On this day, August 12, in 1990 a crackpot documentary was broadcast on Channel 4. The “Greenhouse Conspiracy” criticised the theory of global warming and asserted that scientists critical of global warming theory were denied funding. Lindzen, Pat Michaels, Roy Spencer, Sherwood Idso etc the usual suspects. Directed produced and presented by Hilary Lawson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Lawson
And, of course, he got to write a 3000 word piece in the Sunday Times (the Murdoch press already spewing shite about climate change, something they have – mostly – kept doing over the last 30 years).
I wonder if Lawson admits he got that one a bit wrong?
On this day the atmospheric C02 was 353 ppm. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
To be totally fair, at this stage, such a documentary MIGHT have been makeable in good faith. Maybe. Hmmm. The denial has kept on keeping on.
What happened next?
Oh, the smear merchants kept at it, and still keep at it. “The Great Global Warming Swindle” in 2007 was probably the last time they were effective, in documentaries, but the theft and misrepresentation of emails from UEA in late 2009 (so-called Climategate) was also pretty potent.
The ABC, to its credit, did not bow to the IPA sorts who campaigned for it to be shown. It ended up being screened on SBS…
On this day, August 5 1997 Australian Democrat Senator Kernot called for the Federal Government to
“suspend use of the dubious ABARE greenhouse models until the completion of a full Ombudsman’s investigation.”
(Duncan, 1997:75)
The context is this – the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics had spent the previous seven years producing dubious “reports” based on a ludicrous economic model called MEGABARE which always magically proved that any attempt to tax carbon dioxide/coal would be cataclysmic.
The development of the MEGABARE “model” was paid for by oil, gas and coal companies. Of course it was. [See August 7th post on this site…]
And the Minister would trot these numbers out, it would get reported by journalists and become received wisdom.
AND THIS HAPPENED UNDER KEATING BEFORE IT HAPPENED UNDER HOWARD.
Sorry for shouting, but the catastrophe that has been Australian climate and energy policy has been bipartisan. Labor has a faction that doesn’t want to cook the planet, that’s all.
On this day the PPM was 362.4. Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
Ah, official reports, with their big sounding numbers. Gramsci. Hegemony. Weaponised Common Sense. Et cetera. Et Cetera.
What happened next?
The Ombudsman’s report (forced to happen by Australian Conservation Foundation action) came out in January 1998. You can read it here.
.ABARE’s numbers kept getting used by the Howard government. Too useful not to.
There’s great stuff about this in Clive Hamilton’s two books – “Running from the Storm” and “Scorcher” and also in Guy Pearse’s “High and Dry.”
On this day, July 28 1990, journalist John Gribbin (author of several books about climate change published in the 1970s and 1980s) had a nice snippet to help us build the picture of the international efforts to scupper climate action, back in the crucial 1988 to 1992 period.;
“last month, when members of the George C. Marshall Institute, a privately funded think tank based in Washington DC, were flown in to present their maverick views on climate change, it came as no surprise to find that the room at the Hyde Park Hotel in which they gave their talks… had actually been booked by British Coal’ (John Gribbin, Why caution is wrong on global warming’.
New Scientist, 127, 28 July 1990, p. 18)
The “George C. Marshall Institute” had been set up in 1984 to slow down environmental regulation (slippery slope to Pol Pot and Stalin, don’t you know) for a while. They became an early and important node of organised climate resistance. They were – and this is gonna shock you – funded by fossil fuel companies.
The transatlantic links have not weakened. They have, in fact, strengthened.
What happened next?
The UK accelerated the decline off its coal industry, and imported lots of natural gas. This made it seem like they were making progress on emissions reductions. So that’s nice.
On this day, July 16, 1992, an American scientist was invited to pour scorn on the carbon dioxide theory of climate change….
CANBERRA, July 16, Reuter – An American scientist said on Thursday that there was no firm evidence of global warming or that the phenomenon was caused by humans.
Fear of global warming was being manipulated by politicians, Professor Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Australia’s National Press Club.
Reuters, 1992. US expert attacks global warming theories. Reuters News, 16 July.
Lindzen had been brought out by Brian Tucker, then the head of the CSIRO Atmospheric Research Division. Tucker had written a decent monograph for popular consumption about the “Carbon Dioxide Problem” in 1981, but was by this time jumping the shark, and after he retired would pen unhinged denialist tracts for the IPA (a particularly obnoxious Australian “think” tank).
