Fifty eight years ago, on this day, March 8th, 1966, American thinker Kenneth Boulding was talking about the importance of how we think about our position in the universe. Hint – we are on a fragile spaceship.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 321ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that we just put people in space, everyone was thinking about space and spaceships and astronauts and spacewalks. And that sense of fragility was growing.
What I think we can learn from this is that Kenneth Boulding was a smart guy. So did other smart people, Bucky Fuller, Lewis Mumford. Barbara Ward, you name it. But our smarts didn’t save us (and our luck always runs out).
What happened next: Three years later, everyone’s got EarthRise posters. Everyone’s talking about her fragile planet. All of that kind of went away in 1972-73, at least publicly. Presumably, there’s a whole lot of people who still believe that but feel powerless and isolated to do anything meaningful about it (that Spiral of Silence). Fortunately, we learned our lessons and from 1989 We’ve been busy saving the world ever since [sarcasm].
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, October 30, 2008, the top Union body (ACTU) and Australian Conservation Foundation co-launched a report about a putative “Green Gold Rush” of jobs, an argument they’d also been making in the early 1990s.
It was good old-fashioned ecological modernisation and green Keynesianism
AND
On the same day, the Treasury released modelling that had been commissioned to support the wretched “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Treasury modelling establishes that there are benefits to Australia acting early if other countries also adopt carbon pricing but that delaying action may lead to higher long-term costs (source).
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 385.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
In Australia everyone was talking about the climate, ahead of the long awaited launch of the CPRS White Paper in December.
Eco-modernist green jobs rhetoric was attempting to square the political circle, and at least reds and greens were talking to each other again (it had been rocky).
There was of course a history of this – see “Green Jobs Unit.”
What I think we can learn from this
We do like our stories of harmony and win-win. They soothe us.
What happened next
The White Paper was shonky af (see Ross Garnaut’s op-ed ‘Oiling the Squeaks’). Rudd’s legislation attempts the following year were farcical giveaways. And then it fell apart…
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, July 31, 2008 the “Strategic Review of Australian Government Climate Change Programs” was released:
“The Wilkins Review analyzes current climate change programs to determine whether they are complementary to the CPRS”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 386ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that the Rudd Government had set up the Wilkins Review to “house clean” and to get rid of all the other climate support schemes which were not market-based. And in exchange, we would get an economy-wide carbon price which would by magic, fix all the problems because that’s what these people genuinely believed.
What I think we can learn from this is that there are lots of people who are very smart with all of the right qualifications, who also have no idea how the world really works.
What happened next is Rudd’s wonderful Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme died. Twice. He bottled calling an election in early 2010, Julia Gillard had to clean up his mess and Australia’s emissions are high.
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.
“Illustrative also would be the covering of much land by water should continuing population growth so step up man’s production of carbon dioxide that the oceans failed to absorb all of it, with the result that the carbon dioxide content, and hence the temperature, of the atmosphere rose sufficiently to melt the polar ice caps.”
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 319 check ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that by the late 1950s carbon dioxide build-ups existence and possible long term consequences was not confined to a tiny tiny minority. Anyone who read a newspaper, could understand exponential growth and 19th century could see that there might be some writing on the wall…
What I think we can learn from this
We knew enough to think about worrying.
What happened next?
No economist bothered to think about the problem until Nordhaus in the 1970s.
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.
Senator David Boren comes out against BTU tax, after Burson Marstellar astroturf campaign (see Agrawala and Andressen, 1999: 470)
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly xxxppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
There had been enormous – and ultimately successful – local lobbying efforts. Boren had been picked off, in a kind of Serengeti strategy thing, but in the political sphere rather than the scientific. And this really spells the end for Clinton’s BTU.
What I think we can learn from this is that the opponents of climate action, smart, determined, strategic and well funded. These characteristics do not necessarily apply to the proponents of action, unfortunately.
What happened next
Clinton had to kill the BTU energy tax. And that was basically it for Clinton and domestic climate action (imo). It also meant that the opponents of action really had good proof of concept, and presumably, the Australians were looking at this and saying, “that’s how it’s 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.
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
Thirty years ago, on this day, April 12, 1993, “environmental economics” returned as one of those “win-win” myths we like to believe, in the pages of the Canberra Times.
