The Australian Democrats have publicly undermined the Howard Government’s strategy at the historic climate change summit in Geneva by urging the meeting’s president to ignore whatever arguments Australia’s delegation puts forward.
This is an extraordinary break with diplomatic convention, under which domestic political disputes are left behind at international meetings.
The Democrats’ leader, Senator Kernot, and deputy leader, Senator Meg Lees, last night faxed a three-page letter to the summit president, Mr Chen Chimutengwende, asking him not to be “fooled by the Government’s slick-talking attempt to avoid its responsibilities to all other governments concerned with the impact of climate change”.
Gilchrist, G. (1996) Kernot Breaks Ranks On Climate Sydney Morning Herald, July 16 page 2
And
On July 15, 1996, at an international negotiating conference in Geneva, Patrick Michaels released an article, title “New Data Cast Doubt on Human Fingerprint,” that criticised the Nature article [of Santer et al]
Gelbspan, R. (1998) Page 22.
And
On July 15, 1996, at an international negotiating conference in Geneva, Patrick Michaels released an article, title “New Data Cast Doubt on Human Fingerprint,” that criticised the Nature article [of Santer et al]
Gelbspan, R. (1998) Page 22
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 362ppm. 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 was that after an initial bout of helpfulness/proactive behaviour (1988-1989), the Australian government had moved towards petulance on the path to obstruction under late-Hawke and Keating (Prime Ministers).
The specific context was in March 1996 Liberal John Howard had become Prime Minister. He was adamantly opposed to all climate action. The 2nd COP would be his first big test. On his lights, he ‘passed it’. For the planet? Not so much.
What I think we can learn from this is that it is not too late to get John Howard to the Hague for crimes against humanity.
What happened next – the next COP, Kyoto, would end in “success”. Many more “successes” like that followed. The carbon dioxide kept accumulating.
xxx
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).
“Last night I attended the Sydney talk of Canadian author and blogger Donna Laframboise, whose book, “The Delinquent Teenager who was mistaken for the world’s top Climate Expert” has recently been published here in Australia.” [some defunct blog]
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 was that climate denialism had been around all along. One early example in Australia was John Daly and his book “The Greenhouse Trap.” In the late 2000s, when the prospect of – gasp – a price on carbon dioxide emissions – became a live political issue – the denialists swamped the airways. Various nutjobs were invited on tour.
The specific context was the Gillard ETS scheme had come into effect, having passed through Parliament in 2011. The antis (rightly) anticipated that a Tony Abbott-led government would abolish it.
What I think we can learn from this. We are a muppet species.
What happened next. Abbott did indeed repeal the actual emissions trading portions of Gillard’s Clean Energy Package. Globally, emissions kept climbing, and atmospheric concentrations kept climbing. The Fafocene has begun.
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 five years ago, on this day, July 9th, 2001,
Paula Dobriansky and Donald “will asshole for money” Pearlman meet July 9,
“In other meetings documented in the papers, Ms Dobriansky meets Don Pearlman, an international anti-Kyoto lobbyist who has been a paid adviser to the Saudi and Kuwaiti governments, both of which have followed the US line against Kyoto.
The purpose of the meeting with Mr Pearlman, who also represents the secretive anti-Kyoto Climate Council, which the administration says “works against most US government efforts to address climate change”, is said to be to “solicit [his] views as part of our dialogue with friends and allies”.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 371ppm. 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 was the resistance to international climate action in the late 1980s/early 1990s was channelled through the so-called Global Climate Coalition (oil companies, auto companies etc) and the Climate Council, much smaller, less gaudy and probably more effective. Basically, Don Pearlman helped the Middle Eastern dictatorships scupper meaningful climate action. Right now, I hope the scumbag is rotting in hell.
The specific context was that by now the Bush Administration had pulled out of Kyoto and was probably looking for ways to be even more evil on the question of climate.
What I think we can learn from this is that evil exists. It’s often very competent, effective and well-paid.
What happened next. Pearlman died in 2005. Too late, and not painful enough, but there you are.
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).
“In the Courier-Mail on July 5 2000, another luminary from the Centre for Independent Studies, Barry Maley, argued that “Australia should heed a petition opposing the [Kyoto] treaty signed by over 17,000 American scientists.”