Lindzen was not the only figure brought out in this period, by the way – the IPA and Tasman Institute were also importing “credible” Americans, in their battle against a carbon tax, and any environmental regulation.
Why this matters.
It’s that Toni Morrison line about racism as distraction, isn’t it?
What happened next?
Tucker jumped the shark. Australia didn’t get a carbon price until 2012, and then only very briefly (Thanks Tony, I bet you’re proud). Lindzen is still around, so libel laws constrain me… Here are some “third party characterisations” via Wikipedia –
“On July 12 ABC TV in Australia aired “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. This followed saturation promotion in days leading up to the broadcast, including items in various current affairs and news programs. They followed the broadcast with an interview with the film maker, and then a panel discussion of “experts”. It was one of their highest-rating programs for the year, but altogether it was an uninspiring two hours of television.” [source]
(There’s a nice account of David Karoly versus Ray Evans in Mark Davis’ Land of Plenty page 190)
In 1990 there had been a similar imported schlockumentary, called “The Greenhouse Conspiracy.” – we will come back to that later. The ABC had not shown it, despite the IPA’s best efforts. Instead it ended up on SBS.
Why this matters.
Pseudo controversy like this helps slow debate. That’s the point of it. There’s even a recent (April 2022) academic article that shows this effect –
The Swindle served its purpose – creating demoralisation, confusion and, well “fear uncertainty and doubt.” Bravo! Pity about the planet and all its creatures, but hey, what can you do?
On this day in 2000, the beserk but effective “Lavoisier Group” of Australian climate denialists schmoozed senior politicians (former Treasurer Peter Walsh, an ALP thumper, probably set this up).
The Lavoisier Group (named for a French chemist, because these groups are always – somewhat pathetically – trying to bolster their cred and signal their, ah, “erudition”) had been formed as a radical flank effort to try to stiffen John Howard’s resolve in keeping Australia from ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. (Australia had, by various means, gotten a sweet sweet deal of an emissions “reduction” target of [checks notes] … a 10% INCREASE in emissions – see Clive Hamilton on this.]
“Last year, the Lavoisier Group held meetings around the country, including a June 27 dinner for a select group of federal parliamentarians in the House of Representatives’ dining room.”
Small groups of determined and well-connected people who are going to help other people stay rich can be surprisingly effective in blocking things. Who knew.
What happened next?
Lavoisier kept on being effective for as long as Howard was PM (though things got trickier for them by 2006 or so). They were an important building block for the climate denial “movement” that flourished from 2009 or so through to 2013 or so. They are still, bless them, publishing their idiocies.
On this day in 1997, the cuddly-sounding but actually simply evil “Global Climate Coalition” ran the following newspaper advert, as part of the huge, well-funded and well-coordinated campaign to … (checks notes)… render human civilisation quite unlikely in the second half of the 21st century.
Exactly 12 years later, on June 19, 2009 there was a “Mothers Day of Action” in the US, as part of a push for a climate and energy act.
“On Friday, June 19th, 1Sky and groups like MoveOn, Green for All, Oxfam and others are calling for a national day of action to make the climate bill stronger. It’s a day for you to “get visible” in your community. Please invite your family, friends and neighbors to rally at your representative’s district office and make your voice heard loud and clear.
Your voice lets your representative know that there are concerned citizens — like you — who want a stronger bill to create millions of clean energy jobs and begin to tackle climate change. So now it’s time to get louder!…..
Why June 19th? Right now, several committees are working on this bill, and we expect a House floor vote by the end of June. This is the critical moment we’ve been working for in the House, so it’s time to make ourselves visible!
Why this matters.
We need to remember that the language of motherhood has been used a lot (I think it is a two-edged sword, tbh) – that this did not suddenly emerge in about 2018. Corporations and threatened industries can cloak themselves with the mantle of the underdog, of innocence, and go all DARVO too…
What happened next?
GCC shut up shop in 2002, “mission accomplished”.
MAU shut up shop in 2011 – mission not really accomplished. So it goes.
On this day, 15 June 1994 the Canberra Times publishes a frankly embarrassing piece by IPA operative Andrew McIntyre in “No proof of global warming” (Canberra Times, June 15, p.17).
