The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 317ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that in the mid 1950s somebody had spotted that senior US politician Estes Kefauver had spoken of the perceived danger that multiple nuclear explosions could tip the earth off its balance and thought “that’s a good idea for a science fiction story.” It was filmed and released and is perhaps the first is part of the whole examples of climate anxiety films.
What we can learn from this is the film is an entirely enjoyable eco thriller before the name and would make an excellent starting point for a green group that was trying to attract people. Maybe.
What happened next
By the late 1960s people were beginning to talk about carbon dioxide build-up as The Threat.
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.
Fifty one years ago, on this day, November 2, 1972, the American writer and thinker Jerry Mander published an attack on image-making –
“Eco-Pornography: One Year and Nearly a Billion Dollars Later, Advertising Owns Ecology,” Communication Arts, November 2, 1972
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 327.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by this point, the “Malthusian Moment” of eco-fear had been well underway for three years – really from 1968/1969. And the predicted response from corporates had come to pass – lots and lots of green-tinged advertising to soothe people’s consciences as they continued to buy stuff both that they needed and stuff that they didn’t need.
This comes back to a deeper idea of “nature as Redeemer” “nature as cure,” which had long been around in Romantic thinking.
What I think we can learn from this is that the big business moves were entirely predictable. And were predicted. But it’s still used because they still work.
What happened next
The term greenwashing was invented in the 90s. Chevron had some smiling, laughing dolphins and some seals clapping at the idea of double-hulled oil tankers.
See also “Nulture” as a term.
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 one years ago, on this day, October 5, 1992, REM’s album Automatic for the People was released. It contains the stone-cold classic “Ignoreland.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 356.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that twelve years of Republican Party presidents were close to coming to an end – if Clinton could win the presidency which of course he did.
REM were global superstars by this point and memories of the “Republican Revolution” were still fresh in the minds of people who had an inkling of how doomed we were.
What I think we can learn from this
This along with Bobby Conn’s “Never get ahead” is one of the great songs about neoliberalism – and the media in this case. If you can’t grok the role of the media within the state-corporate nexus, as a means of limiting information and debate, then there’s no hope for you. Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model is necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) for you, my friend…
What happened next
REM got paid silly money. Did some great songs bless.
Neoliberalism continued in people’s minds and hearts and was ultimately responsible for the collapse of human civilisation in the 2030s.
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.
Fifteen years ago, on this day, September 28, 2008, a brilliant and too-relevant-for-words animation was unleashed on the world.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was people were indeed waking up and freaking out but not fast enough and in large enough numbers to make a difference. And they couldn’t join groups because they weren’t any decent functioning groups anymore, just various sects and zombie repertoire outfits.
What I think we can learn from this – Leo Murray is insanely talented.
What happened next
The climate movement imploded at the end of 2009 and into 2010. And we still don’t really have a movement, just a bunch of groups, rising and falling, unaware of any of the history, of what is needed. Or aware of what is needed but unable to do it. Because, reasons.
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 six years ago, on this day, July 23, 1987, Calvin blames his mother, and her generation…
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 350.2ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Bill Watterson is a stone cold genius. The cartoon says so much about youthful exuberance and the joys of pointing the finger.
By 1987, yeah, lots of people knew already. You didn’t need to be a particular genius to understand that climate change was coming.
What I think we can learn from this is that proper humour about climate change is really hard to do. Some have managed it.
What happened next
Calvin & Hobbes kept publishing for a few more years but then went out on a high very sensibly. Showbusiness adage about leave them wanting more etc…
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.
The greenies need to be put back in their box…. Lobbying, economic modelling, scare campaigns, smears. The usual…
“The recent shift in the environmental debate to promote global rather than regional goals is causing alarm among the world’s leading industrialists because of its potential to distort world trade and regional economies.