Environmental issues hardly rated a mention during the recent election campaign. This should not be taken to suggest there is no interest in such issues, just that economics appears to have been the dominant issue of the day.
Nor should it be taken as suggesting that economics and the environment are separate and distinct issues; they are not. The interaction of economics and the environment is taking on increasing importance, with one indicator being the rethinking that is going on about the way environmental regulations are being administered, including greater thought being given to the use of market-based approaches to environmental regulation.
One of the most prominent of the market-based approaches involves the use of tradeable emission permits, in effect using market mechanisms to encourage business to reduce its pollution output.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
The green ‘surge’ of 1988 to 1991 or so was a distant memory. But people like Brent Davis, director of trade and policy research with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, were still thinking about how the circle could be squared.
“Ecological modernisation” was not yet an academic buzzword, but it was coming….
What I think we can learn from this
We have various fairy stories of how “we” can keep having everything we want without consequences (a form of cakeism). These are very seductive and contagious stories
What happened next
A second attempt at a carbon tax was defeated in early 1995. Thereafter attention switched to tradeable emissions quotas and emissions trading schemes etc etc. Which really achieved a lot, oh yes.
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 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”
On this day, December 4 in 1989, the first anti-climate action “economics modelling” in Australia came out, and was reported by the business press. Oddly, they neglected to mention that the funding for this “research” came from… a company that was digging up and selling coal. Can only have been space constraints that stopped them mentioning it, oh yes….
Australia will have to suffer the consequences of reduced economic growth to achieve the proposed international goal of a 20 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over 15 years, according to a group of leading economists.
A paper to be presented to a conference entitled Greenhouse and Energy, which starts at Macquarie University in Sydney today, states that, among other effects, the fight against the greenhouse effect will result in increased electricity bills and reduced increases in real wages.
Lawson, M. 1989. Fighting Greenhouse has an economic cost. Australian Financial Review, 4 December.
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 353ppm. At time of writing it was 419ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Everyone was talking about emissions cuts and how much (earlier in the year the Thatcher government had shat all over the Toronto Target (see here).
Why this matters.
The “models” do not “reflect” reality. They are just made up bullshit.
John Kenneth Galbraith said it best – “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
What happened next?
Those who want to stop climate action – because it would cut their profits and/or power, because it offends them, will always find some shonky “modellers” to give them the answers they want. Then equally shonky “journalists” will uncritically run the crap on page 1, and it will get picked up by shonky politicians… and presto, “common sense” is created.
On this day, November 26, 1996 an Australian politician ripped into the “official” modelling on which Australian governments (BOTH LABOR AND LIBERAL) had relied to say “oh, no, can’t do anything that might reduce the acceleration of our coal mining and coal exporting, or else the sky will fall.”
Leader of the Democrats, Senator Cheryl Kernot stated in the Senate:
“Let us not forget who ABARE is. It is the ideological cousin of the Industry Commission and it never misses an opportunity to slip the boot into environmental or social causes, churning out statistics from its largely discredited macro-economic modelling, showing how much better off we would all be if only we mined more coal, produced more electricity and puffed more carbon dioxide every day. I am willing to bet that if ABARE existed 150 years ago, it would have produced a whopping great spreadsheet proving that the economy could not afford to ban child labour in the coal mines”
(Senate Hansard 26.11.96 p 6014).
On ABARE, see also “High and Dry” by Guy Pearse and “Scorcher” by Clive Hamilton.
On economic forecasting – I recently learnt the brilliant John Kenneth Galbraith quote – ““The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable,”
[The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 362ppm. At time of writing it was 417ishppm- but for what it is now,well, see here for the latest.]
The context was this –
Australian governments were looking for excuses to do nothing to slow down the acceleration of Australian coal exports. ABARE helped to provide those excuses.
Why this matters.
The way economic modelling is used to justify all sorts of horror (usually the continued enrichment of the already filthy rich, and/or the galloping desolation of our being-murdered planet), is a) by now very obvious and b) never-ending, despite a).
What happened next?
ABARE and its “MEGABARE” nonsense was thoroughly exposed and discredited(see here). Which did nothing to stop the Howard Government from continuing to use it.