This sign-on internet petition includes the signatures of “Dr Jerri Halliwell” (a.k.a. Ginger Spice), and Drs Burns, Honeycutt and Pierce — from the television sit-com MASH. “ https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/climate-conference-cook-books
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 370ppm. 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 was that Australia had, in the very first days of the upsurge of international environmental policymaking (mid-1980s) been a responsible and effective ‘middle-power’. But by the early 1990s, especially on climate change, that was fading fast.
Meanwhile, in the US, various nutjobs – well-funded – mostly suffering Relevance Deprivation Syndrome – were launching ‘sand in the eyes’ tactics, like the Oregon Petition.
The specific context was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by Australia was a hot topic. It was pretty clear that under Liberal Prime Minister John Howard Australia would NOT ratify the Kyoto Protocol (even though it had extorted an incredibly generous deal) unless the USA did. But it’s always good to lay down suppressing fire.
Most climate denial bullshit was spewed out by the other right-wing ‘think’tank, the IPA. The CIS didn’t usually enter the fray, but for whatever reason they did here.
What I think we can learn from this
Well, I can say it without fear of libel or being forced to make an apology, now that Maley is finally dead (last year, aged 99). He may or may not have known what he was talking about within his field – I haven’t bothered to look – but on this he was a pathetic fucking idiot, and his willingness not to do due diligence on a stupid petition (derided even at the time) says something about his sloppiness and willingness to believe whatever he wanted to believe. “Independent” my very fat arse.
What happened next
Australia under Howard resolutely resisted Kyoto, partnering with the Bush Administration to try to launch a spoiler organisation. Eventually, under Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Australia DID ratify Kyoto. For what that was worth (a bucket of warm spit).
On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
Xx
References
xx
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).
What is there to learn from reading the Daily Mail? “Not much” I hear the more polite among you say. Other, more Anglo-Saxon, phrases are possible, and I’d agree, knowing from personal experience that the wretched tabloid just makes shit up to suit its ‘angle.’
But nonetheless, we are in a climate emergency (or worse) and so it is worth looking at two articles appearing in the June 26, 2026 edition for what they tell us about how its writers think (or “think”, if you’re being arch) and what they expect readers to swallow.
It’s especially useful to name a few tactics that are used, since these crop up elsewhere.
The two articles are
Littlejohn, R. 2026. Why the net zero nut jobs want to make us Hotter and Poorer. Daily Mail, June 26, p.19
Stevens, C. 2026. Heatwave hysteria. Daily Mail, June 26, p.17
I’ll start with a very brief history of climate change and the responses to it (“the Beforetimes”), before discussing the articles in turn. I will then point to the similarities between them, close out with some further reading and ‘what is to be done?’ I am interested in what you think,and what you think I have missed or got wrong. Let me know. If you’re a denialist though, I am not gonna respond; the Fafocene has begun and our time is shorter than you think.
The Beforetimes
In May 1953, building on the work of John Tyndall (1), Svante Arrhenius and Guy Callendar, the Canadian physicist Gilbert Plass set a cat among the pigeons by declaring that “The large increase in industrial activity during the present century is discharging so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that the average temperature is rising at the rate of 1.5 degrees per century.”
This claim went around the world (but, curiously, received scant media attention in the UK). Through the 1950s, however, other scientists (American and Swedish, primarily) joined in. By the mid-1960s carbon dioxide was one of the many potential threats being described as industrial growth surged. By the late-1970s there was a consensus among climate scientists that there was trouble ahead. In 1979 the Daily Mail was capable, at this stage, of reporting on this without losing its “mind.”
Efforts were to get Thatcher and Reagan interested in the problem. Thatcher was incredulous – “you want me to worry about the weather?”. It wasn’t until 1988 that the physical problem became a political issue. The Americans were able to force the essential idea – of targets and timetables for emissions reductions by rich countries – off the agenda for the 1992 “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.” Since then, globally emissions of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide is the main one, but not the only one) have surged, and temperatures have surged too. To quote myself
“When Plass spoke out, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide was at about 310 parts per million. Today, they’re [430] or so. Every year, as we burn more oil, coal and gas, the concentration climbs and more heat is trapped.”