“The impact on Australia is assuming major proportions, with an Access Economics study to be released next week revealing that one-third of almost$40 billion in proposed mining and manufacturing projects are under threat of environmental veto”
Massey, M. 1990. Environmental debate tops agenda at coal conference. Australian Financial Review, 4 May, p. 10.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 354ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that industry had only just started to push back against green groups. It had lazily assumed that the whole thing was a fad that would blow itself out very quickly. It was only really in late 1989/early 1990 that they started, in Australia, to properly co-ordinate a firm response…
What I think we can learn from this
When they wreck everyone’s future, that’s within normal parameters. If anyone tries to stop them, even slow them, that counts as “distortion”
What happened next
They won. The UN process was effectively kneecapped. Domestic processes were kneecapped. They got rich. The atmosphere got enriched too – with insane amounts of carbon dioxide…
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
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 331.5ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Harry “Stainless Steel Rat” Harrison had written a novel called “Make Room, Make Room”, published in 1968. This became Soylent Green.
The timing wasn’t as good as it could have been – the “Malthusian Moment” was passing/had passed, but such is the danger with films, which inevitably have a long lead-time.
See also other films of the time that have interesting things to say about “ecology”-
Global warming was considered by the script-writers and director to be well-enough known as not to mystify the audience…
It’s hard to talk about societal conspiracies/conspiracies of silence. This film was a decent effort, imo.
And the stuff with Edward G. Robinson is great…
What happened next
Heston, who had been a liberal darling, went further and further “right” – a common but not universal or inevitable path.
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, 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.”
On this day, November 8 1989, greenies respond to a Labor Minister who declared environmentalism to be a “middle class “fad.”
SYDNEY: Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Phillip Toyne hit back yesterday at the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy, John Kerin, who last week described the green movement as a middle class “fad”.
1989 Anon, 1989. ACF says Kerin’s lash at greenies was ‘fatuous’. Canberra Times, 9 November, p.7.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 351ppm. At time of writing it was 416ppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Australians had begun to really get their heads around environmental degradation, the Greenhouse Effect (see Dan Cass’s brilliant essay on this site). In May 1989 Tasmanian Greens had done very very well at the elections there. Labor saw the Liberals trying to outflank them on climate (true story). Business was beginning to organise its pushback. The speech by Kerin can be seen as the beginning of the general reaction…
Why this matters.
There’s always a pushback. In Australia’s case, it’s gone on “successfully” for three decades. But then, the country was always a quarry with a state attached…
On this day, July 18, 2012, a video of the poem “Tell Them” by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner was uploaded, as part of the London 2012 Poetry Parnassus
Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is a poet from the Marshall Islands. She is known for her poetry about climate change and its effects on her home islands in the Pacific, and has spoken at high level events such as the UN Climate Summit in 2014.
Jetnil-Kijiner doesn’t talk about climate change as a new phenomenon, but as another part of a history of violence in the Pacific. She weaves justice arguments that connect 20th century nuclear testing; militarism; rising sea levels, and forced migration.
In her poem ‘Tell Them’, recorded for Studio Revolt, she talks with love about the Marshall Islands, addressing a friend who lives elsewhere, asking them to pass on her message about the country people might not have heard of:
Show them where it is on a map Tell them we are a proud people toasted dark brown as the carved ribs of a tree stump
Tell them we are descendants of the finest navigators in the world
This message is not only one of pride and love for home, but also a warning and a call to action. Because the Marshall Islands are known outside of the Pacific. But they are known as an example, along with Tuvalu and Kiribati, of the ‘sinking islands’.
What Jetnil-Kijiner’s poetry does that is so important, is speak on behalf of islands that are so often written off as ‘doomed’, or a ‘sacrifice zone’ for a capitalist global economy, and islanders that so easily get framed as climate refugees, as if the uninhabitability of their islands is now inevitable; unpreventable.
What I argue in my own research, is that this doomed ‘extinction narrative’ tells the story as if it is already over. Like Jetnil-Kijiner, I trace a history of violence and ‘accumulation of injustices’ where the lives of islanders are considered disposable in the pursuit of colonial expansion and capitalist extraction. At the same time, this loss of life is naturalised as inevitable, due to the ‘vulnerability’ of islands and islanders, as weak and fragile peoples and unnatural places to live.
The reason that islander poets such as Jetnil-Kijiner, Yuki Kihara, and Terisa Tinei Siagatonu, and Craig Santos Perez are such important voices in climate change politics, is because they are refusing the foregone conclusion of the sinking islands extinction narrative. They offer a different way to talk about climate change politics, where the fight for mitigation is continuing, and must continue:
But most importantly you tell them we don’t want to leave we’ve never wanted to leave and that we
