s big four banks has indicated its support for an international treaty to cut greenhouse gases.
Greenpeace today said initial findings of its survey of Business Council of Australia (BCA) members revealed Westpac supported the aims and objectives of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol
AAP. 2003. Westpac supports Kyoto Protocol – Greenpeace. Australian Associated Press Financial News Wire, 17 Feb
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
John Howard was cuddling up to George Bush on everything – the attack on Iraq, trashing climate diplomacy, you name it. Carr was busy still trying to turn New South Wales into some sort of exemplar, at least for carbon trading (thus the report and the Gore-schmoozing).
Meanwhile, Greenpeace was having to do WWF’s job of splitting the business sector, because WWF was being very friendly with Howard (though to be fair, later in 2003, WWF tried to grow a pair. Sort of).
What I think we can learn from this
Finding/enlarging splits between government and business and splitting apart the (usually superficial) unity of business is something that NGOs can be good at. Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation kept at it, and it sort of bore fruit in 2006. Strange fruit, but fruit. Sort of (no, not really, but what are you going to do?)
What happened next
Howard never signed up for Kyoto, to his cost in 2007
Various “pro”-climate business groupings have come and gone since 2003. Lots of warm words, not much else, though they would all dispute that, naturally.
Carr stopped being Premier in 2005, and later served as Julia Gillard’s Foreign Affairs Minister
And we all lived hotly ever after, until we didn’t.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 16, 2007, as the second big wave of climate awareness was kicking off in Australia, a senior Liberal politician was… being himself.
It SHOULD not be seen as a sin to be cautious about the science of global warming, a senior Federal Government minister has warned.
Finance Minister Nick Minchin says “there remains an ongoing debate about the extent of climate change” and the extent of human activity’s role in global warming.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Nick Minchin had been successful in defeating an emissions trading scheme in the year 2000. And he had remained one of John Howard’s staunch culture warriors on the question of climate. From late 2006 people in Australia started to become reawakened to the climate problem and Minchin was pushing back in the way that old white men so often do. By this I mean pointing the finger at people and calling them hysterical and accusing them of panicking without bothering to think that maybe there is something to panic about.
What I think we can learn/remember from this
Just a reminder that just because someone is “successful” does not mean they cannot be a harmful dolt.
The sorts of things that Minchin accuses others of doing – cherry picking data, being unscientific – that’s all projection, that’s what he’s doing.
There are always old white men who will come out with this bullshit and of course now they’ve painted themselves into a corner and would have to admit that they had been wrong which would be psychologically devastating for them.
What happened next
Labor won the Federal election at the end of the year and fundamentally bollocksed up the politics and policy. Well done, Kevin. You’re from Queensland and you’re here to really screw things up.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
Ten years ago, on this day, February 15, 2013, a journo for the Melbourne Age writes a piece about the then-all-the-rage topic of “unburnable carbon”
Energy analysts and activists warn that most of the world’s fossil fuels must remain in the ground, and that it can’t be business as usual for the industry.
Green, M. 2013. Bursting the carbon bubble. The Age,15 February, p.16.
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
This “unburnable carbon”/”carbon bubble rhetoric was all the rage 10 years ago. It looked like the UNFCCC process was going to be a slow route back to feeling that the system could deliver. Copenhagen had been a failure, Paris was two and a half years off and it was still not clear that it would provide anything. So all those people who need to believe that there are levers and buttons in the policy sphere that we can push turn their attention to the idea that investors rather than statesmen could solve the problems; they just needed to be given stark advice that investing in stranded assets was a bad idea.
How do you strand an asset? Well, ultimately, you need to have markets and regulations that make some investments,a bad idea and other investments a better one. How would you do that on carbon? Well, you would need a strong legally binding international agreement (which you can’t get), and therefore, we’re all toast.
.
What I think we can learn from this
Using one “part” of the financial system – whether it is the re-insurers, the insurers, the institutional investors as the leverage point, the secret push-this-button-to-change-the-system is a long-standing and soothing idea for a certain kind of climate-motivated person. Some of them are super-smart. This does not mean they are right.
Unburnable carbon as a meme allowed people to hold conferences, put out press releases, videos, get interviewed on Newsnight and podcasts and generally feel that things were still salvageable. Am I too cynical? My therapist says so.(1)
What happened next
You hear less about unburnable carbon these days, now that Paris and Net Zero are flooding the zone.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
As someone who read this before publication said – “I understand the dynamics of hoping there is a secret lever to pull, but in dismissing that at the same time as providing a psychological sort of explanation for why people keep coming back to this, you might be throwing the baby out with the bath water. There may not be a simple lever we can pull, but even if a mass movement formed which highly organized, highly effective and coordinated, competent, resourceful and dedicated, in the way you would like to see, it would still end up having to deal with the power of capital and would be highly involved in trying to pull these various “levers”
Sixteen years ago, on this day, February 13 2007, a Canberra Times journalist had a cracking story about the politics of knowledge.
The CSIRO has confirmed coal industry bodies have the power to suppress a new report questioning the cost and efficiency of clean-coal carbon capture technologies because they partly funded the research. Dr David Brockway, chief of CSIRO’s division of energy technology, told a Senate estimates committee hearing yesterday it was ”not necessarily unusual” for private-industry partners investing in research programs – such as Cooperative Research Centres – to request reports be withheld from public release if findings were deemed to be not in their best interests. His comments followed questions by Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne regarding the release of an economic assessment by a senior CSIRO scientist of a new carbon capture technology to reduce greenhouse emissions from coal-fired power stations.
Beeby, R. 2007. Industry can gag research: CSIRO. Canberra Times, 15 February.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 384ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
John Howard and his government had been systematically undermining all other organisations that might keep tabs on them, or forcefully propose alternatives. Have a look at “Silencing Dissent” by Clive Hamilton and Sarah Maddison for the gory (and they are gory) details.
What I think we can learn from this
Those who want things to stay the same will do whatever it takes to poke out the eyes and stuff up the mouths of anyone with brains and other ideas, while rewarding lackeys and toadies.
What happened next
Nothing good. The demolition of the CSIRO has, basically, continued. Oh well.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.