Unfortunately, a well-funded and extremely determined campaign of denial, doubt, technosalvationism and (predatory) delay has been going on for decades. The Daily Mail has been a part of that. In 2013, for example you get this . People complain, but the toothless watchdogs usually say “nothing to see here.”
So, with that out the way, brace yourselves for…
The Articles
Article One – Littlejohn
For those lucky enough not to be familiar with him, first some context –
“Richard Littlejohn (born 18 January 1954) is an English author, broadcaster and opinion column writer, having started his career as a journalist. As of May 2023, he writes a twice-weekly column for the Daily Mail about British affairs.”
He is also a reliable source of spleen and invective – “Littlejohn has been criticised for insufficient fact-checking[4][5] and for alleged anti-gay bigotry.[6]”
The headline (nb not normally chosen by the writer) demonises and trivialises climate action advocates as “Net Zero nutjobs”.
Littlejohn goes in, as usual, studs and all
There is that knowing “skepticism” “we are informed officially” (pointy-headed venal experts’ and ‘comic hyperbole ‘since records began in 1066’ – a call back to the classic ‘1066 and all that’). Littlejohn wants you to remember the 1950s, even if you weren’t there.
There is the inevitable “council jobsworths’ and London Mayor “Genghis Khan” (a play on Sadiq Khan – geddit?)
After tiring himself out with being ‘fair’ by dissing the Conservatives, and showing he is above the fray by casting doubt on Reform, Litlejohn turns his attention to the Guardian.
Note, Littlejohn does NOT ascribe the view that these temperatures (“The sun has got his hat on”) are going to be normal and in all probability surpassed, to scientists at the Met Office or elsewhere. That would make his ‘argument’ awkward. So he has to (only) shoot the Messenger, those hated lefties at the Guardian.
After more jabs at the congestion charge (no mention of the radical reduction in hospital emissions), Littlejohn comes to the crux – those warning about heatwaves and worse are “climate hysterics”. We will come back to this.
There is, inevitably, the invocation of “plucky” Brits (tied up with the whole Keep Calm and Carry On thing).
“With an unfailing ability to pinpoint the details that define a story, combined with a readiness to write about his own deep personal experiences, Christopher Stevens is arguably the most wide-ranging feature writer in British newspapers.”
Stevens’ basic argument, if you want to call it that, is that there is nothing new under the sun, that the heatwave in 1957 (in the UK) is no different from what is going on now.
Before we dive into this one, what is fascinating (to me at least, but I am odd) is that 1957 was a very important year. The International Geophysical Year began and among the many many measurements being taken around the world by many scientists of many nations was… carbon dioxide. Stevens, like Littlejohn, is eerily silent on carbon dioxide.
Stevens is similarly dismissive of the danger to the poor, the sick, the elderly – the fall of the temperature record was “met with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and hailed as proof that our planet will soon be uninhabitable because of global warming.”
Stevens claims that “on that roasting Saturday there was no hysteria, [that word again], no climate scientists predicting the end of the world.” (This is wrong, insofar as the fact that climate scientists WERE already predicting that there would be serious consequences if we kept on burning fossil fuels. See, for example, these)
Stevens then writes about El Nino as a factor, withOUT mentioning the build up of CO2. He mentions a “heatdome” over Europe. Anything to avoid mentioning carbon dioxide build-up. He then pivots to more nostalgia for the 1950s – “A plummy BBC reporter, shirt collar buttoned with a smart striped tie, ventured with his camera crew into the East End to discover how families in the capital’s poorest streets were coping…”
Stevens watched this clip here, surely, but, failing to mention this totally accidentally gives the impression this is all personal reminiscence.
So, the narrative, as with Littlejohn, is of “plucky” Brits, no-nonsense, ‘keep calm and carry on time’”. Inevitably, Winston Churchill gets a cameo –
“Aged 73 he joined Queen Eizabeth for the Garter ceremony in full regalia at St George’s chapel, Windsor.”
So, you see, the two situations are entirely comparable. And then, of course –
“Now amid similar temperatures we have seen a mood of doom-mongering from Left-wingers and climate campaigners.”