A rebuttal by Greenpeace was published on 20th and tireless climate scientist Neville Nicholls had two letters published on 26th and 29th.
But the time taken to rebut nonsense is time you don’t spend advancing a positive agenda. As the great thinker Toni Morrison said of racism, part of its power is in distraction and exhaustion…
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
Why this matters The denial and delay and stupidity rolls on and on and on.
What happened next?
McIntyre had another one – ahead of carbon tax decision, 30 November 1994
The Canberra Times has been much better than this, both before and since. Solid newspaper.
On this day, 25 years ago, (June 8th 1997) US business interests went very public in their ongoing campaign against both domestic legislation but also international agreements on climate change.
The background, quickly – by 1989 US business interests were pushing back hard against (some) politicians concern about “the greenhouse effect.” They created a front group, with the typically misleading name “The Global Climate Coalition” to slow down (or ideally, from their perspective, stop) moves towards putting a price on carbon dioxide, encouraging renewables etc. They rendered the UNFCCC largely toothless, and they’d killed off President Clinton’s proposed BTU tax. But by 1997, pressure was growing. A big international meeting was to be held in December 1997, in Kyoto, at which rich countries were supposed to come up with plans not merely to stabilise emissions, but actually reduce them.
On 8 June 1997, the Business Roundtable sponsored full-page advertisements in the US press signed by 130 CEOs, arguing against mandatory emissions limitations at the forthcoming Kyoto conference. Eighty Business Roundtable members did not endorse the advertisements, however. Monsanto had led an unsuccessful effort to draft an alternative text, which acknowledged that sufficient scientific evidence had accumulated to warrant concern and industry’s engagement in developing precautionary measures. This dissenting view was brought to President Clinton’s attention at the June 1997 meeting of the President’s Council of Advisers for Science and Technology (PCAST). According to Jon Holdren, Harvard scientist and chair of the PCAST panel on energy, the President’s awareness of the minority industry faction had significant political ramifications: ‘We actually did get the President off the dime at that meeting. He mobilized an interagency task force, and started a process which eventually converged on a set of policy recommendations for Kyoto.’
Splits within the business front (you go, Monsanto, you cuddly treehuggers you!) meant that President Clinton had a little more wiggle room. For what THAT was worth. It’s worth pondering that, by the way – this often happens – different businesses/sectors, with different interests and vulnerabilities, perceive the best course of action differently. Trade associations/business groupings are often sites for those conflicts.
What happened next?
We shall come back to the Byrd-Hagel resolution soon… Kyoto got agreed, and signed. The US and Australia pulled out before ratifying. It became international law because the Russians wanted into the WTO. It was toothless, and not replaced at Copenhagen. Then in Paris… oh, blah blah blah. The. Emissions. Have. Kept. Climbing.
On this day, May 25, 2011 noted climate scientist and deep thinker Alan Jones [that is irony – the man is a particularly shocking “shock jock”] tried to undermine a climate scientist on his radio show.
The context was that the minority Labor government of Julia Gillard was trying to get a carbon price (“a carbon tax” according to its opponents) through Parliament. There was an extremely virulent agitation against this.
Jones had David Karoly, Professor of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne and a contributor to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on his show.
Jones: Are you being paid for being on the Government’s Climate Commission Science Advisory Panel?…
Karoly: No, my salary is not being paid by that.
Jones: Are you in any, and in receipt of any, benefits or funds or anything at all from the…
Karoly: I am receiving a travel allowance to cover the costs of going to meetings of the Science Advisory Panel and I am receiving a small retainer which is substantially less than your daily salary.
Jones: So you’re paid by the Government and then you give an opinion on the science of climate change. Have you ever heard about he who pays the piper calls the tune?’ (Cited in Barry 2011b) (Ward, 2015: 235)
Why this matters.
This is a classic technique, to say that if someone gets any money at all from Them, then they and their work can be dismissed without any discussion of its merits, shortcomings, implications.
It’s a lazy (but necessary for the thick) shortcut to “winning.”
What happened next?
The Gillard legislation got up, and was then repealed by the next Prime Minister, Tony “Wrecking Ball” Abbott.
Gillard lost a leadership challenge in 2013, was replaced by Kevin Rudd.
Jones finished as a radio presenter in 2020. His Sky News Australia contract was not renewed.