Inevitably, the Guardian is derided, and El Nino is invoked as a “natural phenomenon”.
The word natural here is interesting and telling.. Cobra venom is natural. Bubonic plague is natural. Stevens is, however, using natural in the sense of ‘benevolent and/or inevitable’.
Grasping at straws Stevens invokes some experts who he can quotemine to agree with his thesis. Without pointing out the decades of warnings by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , Stevens says “In other words, El Nino is always unpredictable, often disruptive and now is as good a time to panic as any.”
To fill out space, and hammer home the 1950s point, Stevens again returns to the 1950s (when, as he well knows, many of his readers were young and carefree) “Or we could fall back on the amiable, understated attitudes of our forebears in 1957. They just rolled up their trouser-legs and had an ice-cream. But such insouciance is frowned on now.”
So what do we learn?
In both cases, there is a resolute silence on the fact of carbon dioxide build-up. Neither can bring themselves to mention the basic facts that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that levels of it in the atmosphere have risen very sharply. Stevens is a little more sophisticated (it’s a low bar), and focuses on the El Nino as a way of NOT talking about carbon dioxide.
Both invoke weak-willed people, coddled for too long by an incompetent and intrusive Nanny State – the same old playbook.
Both, to no feminist’s surprise, reach for the adjective ‘hysterical’ to nail home their point.
In both there is an invocation of “plucky” British resilience and a harkening back to a simpler, bucolic past.
In both there is a focus on the messengers – specifically the Guardian – rather than the sources of the message themselves – various scientific bodies (IPCC, Met Office, Royal Society etc), because this would complicate/undermine the ‘nothing to see here’ message.
For both, there is an insistence that we must focus on individual solutions (put aircon in your house, with or without planning permission) and don’t think about (because otherwise you might have to worry about) collective solutions and the problems of equity. (Life doesn’t HAVE to be a shit sandwich, you know.)
What is to be done?
We need a typology of Daily Mail style tactics. These include (but are not limited to) –
Nanny States
Corrupt (grant-hungry) Scientists
Control-freak lefties (and local government bureaucrats)
Hysterical men/women who hate progress
British pluck and resolve
The 1950s!
If at all possible, avoiding mentioning the basic physical facts of carbon dioxide build-up. Under no circumstances show a Keeling Curve more than, say, once a year (see this, June 6 2025 and this May 9, 2022)
Maybe a typology already exists and I am wasting my time? If so, please point me to it.
We need not only a typology, but also bingo cards, cartoons, and little videos that show how these propaganda tactics are deployed, why and when they are effective and how they can be combatted.
Most of all though, we need functioning social movement organisations that don’t go up like a rocket and come tumbling down like a stick.
That last one is something most advocates of climate action don’t even address. Their implicit theory of change seems to be that if we just name and shame the oil companies enough, and deride the ‘doomers’ as ignorant or unwitting dupes of said oil companies, then somehow the new Jerusalem (hopefully with lots of shade trees) will be builded here.
(June 23, 2026) “Why the heatwave hysteria won’t change how I run my school” in the Spectator
I haven’t read these but they look good
Clarke, I. (2024). The discourses of climate change denialism across conspiracy and pseudoscience websites. In The Routledge handbook of discourse and disinformation. Taylor & Francis.
Forchtner, B., & Özvatan, Ö. (2022). De/legitimising EUrope through the performance of crises: The far-right Alternative for Germany on “climate hysteria” and “corona hysteria”. Journal of Language and Politics, 21(2), 208-232.
See also the way that the denialists figured out how to use journalistic norms of ‘balance’ to force journalists to keep saying there was a ‘debate’ on the science.
Maxwell T Boykoff, Jules M Boykoff, 2004. Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press, Global Environmental Change, Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages 125-136,
Did John Tyndall rip off the work of Eunice Foote? Possibly, but there’s no smoking gun or any other whispers besides chronology, at least as far as I have seen.
“Carbon Sense Coalition is a voluntary group of people concerned about the extent to which carbon is wrongly vilified in Western societies, particularly in government, the media, and in business circles. We aim to restore balance and reason to the carbon debate, and to explain and defend the key role of carbon in production of most of our energy for heat, light, and transportation, and all of our food.”
June 17th, 2007
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 384ppm. 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 from the late 1980s in Australia and elsewhere, and the United States especially, there was an active – what’s the word phrase I’m looking for,? – fucking stupid climate denial movement, or bunch of individuals occasionally coalescing as a “movement” in the Australian context that would be people like John Daly with his demented book the Greenhouse Trap. Daly died in 2004 and also outfits like the so called Lavoisier group.
The specific context was that the carbon dioxide build up issue had been actively suppressed by John Howard as Prime Minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007.
But this had become impossible for Howard to do in late 2006; the issue just burst onto the scene again thanks to the endless, or seemingly endless, Millennium drought, Al Gore and his film An Inconvenient Truth, ratification of Kyoto Protocol, leading to new UN negotiations, social movement activism like Climate Camp in the United Kingdom and so forth. Then you had new Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, having toppled Kim Beasley, using the climate issue as a stick to beat John Howard with, especially over ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which Australia had famously not done.
Therefore it was clear that the climate issue would be live for another year or two, at least (in the end, it was until 2011).
What I think we can learn is this: So here you have a bunch of intellectual inadequates giving themselves the title ‘carbon sense’, which is, of course, a play on common sense. And this invocation of common sense tells you a lot in the same way that it was common sense, that the world was flat, that women shouldn’t vote, that black people should be slaves, that blood letting made you stronger, etc, etc, that kind of common sense.
What happened next: I am sure they are still around. Gaia help us all.
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).
I was conscious that I could not abuse the privilege by speaking for more than say five minutes — and that a dense, technical speech might challenge the interpreter, excellent though she clearly was.
So I expressed my regret that in the available time I could not develop the arguments or the detail — I could do no more than state my position (but I offered to send my “Cool Thinking” book to anyone interested — and had several requests for it afterwards). I said that a large and increasing number of highly qualified scientists were challenging the orthodox view. I pointed out that by general agreement mean global temperatures in the last hundred years had risen less than one degree C — a very modest and normal sort of change. I said that many people thought that the small changes we had seen were entirely consistent with well-established, long-term, natural climate cycles. I briefly mentioned the Roman Optimum/Dark Ages/Mediaeval Warm Period cycle, and said that we appeared to be moving towards a new 21st century climate optimum.
I said there were sound scientific reasons to believe that CO2 was not a major factor in climate change — though sadly I had no time to develop that point.
Ukipper MEP tells Taiwanese parliament CC is doubted… Comedy gold!! http://rogerhelmermep.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/i-address-the-taiwanese-parliament-on-climate-change/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 392ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that there has always been a “head banger” wing to right wing thought. unconvinced by hippie greeny hoax bollocks like, oh, I don’t know, 19th century physics. And you can use words like anti-reflexivity, but ultimately it comes down to willful stupidity and selfishness, which is quickly followed by unwillingness to admit that they’ve been wrong for a long time, so they paint themselves into more and more corners.
The specific context was that UKIP was exemplary of this.
What I think we can learn from this is that stupid is going to stupid, and there’s no cure for stupid.
What happened next. UKIP, I’m told, is still around, but the energy has moved to Reform, but that is in danger of splintering as well (Restore, Advance 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.
Nineteen years ago, on this day, May 15th, 2007, a stupid politician is stupid,
A SENIOR Federal Government minister has expressed serious doubts global warming has been caused by humans, relying on non-scientific material and discredited sources to back his claim.
One month after a United Nations scientific panel delivered its strongest warning yet that humans were causing global warming, the Finance Minister, Nick Minchin, has questioned the link between fossil fuels and greenhouse gas pollution.
In a letter he wrote on March 5 to Clean Up Australia’s founder, Ian Kiernan, Senator Minchin took issue with Mr Kiernan’s criticism of the minister’s scepticism.
Frew, W. 2007. Minchin denies climate change man-made. Sydney Morning Herald, March 15.
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 there’s a kind of Australian politician who takes delight in what we now call “owning the libs” and being a hate figure. They believe that they are somehow heroic Galileos, defending Western civilization or some such. Nick Minchin is one of those, and in 2000 he led the successful campaign to defeat an emissions trading scheme in John Howard’s second cabinet.
The specific context was that the climate issue had burst back into public prominence in September, October, 2006 for a variety of reasons, including the Millennium drought, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, a fracturing business consensus about Kyoto ratification and the ongoing IPCC process, all of which were taken and being taken advantage of by Labor, the opposition party. In December 2006 Kevin Rudd had become Labor leader, toppling Kim Beasley, and had used climate change as one of his two sticks to beat John Howard with. So here we see the Liberals feeling cornered and flustered, but you can always rely on someone like Nick Minchin to say the stupidest thing possible.
What I think we can learn from this. Some people are just well, they’re who they are.
What happened next. The climate wars continued unabated. The most vicious period was maybe 2011 because we had a female prime minister who was “intentionally barren” trying to do the smallest, most inadequate thing to put a price on carbon dioxide. And those climate wars bubble under today, and you have the problem being that there is no competitive consensus, and that you have a Labor party that has basically given up on everything except being in power.
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 11th, 2001, the Bush administration does what assholes always do…
“In a letter of 11 May 2001 The White House asked the US NAS for assistance in identifying the areas in the science on climate change where there are greatest certainties and uncertainties. The NAS was also asked for its views on whether there are any substantive differences between the IPCC reports and the IPCC summaries. An answer to the request was expected in early June, i.e., within less than a month. The NAS quickly appointed a special committee under the chairmanship of Dr Ralph Cicerone, chancellor of the University of California, Irving, CA, and a well-known researcher in atmospheric chemistry (and president of the NAS since 2005). Its report was ready in June…”
(Bolin, 2007) Page 179
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2026 it is 430ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that scientists had been offering detailed warnings about carbon dioxide build up as a threat that must be responded to immediately since, well, really, let’s say 1979 the Charney report. And politicians had been nodding and then doing nothing.
The specific context was that George W. Bush, the son of HW, had on the campaign trail in 2000 said that CO2 would need to be regulated. In March of 2001, shortly after his inauguration, and after the Supreme Court had handed him the 2000 presidential election. Bush had pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations.
So Bush needed to do – or to be seen to do – something on climate change. And here he reverted to the classic tactic of calling “for further research” as a delaying tactic. So it’s not denial which will rile liberals, but it is that sort of soft “ah, we need further research. (We are responsible. We’re not rushing into anything, even though the time for that action has long passed.) It is still, if not catnip, then acceptable as a talking point for lots of centrist pundits who can then talk about sober statesmanship and who should be on the panel and what its terms of reference should be, and all the rest of it. Meanwhile, the planet burns.
What I think we can learn from this. The old tactics keep working. Because civil society never learns, never pushes.
What happened next. The National Academies of Science came back with the same report that they’d been coming back with since 1989 when Bush’s dad had been a new president. And they had said, it’s real and we really ought to do something about it, and nothing was done.
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 more organised opposition to the IPCC’s conclusions began in the USA on Earth Day (22 April 1996), with a message distributed widely, including to every member of the US Congress, and with the first issue of the State of the Climate Report attached in which the IPCC conclusions were challenged. However, just as this report was about to be published, the Union of Concerned Scientists denounced it in a press release, based on earlier contributions to the media debate about global warming by the man in charge, Patrick Michaels: “The forthcoming climate change report sponsored by Western Fuels Association is like a lung cancer study funded by the tobacco industry.”
(Bolin, 2007) Page 128
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 362ppm. As of 2026 it is 428ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The broader context was that the denialists had won major battles in 1989 to 1992 by convincing George Bush to play hardball and to threaten to boycott the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change the Rio treaty, if targets and timetables were included in the treaty text.
Then denialists had also defeated Bill Clinton’s BTU tax in 1993.
The denialists were also gearing up for a battle royale over the upcoming Kyoto conference, and here we see them sending a message on Earth Day to all congresspeople as part of the day-to-day routine of blitzing politicians with talking points, which will be picked up and used by friends and allies and will be a reminder to those who were not their friends and allies that they the bad guys still exist and can make trouble.
The specific context was that the Kyoto battles were just beginning…
What I think we can learn from this is that evil never sleeps, never takes a step back unless forced to.
What happened next: Evil has kept on winning. Oh well.
